String Theory
Category: Books & Writing...
Posted Friday, March 31, 2006 at 02:25 PM [GMT-6]

I got no takers (nor offerers, for that matter) on my "extra credit" assignment at the bottom of the post about throat-cutting kites (although my pal and fellow sci-fi geek Mark did email for a hint, which I cruelly refused to provide, for good reasons which you'll soon understand). Knowing how you hang on every word of the Gazette, I can only assume that the small type and sonorous voice of the preceding post caused you to sleepwalk right past it, so here it is again:

identify the classic sci-fi novel in which a very thin string is used with horrifying effectiveness in a terrorist strike.

Ring a bell?

Actually, this is a trick question...in that I'm not positive I know the answer, and I was hoping someone else could confirm what I think is the right response. And you, dear readers, have let me down.

Here's what I do know. In a late 60s/early 70s science fiction novel, the author described a future society in which terrorism was rampant, sort of like today only it employed much more technologically advanced weaponry. The example I recall consisted of a single long-chain molecule -- a complex polymer, I suppose -- that was essentially unbreakable and invisible. In the story, one of these molecules was stretched across a road (I forget exactly how it was secured on each side; that's always bothered me) in advance of a military troop transport. The vehicle and its inhabitants were sliced by the molecule. Simple enough, right? But here's the twist that made it more horrible: there were no outright fatalities, but due to the extreme thinness of the "string," the effects of the slicing were disturbingly unpredictable. Depending on where one was sliced -- and even the body's orientation to the string -- different parts of the body stopped working normally. Things were just a bit off; synapses misfired or muscles didn't respond or organs began to do strange things. The injuries couldn't be diagnosed, nor could they be repaired.

OK, enough of that. Here's the thing. I'm not at all sure that I'm recollecting any of this properly. I think the scene came from one of John Brunner's classic "dystopian future" novels, and my best guess is that it's Stand on Zanzibar. But he wrote a couple of other possible candidates during that time period, notably The Sheep Look Up and Shockwave Rider (arguably the first cyberpunk novel), and I suppose the scene I described above could have come from one of them.

Anyone care to weigh in as to the source of my admittedly hazy recollections?

And in anticipation of your logical but entirely unnecessary question, I can't actually look in the books because they're up in the attic and, well, there are spiders up there.

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Comments

I would have loved to help...but I avoid horrors like the plague! I've never even seen Jaws...

Posted by: Rachel at March 31, 2006 04:43 PM

Rachel, if I lived as close to the ocean as you, I probably wouldn't see Jaws either! ;-)

Actually, the book is science fiction, not horror, and it's not as graphic as you might think. All of Brunner's books are interesting reading, as he did a pretty good job of predicting a future that we're now entering.

Posted by: Eric at March 31, 2006 04:53 PM

If that's a "hazy" recollection, I'm rather afraid to ask for details on something you recall clearly. ;-) But again, I'm clueless (if not dangerously close to the answer without knowing it, a la apple pi).

Posted by: Gwynne at March 31, 2006 05:25 PM

Gwynne, never forget that a detailed account is not the same as an accurate account. But, you know that. ;-)

Posted by: Eric at March 31, 2006 06:28 PM

Well, you know, I have not read "Stnad on Zanzibar"... sorry, I could not resist. ;o)

I have also never read "Stand on Zanzibar", but I plan on it. I've read most of the others from that time frame.

Gotta go now...Dr. Who.... Yes, I am a geek...

Posted by: Mark at March 31, 2006 07:59 PM

Ha! That's just a Technorati tag!! It doesn't count!!! Joke's on you!!!!!

Oops...one too many exclamation points. I got carried away.

But, please read the book and then tell me if I'm right or wrong.

Posted by: Eric at March 31, 2006 08:07 PM

Commercial on Dr. Who....

Spiders??????????? Take the next best thing to that molecular string...Silly String... The alcohol in that can do a number on Spiders.

I might have also guessed one of the "Mars" novels by Stanley (Red, Green, Blue)....

Dr. Who is back.

Posted by: Mark at March 31, 2006 08:08 PM

Wow, a Hugo winner... Barnes and Noble, here I come. Well, after Dr. Who is over.

Come on...no one else lives for Dr. Who? Where were you folks in the early 1980's? It's the best, and it's on SciFi right now.

Posted by: Mark at March 31, 2006 08:18 PM

Good Grief Eric,

Looking at your link to Amazon, I found the following passage (during another Dr. Who commercial)

"The novel is not, at first, an easy read. Its "unique" jump-cut/collage structure, its pseudo-hip prose style, its fabricated lingo--all are modeled rather precisely on John Dos Passos's classic American classic trilogy, "U.S.A." Like Dos Passos, Brunner interlaces chapters in several strands"

"U.S.A." by Dos Passos was one of the first "real grown up" books I read as a kid...checked out from the Ector County Library. I think I read this when I was 12...maybe 6th grade. I will definitely go get this tonight, if B&N has it.

Posted by: Mark at March 31, 2006 08:28 PM

Hey, Mark, haven't you figured out by now that I deal in only the best stuff? ;-)

Posted by: Eric at March 31, 2006 08:31 PM

OK, this is serious now... A trip to Barnes and Noble and Hastings turned up the fact that said tome is now out of print and unavailable at said mass market establishments...

Eric, I am afraid you are going to have to plan a trip to "Spider City" ;o) This is not a nice task to lay on an already confessed OCD person. I have read, probably, 15 of the last 20 years worth of Hugo winners, but I missed this one.

HUFFFF....

Posted by: Mark at March 31, 2006 10:00 PM

OK, but you're going to owe me, big-time. Well, maybe this will almost get us back to even.

I'm pretty sure that I've just made all this up, now that I think about it. There never actually was an author named John Brunner, and he certainly never wrote a book called "Stand (or Stnad) on Zanzibar."

Posted by: Eric at March 31, 2006 10:58 PM

Yeah, you're probably right...maybe you recalled the name wrong and it is actually David Brenner and I know he hasn't written any scifi...

I'll post the question on a scifi site (I hate spiders too...plus, Murphy's Law of Cramped Space Gravity and Balance states that you would put a foot through the ceiling while roaming around the attic).

Posted by: Mark at April 1, 2006 07:54 AM
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