![]() ![]() ![]() Unfortunately, here Roszak's patented Viewing With Alarm fails to convince. His earlier nonfiction work (as well as his later-and much superior-fiction, such as Flicker) also takes a jaundiced view of technology in general, and Bugs, with its view of a world in which all electronic computation is crippled, might possibly even be wish-fulfillment. I suspect this novel of having a significant amount of didactic intent. The novel came out in 1981, just before the full advent of the personal computer and well before the ongoing onslaught that is the World Wide Web-and Roszak's image of a giant central computer, literalized as "the Brain," with its subsidiary tentacles spread nationwide, is a vision of oppressive technology that was outdated almost as soon as it was published. Near-future is hard, as I've been saying repeatedly of late, and this first fictional foray by celebrated 1960s curmudgeon Theodore Roszak gets its prognostications almost entirely incorrect. ![]()
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