James Nicoll Reviews

1986’s Hardwired is the first volume in Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired cyberpunk series. To my surprise, the title is not camel-capped.

Having decisively won the Rock War, the Orbitals provided the defeated Earth with a bold New World Order. Key axiom: that the Orbitals should extract as much short-term wealth from Earth as possible.

This state of affairs provided Cowboy and Sarah with very different careers, careers fated to intersect.

The state governments in the balkanized remnants of the United States¹ saw the profit potential of tariffing goods traversing their territory. This in turn created an opportunity for bold entrepreneurs like Cowboy, shuttling goods across state lines without the bother of paying those onerous tariffs.

Sarah is a gun for hire, performing useful errands that sometimes require violence. Before she was a gun for hire, Sarah was a prostitute. This combination of skills earns her a job offer from the mysterious Cunningham: seduce and murder an orbital courier, before stealing the package the courier was delivering.

Having accomplished her task successfully, Sarah’s reward is a shaped charge through her dwelling wall. Sarah is largely unscathed, but her drug-addicted brother Daud is badly injured. Daud will require extensive, expensive reconstruction. Difficult to arrange when there’s a contract on Sarah’s head.

Cowboy meanwhile has suffered his own betrayal. Cowboy’s path crosses Sarah’s. Not only do they have betrayal in common, but the same corporation is persecuting Cowboy and Sarah: Temple Pharmaceuticals. Temple’s resources are vast. Cowboy and Sarah’s resources are miniscule. Therefore, the only logical course of action is for the pair to take down Temple Pharmaceuticals.

~oOo~

Credit to Alex Blechman’s viral tweet for the review title.

As the introduction explains, this novel was inspired (in part) by Dutch butter-smugglers², whose efforts to avoid import duties involved souped-up, armoured cars. I believe that WJW’s version of cyberpunk was an independent development, another example of authors converging on similar visions for possible futures.

So, not my favourite WJW. While the ending is a bit abrupt, that’s not my issue. As you will see, there is a lot to… well, like isn’t the correct word. This is not a future that one likes. Appreciate would be better. It’s just that I was never much of a cyberpunk fan, so this is a case of the wrong reviewer for the book in hand.

A detail I’d completely forgotten: very early in the novel, Cowboy reminisces about how Texans wrecked New Mexico by illicitly diverting water in pursuit of short-term profit, then draws a direct comparison with the Orbitals, who are: 

just another kind of Texan — someone who wants to rape away the things that keep you alive, replacing nothing, leaving only desert.

That may not be the most negative view of Texas I’ve read, but it is definitely a contender.

I’ve used the cover of the first edition of Hardwired that I own, my nearly pristine Tor mass-market paperback. I do own later editions, including the 30^th Anniversary edition.

As the author points out in the foreword to this later edition:

The things the reader was supposed to find shocking, back when I wrote the book in 1983/84, are now so commonplace as to be part of the background hum. Unending multiplatform assaults encouraging people to heedless consumerism? Check. Drugs widely advertised, including TV? Check. Governments in thrall to multinational corporations? Check. Balkanization of the former Soviet bloc? Check. Worldwide climate change? Check. Rising ocean levels? Check. Widening gap between rich and poor? Check. Entire populations slavishly devoted to celebrity and fashion? Check. Vast unregulated manipulation of securities market by unscrupulous insiders? Check. State-controlled military being replaced by mercenary forces? Check. Pharmaceutical companies making vast fortunes off human misery? Check.

And as I write this in 2020, I find another element of the book has worked its way into the present. Unstoppable pandemic? Check. 

There is one element in the book that did not manifest in real life. The orbital industries everyone expected back in 1986 are nowhere in sight. As well, the technology in this novel is surprisingly reliable. Apparently planned obsolescence is not a thing. To balance that, tariffs have made a surprise appearance, in book and in real life, so at least there’s that.

Plus, something WJW got bang on is that the techbros who have commandeered the top of the social pyramid in Hardwired possess infinite appetite married to a complete lack of vision. Having conquered the Solar System, they could reshape it however they like… but that would require more self-knowledge than the oligarchs can muster.

One of the reasons I landed on a WJW review project is because he has over on his blog documented many aspects of his career. Readers interested in how the sausage is made should check out this entry and this entry. As well, the 30^th anniversary edition has an informative introduction.

Hardwired is WJW’s best-selling novel³. Luckily for you, because that means Hardwired is still in print.

Hardwired is available here (Smashwords), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), and here (Kobo).

The tabletop roleplaying supplement is available here (DriveThru). Should I review it? 

I did not find Hardwired at Bookshop UK, or Chapters-Indigo and while I did find an entry for the dead-tree novel at Words Worth Books, it was for the Nightshade edition. As that edition does not appear on Nightshade’s site, I am pretty sure it is out of print.

1: USA delenda, along with most other nations. Canada is never mentioned by name (ebooks make that easy to check) so it’s possible they didn’t bother dropping rocks on us… but that’s not the way I would bet.

2: There was at one time a thriving margarine-smuggling industry in North America, smuggling US margarine into Canada. That’s kind of odd. I think it was because US margarine looked more like butter than Canadian margarine did. Or maybe the US’ comprehensive lack of effective food regulations meant US margarine was cheaper. Still, even cheap margarine is still, ugh, margarine, down there with ​“frozen edible oil products.”

3: Something that did not fit into the main body of the review: this is the WJW work that led to a lawsuit when Wired Magazine (founded 1993) decided the Hardwired novel (published 1986) was infringing on their IP.