Mindkiller

A science fiction novel of a world in which “wireheading“ (direct stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain) has become not only a reality, but a common social vice -- and a man‘s mind may no longer truly be his own. Two very different men seek explanations and justice for the harm or loss of those they love, in a pair of parallel stories which eventually dovetail into a truly surprising ending. Spider Robinson‘s deft hand weaves these stories together with a cast of compelling characters and a great deal of societal insight into the implications of a technology he makes as real for the reader as for the fictional characters who must live with its consequences, portraying a believable set of individual and societal responses to a technology whose development seems almost inevitable.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction, Science Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.