Post-Apocalypse Connectivity: The Webs of Everywhere by John Brunner

      Theseus    Blinded by the dark Followed Ariadne's clew of thread.

      Ariadne
   Has ceased her spinning
And all doors lead to the Minotaur.
—Mustapha Sharif

The societal consequence of instantaneous matter transportation is a recurring science-fiction theme. No one has ever done it better than Alfred Bester in The Stars My Destination, though many have tried. (Or have not tried, as with the matter transmitters of Star Trek.)

John Brunner came closest to out-Foyling* Bester with his little-noticed novel, The Webs of Everywhere. Unlike Brunner's The Infinitive of Go, published six years later, Webs concentrates on the social and political implications of the transmitter, called a "Skelter."

In the mid-70's, with the horror of the Tate-LaBianca murders still fresh in everyone's minds, the name was evocative. And like the "helter skelter" cult, the result of the Skelter technology's free access to everywhere was murder, explosive plagues, terrorism dwarfing 9/11, and the collapse of civilization. A "puerperal fever" kills 80% of the world's women, leaving many of the rest sterile. Only the invention of the "privateer," a method to lock the Skelter doors against uninvited guests, and a strict law against using unauthorized Skelter codes, has managed to salvage what remains of civil society.

Hans Dysktra is a deeply unsatisfied man. He is married (a rarity in this post-Skelter world), but his wife is shallow, vain, stupid and fat. He works exploring the nuclear-ravaged Skelters of Europe under the aegis of a world-wide government headed by the inventor of the privateer, Chaim Aleuker. But secretly he explores unauthorized locations, documenting the state in which he finds these abandoned houses and the restorations he applies. His secret work, he tells himself, must not be revealed until after his death.

His partner in these efforts is Mustapha Sharif, a blind poet with a method for discovering Skelter codes. Sharif is the opposite of Dykstra in many respects; he lives calmly in a non-Skelter community, he is respected, even revered by many of the world's leaders, and he deeply appreciates what he has. Despite Sharif's disability, it is Dykstra who is blind, and Sharif who leads him.

Article Author: DrPat

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