Paperbacks from Hell [N.F. - Literature, Art]

Horror Goes High Tech

The seeds of a computer revolution were planted in the ’70s, when humanity was betrayed by the twin engines of government and commerce. Politicians lied about nuclear war, scientists lied about pollution, NASA lied about aliens. Private companies were poisoning the oceans with toxic waste and acid rain. But a technological counterculture was brewing in garages and spare bedrooms all over the country. Channels like the Whole Earth Catalogue and science-fiction movies seeded receptive minds with the idea that technology could be turned to more human needs.

Some writers overpromised, depicting computers as superheroes. Stephen Gresham, author of The Shadow Man (1986), believed that personal computers could generate hard-light holograms capable of running our errands, but then again Gresham also believed that pro wrestling was real, so he might have been a simpleton. In his book, eight-year-old Joey gets C.A.P. (Computer Assisted Playmate) when his pro-wrestler father, Jeb “The Dixie Strangler” Stuart, decides that his son is lonely after his parents’ divorce. Turns out that Jeb’s ex-wife is a witch, and no matter how open-minded you are, you should never marry a witch.

How will computers change everything? They might defend kids from witches (The Shadow Man), enable super-nerds to stalk and murder strangers (The Hacker), spawn software glitches that become actual insects (Bugs), or become addictions that control our minds (Little Brother). At least two of those predictions have come true! Credit 111

Joey is C.A.P.’s “little friend,” and when Mom summons the digital demon known only as the Shadow Man to kill her son, C.A.P. screams that “A PRELIMINARY SCAN SHOWS A HIGH RANKING DEMON OF SOME TYPE—A SHAPESHIFTER.” Which is way more useful than “404: file not found.” C.A.P. uses his “Timeshifter Beam” to trap Mom in the past, saving the day. But can C.A.P. help Joey win back his father’s love? He wouldn’t be a computer if he couldn’t.

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Back in the ’80s we didn’t know that one day all computers would be linked and turned into a giant delivery system for pornography and cat pictures, so networking seemed exciting. We learned our lessons only by trial and error. Trial: Why not let a fetus network its brain with the hospital mainframe? Error: Fetus becomes a big-headed psychic baby that wants to murder everyone (The Unborn 1980). Trial: Let’s teach monkeys to control robots with their minds. Error: God intervenes and makes everyone either crazy or dead (The Hacker 1989). Yes, it’s easy to sit here in the safety of the now and mock a bunch of paperback novelists for not accurately foreseeing the future, but they did get one thing right. All these books, no matter how silly, don’t feel like much fun. An underlying pessimism runs through them, mostly because their suspicions about technology turned out to be true.

In Little Brother (1983), aliens land on Earth in 1908 and take over the Soviet Union. By 1983 they’ve infiltrated the American market with an iPad-esque toy called the Possum, which beams addictive subliminal messages into the brains of good American kids. When worried parents try to limit the ever-increasing screen time, the kids either commit suicide or attack Mom and Dad. In the end, the adults figure “What the hell?” and become addicted to Possum, too. Anyone who thinks this is baseless paranoia hasn’t watched a parent texting while rocketing down a highway at 70 m.p.h. in the family van.

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