From the Publisher's website:
Shock: Social Science Fiction is a fiction game of culture and future shock. Based on the works of Bruce Sterling, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Philip K. Dick, the game pushes the players to make stories that matter to them — stories about politics, philosophy, love, and death.
At the core of the world-creation system is the Grid, a method of world creation that uses social concerns and Shocks, to build a fictional world custom-built for the type of story the players want to experience. It cross-references concerns of the players with Shocks to create characters devised to confront those issues.
Players are responsible for both Protagonists and Antagonists, principles with motivation and resources: they represent what you care about as a player and act in a way that highlights and questions the things you care about.