A short story by
science-fiction author
Orson Scott Card. First appeared in
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine,
November 1989. Can be found in the fairly comprehesive collection of Card stories,
Maps in a Mirror.
The story is about a couple of criminals-with-hearts-of-gold trying to pull off a electronic break-in in order to steal green cards, which in their futuristic society fetch a hefty sum of money. "Dogwalker" is the name of one of the main characters, his name also being slang for pimp.
Card has this to say about the story:
So, being the perverse and obnoxious child that I am, I challenged myself: Is the derivativeness of cyberpunk the source or a symptom of its emptiness? Is it possible to write a good story that uses all the clichés of cyberpunk? The brain-microchip interface, the faked-up slang, the drugs, the counterculture... Could I, a good Mormon boy who watched the sixties through the wrong end of the binoculars, write a convincing story in that mode -- and also tell a tale that would satisfy me as good fiction? (265)
I guess I liked the story the first time I read it, must have stuck with me at least a little. When I read it again most recently, along with Card's
afterword, the story seemed a lot more
dorky than I had remembered it, and the
slang seemed contrived.
The full text of the story can be found online at:
http://www.frescopictures.com/movies/dogwalker/short-story.html
Card, Orson Scott.
Maps in a Mirror. Tor: New York, 1990.