Exit to Reality

Set in a computer-controlled utopia where every human misery has been dispelled, a futuristic romance traces the love affair between the Greek god Proteus and Euclid, whom he persuades to escape from her virtual reality. IP.

Far-future what-is-reality puzzler, a first venture into science fiction for the author of the mainstream Nowle's Passing (1996), etc. In the year 2874, Earth's population consists of 150 billion immortals, with all other species deliberately eliminated; every scrap of usable land (but not, for some reason, the sea) supports agriculture; and apartments are stacked inside landforms impossible to cultivate, though most folk prefer virtual reality anyway. Information Analyst Lydian meets the charming but evasive Merle through a net bulletin board, discovering that Merle not only can change his bodily form but can think himself to any previously visited location--and he can teach Lydian to do the same! After a whirlwind series of adventures--though homosexuality is prohibited, Merle prefers a female body--the pair come to the attention of robot Security Units. Lydian, moreover, who lives with her robot Mom, suspects that Mom is other than she seems. It emerges that reality isn't real at all (yawn): People are just brains in bottles being fed hallucinations from a giant computer. Bland, trite, populated by mediocre characters, and painfully unsurprising: a crushing disappointment. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In her first foray into science fiction, novelist Forbes (Nowle's Passing, LJ 4/15/96) creates a utopian world in 3000 A.D. in which the population has stabilized, almost everybody is employed, crime has been eradicated, everyone is good-looking, and individuals go through a regular regeneration process that erases their childhood memories. Lydian, an information analyst, encounters unemployed Merle online and agrees to meet him in Paris. When she discovers that he can change his appearance instantly, Lydian suspects that Merle is not human but a virtual-reality construct. Then Merle teaches her the secrets of shape-shifting, and the inquisitive Lydian begins to question their very existence. Forbes explores issues of morality, mortality, sexuality, loneliness, ecology, and bioengineering in this thought-provoking, chilling look at a potential future. Highly recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.