@RUTGERS.ARPA:A.ANDY@SU-GSB-HOW.ARPA (02/16/85)
From: Andrew "VaxBuster" Gideon <A.ANDY@SU-GSB-HOW.ARPA> Office Phone: (415) 497-4816/9717 >From: ukma!red@topaz (Red Varth) >Subject: Here's another book that needs identification: >Date: 12 Feb 85 21:14:00 GMT > >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. The Book is titled _Mindkiller_, and is by Spider Robinson. There was a chapter or so printed quite a while back in Omni. It is an excellent book; perhaps his best work. Andy Gideon (Gideon@SU-Score.ARPA) P.S. Niven's Known Space had both the Tasp and wire heading. Louis Wu became a wire head after being hit (twice) by a tasp. -------
@RUTGERS.ARPA:lionel%babel.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (02/19/85)
From: lionel%babel.DEC@decwrl.ARPA (Steve Lionel) The book about the professor who loses his job, tries to commit suicide, is saved by his hat, etc., etc. is "Mindkiller" by Spider Robinson, an elongation of his short story "God is an Iron". While I liked "God is an Iron", I wasn't quite as thrilled with "Mindkiller". Steve Lionel
lazarus@sunybcs.UUCP (Daniel G. Winkowski) (02/22/85)
all right all ready!! we all know by now it was Spider Robinson who wrote Mindkiller! -- Today we live in the future, Tomorrow we'll live for the moment, But, pray we never live in the past. -------------- Daniel G. Winkowski @ SUNY Buffalo Computer Science (716-636-2879) UUCP: ..![bbncca,decvax,dual,rocksanne,watmath]!sunybcs!lazarus CSNET: lazarus%Buffalo@CSNET-RELAY ARPA: see CSNET