INTERFACE by Neal Stephenson and G. F. Jewsbury

WORKING (in progress)

Interface by Neal Stephenson and his uncle George F. Jewsbury, published initially as by "Stephen Bury," then by "Stephen Bury and J. Frederick George" and finally under the authors' real names. 1994; New York: Bantam Books, 2005. A Spectra Book (a division of Bantam, a division of Random House), also available as an Audible audiobook (text attributed to Neal Stephenson and J. Frederick George), read by Oliver Wyman, which is the medium Erlich used.

Near-future (now more alternate-history) SF political thriller in "the paranoid style," with comic/satiric tone, of interest here primarily for a biochip implant that can greatly aid the recovery of a victim of a stroke or other damage to the brain but also — crucially for the plot — strongly affect, if not precisely control, the actions of the implantee: e.g., the Governor of the State of Illinois, eventually elected President of the United States. Of more general importance than this SF "novum" or "One Big Lie" is the combination in Interface of technothriller and sophisticated satiric analysis of high-level American politics as the art of performance and the mediated image.

Among other relevant issues, themes, motifs, and images, note the following. About half-way through the novel, the image of a political operative inside a media-center sphere that is inside a high-tech, computerized political HQ, itself inside a truck-mounted (apparent) shipping container. From this "Eye of Cy," campaign manager Cy Ogle has a kind of panoptic surveillance of 100 American voters, not seeing them but getting readouts of key physiological reactions to, most notably, a Presidential debate. Beyond the Panopticon, however, the operative can transmit into the candidate's mind images that can effect that ability to "affect, if not precisely control" the responses of the candidate during the debate. Note also the scenes later in the novel where the Eye of Cy and surroundings' screens are shot up or smashed, with a good deal of penetration of screens, and people, with bullets from a gun made with actually-existing but pretty advanced technology.

Wide-spread surveillance of more traditional types than the "Eye of Cy," including audio bugs of impressive miniaturization.

Description early in the novel of the implantation of biochips into brains, stressing the interface of the elegantly technological and necessarily messy organic/biological.

Description of a command center of "the Network" running things in an underground location in a mine shaft (for lead mining) converted into something like the command module of a missile silo, with the technology both retro and quite high tech. As with the image of Cy Ogle in his Eye of Cy, cf. and contrast E.M. Forster's "The Machine Stops" and perhaps the vision of mine shafts at the end of DR. STRANGELOVE.

In the latter portion of the novel, note scene at McCormick Place convention center in Chicago where a would-be disrupter of the Network conspiracy sees a the G.O.D.s truck with the Eye, and possibly a more conventional communications/media center under the stage where the candidate is to speak. He is literally paranoid in seeing the people there using high-tech equipment to control minds, but symbolically correct — and mostly correct in terms of the plot of Interface. (Side note: In the filming of the 1999 film THE BONE COLLECTOR, there were computers under a filming sound-stage, with the computers below an off-screen determining what was seen on computers in the room above in the world of the film; see set-off comment in citations for "Designing the technology of BLADE RUNNER 2049."

NOTE: It is paranoia to take literally this novel's suggestion that there are a handful of conspiratorial networks running the world; it is dangerously naïve to ignore the degree to which "The System" can be manipulated by people with good connections and a lot of money.

RDE, Title, 12Aug19

RDE, 03/XI/12, 15Dec19 f.