re:mote voices

Title:New York Dreams
Author: Eric Brown
Publisher: Gollancz

Halliday is a burnt out VR junkie. Even if he is in denial. Over the past 18 months, his business partner was shot dead, his girlfriend has left him, and hell, even the refugee from the Georgia meltdown he took in has got herself a job, a flat and a boyfriend. So he wallows in VR, working it to the current safe limits.

But Halliday used to be a private detective. When an ex-client gets in touch because an autistic girl who has been working the cutting edge of VR has gone missing, Halliday is reluctant to get involved. However, when he realises that the last person she was seen with is ex-girlfriend, who is also now missing, then he is persuaded to take the job.

New York Dreams is the third volume of Eric Brown's Virex Trilogy. Each following Halliday as he investigates missing people and the like, all tieing into the virtual reality business in someway. The background sees the progression of the technology, from something that people do in bars for the maximum of an hour to here, where people have immersion tanks in their house, and can now remain in VR for 24 hours at a time.

At the same time he explores further the anti-VR stance. The idea of Virex, an anti-VR hacker/terroist group, or vrackers, has been present to some extent in each of the three novels. Though it is here that it comes to the fore - Virex infiltrated and turned, becoming a part of the big plot that forms the core of this novel.

The Virex stance had been that VR was worse than previous technology at isolating humans, at making them less socially capable. To a degree with this novel Halliday embodies that idea, a man become distant from his friends, who suddenly finds that he isn't nearly as fit as he used to be thanks to VR abuse.

To a degree New York Dreams reminds of the kind of science fiction that was more abundant in the 1980's. Comparisons to a couple of the novels Mick Farren wrote at the time coming to mind, the PI/Noir of Exit Funtopia mixed with the Westworld styled VR horror of The Feelies. So reading New York Dreams, a good while after reading New York Nights and New York Blues, it initially felt a little dated.

However, once you get past that, and get into the agreeable groove of Brown's writing it works well enough. Especially as the ideas are updated to give a contemporary edge, while sneaking in other elements as you progress. Such that as you read New York Dreams, you can start to feel Brown pulling the rug out from under your feet. To a degree, if you have enough familiarity with contemporary science fiction you can see what is coming. Still it is an interesting twist, especially given how it turns everything on its head.