James P. Hogan is a much more prolific writer than Alfred Bester and though perhaps he doesn’t reach quite the same level of creativity and style, I’ve read and enjoyed many of Hogan’s books as well, especially the Giants series, Code Of the Lifemaker and Endgame Enigma. From 1995, Realtime Interrupt is set against the corporate development of a fully integrated, fully immersed virtual reality environment driven by a true, learning artificial intelligence. The sophistication is so deep that even one of the system’s own chief developers, the hero Joe Corrigan, does not realize where he is for 12 years.
Finally, with the help of another involuntary participant, he does come to the truth. Before being inserted into the system, 50 people had their short term memory scrubbed and so had no understanding that they weren’t in the real world. Along with them, the ‘realscaped’ Pittsburgh environment was populated by thousands of computer-driven persons who interacted directly with the real folks, attempting to learn and develop along human lines by observation. Also inside the system are a set of controllers real people who can enter and exit the VR as desired.
Hogan makes some interesting propositions here and does have a good touch with pacing and plot development but I’d expect something written by an experienced engineer and former computer salesperson to have a better use and extrapolation of contemporary technology. For one simple instance, there is nothing analogous to the Internet in either the real or virtual worlds in the book. I do wonder if this is a story first written a few years earlier, say mid to late ’80s, which would explain quite a bit.
recommended
BillSaysThis 