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From: wbpesch@ihuxp.UUCP (Walt Pesch)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Here's another book that needs identification:
Message-ID: <1041@ihuxp.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Feb-85 16:46:32 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxp.1041
Posted: Sun Feb 17 16:46:32 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Feb-85 07:57:10 EST
References: <578@topaz.ARPA> <776@ukma.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 42

> This book starts out about a professor whose wife has left him. He gets
> depressed one night, and tries to commit suicide. He's saved by his hat.
> His wife is a nurse, I think. 
> 
> Anyway, his sister comes to visit him (she's had a falling-out with her boss),
> and ends up living with him for a while. Then she gets kidnapped. The prof just
> about bankrupts himself trying to track her down, and finally pinpoints her
> location. Then he gets caught by the same guy who kidnapped her.
> 
> At this point, the story shift to another person. This guy officially doesn't
> exist -- he doesn't have the equivalent of a SS number. He's a burglar by 
> profession (and a good one, too). Then he breaks into this apartment, and 
> discovers that the tenant (a woman about 24-26) is trying to commit suicide.
> 
> [Note: This society has something very similar to the "tasp" from Ringworld,
> except that anyone can buy one. They call it "wire-heading" in this book]
> 
> The woman had plugged herself into the wire, and was starving herself to 
> death. The guy unplugs her, and saves her life (she breaks his nose in the
> process). He performs a little rough psychology on her, and gets her unaddicted
> to wire-heading. Then she decides that she wants to "get back" at the 
> companies that make the wires. She wants him to help her, and he declines.
> His reasoning is that a man who doesn't officially exist would be worth a lot
> of money to those companies. He could do dirty work for them, and no one would
> every know. Or words to that effect. 
> 
> To make a long story short, he discovers a good bit of his past, and yes, he's
> the professor. Then he goes on a rampage to rescue his sister. End of story.
> I don't remember anything about how he did (or didn't) succeed.


Yes, I know this one well.  It is Mindkiller, by Spider Robinson (also
of Stardance and Calahan's Crosstime Saloon).  DEFINATELY one of my
top ten favorite books (I can't decide past that point) and highly
recommended, as is anything that he has done.  And he also gives a
history of "wireheading" in the Author's Preface.


-- 
Walt Pesch
AT&T Technologies
ihnp4!ihuxp!wbpesch