Hackers (short stories)

Hackers (ISBN 0441003753) is a collection of short stories edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois. It contains stories by noted science fiction and cyberpunk writers of the late 1980s and early 1990s about hackers.

"Dogfight"

This story was written by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson, and was first published in Omni in 1985. A lonely wannabe hacker finds a female friend, whose parents have set a neural block on her to protect her virginity. He becomes enthralled by a new video game where he engages as dogfights as an airplane pilot and, with help from his female friend (a gifted hacker of both hardware and software) becomes one of the best fighters. To beat the very best fighter, though, he betrays and hurts his friend only to find himself alone again.

Related Topics:
Michael Swanwick - William Gibson - Omni - 1985 - Wannabe - Virginity

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The story is very typical of the cyberpunk genre in that its mood never rises from the melancholy and that the protagonist ends up suffering a kind of Pyrrhic victory, realizing too late that succeeding in his endeavor (winning the game) is actually worthless. As in film noir, the theme of betrayal exists strongly in the tale, as the protagonist sacrifices everything around him to succeed.

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