Headcrash By Bruce Bethke Essay, Research Paper

It takes place in the year 2005. The world has become a world controlled by

computers and large multi-billion dollar companies. Our lead character, Jack

Burroughs, has an adventure in Cyberspace (on the Internet). In order to

understand the plot, one must understand the technology of the time. While most

people today have a dial up TCP/IP connection to the Internet running at speeds

up to 56Kbs, the Internet connections at that time where immensely greater then

what we have today. In the year 2005, one is able to strap on a Virtual Reality

suite and actually browse the Internet in real time, meaning a super fast

connection to the Internet Now, where does Jack Burroughs fit into all of this?

Well, quite frankly, he doesn?t really have much to do with it, except that

Jack is an employee of MIS, a branch of an immensely large company. His branch

of the company provides hardware, software, data, and network support to all the

other subsidiaries. The way that the internet and Virtual Reality relates is the

fact that Jack spends a lot time in his mothers basement playing around with his

VR headset, and other various accessories, in a virtual, multi user dimensional

VirtualBar called Heaven. He masquerades around under the alias, MAX_KOOL with

his friend, Gunner, or Joe LeMat. The plot of the story really starts to develop

when MAX_KOOL is offered a hacking job by an amorous woman named Amber. He is

offered 1 million dollars for the job. Having lost his job with MIS just

recently, (oh ya, I forgot to mention that. Oh well, now you know) he accepts

it. Jack and Joe decide to work together on this one. They take the $10,000 in

money to rent a room in an office. Being a very complicated job, Amber sends

Jack some new experimental interface to help him. With all the new interface

plugged in (and with the ProctoProd sung in its place), Jack and Joe realize

that the new interface makes them ?Super Users?. Super Users can do thing in

Cyberspace that defies the laws of the Internet. They are infinitely fast,

strong, and see and do things that no one else can do. After setting up their

equipment, Jack gets ready to hack into MIS?s computer system with his new

equipment (Oh ya, he?s first assigned to steal files from his old employer,

MIS, which he doesn?t mind doing.) Being a natural Cybergeek, Jack has no

problems. He gets the files and returns them to Amber. It turns out that this

last run was just a test set up to test MAX_KOOL?s skills. Satisfied with his

performance, they get ready to do the real heist, to acquire evidence that this

author stole the only copy of another author?s book and published it as his

own. With the help of some other folk, Jack and Joe brake into the ?Castle

Frankistilen?. In the castle, nothing goes as planned. They go though many

different virtual scenarios, and in the end, the alarms goes off as they get the

info and the Nazi guards start pouring in. When Jack gets the info, Amber

double-crosses him and takes it. After all this confusion, they are all captured

and are taken to a mock trial, (with a teddy bear as a judge and a bird as a

defense attorney, etc.). The reason for the trial was that the computers in

Cyberspace got mad at all the Super Users and decided that either they are going

to control everyone or go to a dessert island. This comes to that and Jack is

sent off to the island. It turns out that the ?Island? is not and island.

Jack walks to the other side and gets a job as a towel boy at some hotel, which

concludes our story. In this book, I believe that there weren?t many major

conflicts. The major conflicts are as follows: Person vs. Person and person vs.

self. Person vs. person is shown throughout the book. Jack is always in conflict

with something, if it?s his mother, all the way to Jack vs. Eliza. The more

obvious person vs. person was with Jack and Eliza, or with Jack and Melinda.

Since Melinda was Jack?s boss, they were always arguing and threatening each

other. Eliza actually attacked Jack many times in cyberspace in the book,

showing a very obvious person vs. person conflict. Person vs. self is shown

through jack?s alter ego ?MAX_KOOL?. Jack secretly longs to be like

MAX_KOOL, with his leather jacket and black jeans, his glasses and 1100cc

Harley. Instead, Jack is stuck in his mother?s basement, playing pretend games

with other Cyberpunks. The main characters in the book are as follows: Jack

Burroughs and Joe LeMat. There is also an innumerable amount of other, lesser

characters that only appeared in either the beginning or the end of the book.

Jack is a very typical, yet strange character in many ways. Jack is a typical

Cyberpunk. He lives in his mother?s basement, makes model rockets, and is a

computer nerd. He hasn?t many friends, hates his job, spends most of his time

alone, and has had nothing interesting happen in his life. He is a typical

anti-social person who realizes that wants to be different, but also realizes

that if he was, no one would notice. He has a very Grey outlook on life and has

a very childish like attitude towards everything. It seems, in this book, that

everything to him was a joke. Joe LeMat is a very cryptic figure. The author in

this book didn?t develop him much at all. The most I can say is that Joe is

jack?s best friend, likes beer, sex, and also seems to be a Cyberpunk. Jack

and Joe are pretty much similar, except that jack is more of the type that gives

up, and Joe is more of the type of friend that isn?t extremely loyal or

trustworthy. The theme of this book seemed to be that ?Cyberspace is a

dangerous place?. This theme is shown everywhere in the book?In heaven, on

the Infobahn, ECT. Just like in real life, there are crazy people on the Net.

People like MAX_KOOL, for example. Max killed people for no reason sometimes in

Heaven by smashing people over the head with bottle or using his Monoatom

switchblade. The whole idea of hacking into other server screams out

?Cyberspace is a dangerous place?. During the hacking attempts of MAX_KOOL,

many civilians (and Nazis) were killed. During the opening trip with Max and his

Harley, and the instance between him and the old hippie Mac all show this theme.

This following quote shows the basic style of writing and humor that the aruthor

does, as well as shows the concept of Virtual Reality. ?Pyle," it said in

Melinda’s voice. ?You are dead meat.? I spun around, shotgun at the ready.

?Can you hear me, Pyle?? From the sound it was clearly off to my right,

but–oh no, it was invisible. I hate it when they’re invisible. ?Take off the

stupid VR headset, Pyle.? I dove left and fired blindly. It answered with a

soft, metallic, faintly musical sound The sound was vaguely familiar. It sounded

like–keys. I took off the VR headset. Melinda was standing there. The real

Melinda. She was jingling her key ring. "Oops," I said. There are many

things I can say about this book. It was a really fun book to read and an easy

book to follow (for me, at least). I read the book easily in a few days and

enjoyed every minute of if. If you like books with no character development,

weak plot, and a whole bunch of cursing, sex, guns, hacking, blowing up of

things, comedy and just down right fun, you?ll like this book. The book was

hilarious and I recommend it to anyone.