Interface (novel)
From Free net encyclopedia
Interface is a 1994 novel by Neal Stephenson and George Jewsbury. It was originally sold with the author pseudonym of Stephen Bury, then reissued as being by Bury and J. Frederick George, and most recently as being by Stephenson and George.
Interface is a near-future thriller, set in 1996, in which a shadowy coalition bent on controlling the world economy attempts to manipulate a candidate for president of the United States through the use of a computer bio-chip implanted in his brain.
Plot summary
The novel opens with the governor of Illinois, William Cozanno, suffering a stroke, and in a separate subplot, a trailer park inhabiting, unemployed African-American woman, Eleanor Richmond, discovering her husband dead after committing suicide in their repossessed former house.
As events progress, an underground business coalition, the Network, is arranging for Cozanno to have a biochip implanted and for him to run for President of the United States. The Network is made up of a number of large companies, all of whom have parellels in everyday life - Gale Aerospace is presumably Boeing; Pacific Netware is probably Sun Microsystems, etc.
Eleanor Richmond, after publicly attacking a local cable TV installer cum public access talk show personality who was running for Senate, has since found herself working in the offices of a Republican Colorado senator, and after an event where she accused the citizens of Colorado of being Welfare Queens, finds herself in the public eye to a level where she is one of the candidates for Cozanno's running mate.
The Network's ability to perceive public opinion, skewed on the night of the vice presidential debate by a twist of fate, makes them select Richmond as vice presidential candidate, and a canny act of public relations work rescues Cozanno's campaign, getting him elected as President.
However, Cozanno gets shot at his inauguration by a psychotic former factory worker who has somehow figured out the Network's plans almost entirely, killing him almost instantly. Richmond ends up as the first black and first female President of the United States, in an ending that is left hanging in Stephenson's traditional style.