Exit to Reality

Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly

As if determined to master every genre, Forbes, whose fine previous novels centered on mystery (Nowle's Passing) and romance (Alma Rose), sets her third effort 1000 years in the future. When Level 2 Information Analyst Lydian travels to Paris to meet Merle, an intriguing online acquaintance, face to face, she learns that he has the incredible ability to change his appearance and location at will. Merle offers to teach Lydian how to do this, and she easily masters the skill. After a series of misadventures that draw the attention of the authorities, the misfits realize the world as they know it is a sham, a virtual-reality simulation intended to keep humanity from learning that the real Earth is a desolate wasteland incapable of supporting life. Just what to do with the information becomes a moot point when Merle and Lydian encounter an organization of altruistic renegades who have also discovered the truth about the world. Despite rare moments of lyricism, Forbes fails to match the standard of her previous work. Her world-building is rudimentary compared to more seasoned and committed practioners of SF, and the heavy doses of exposition smother the bland characterizations. The book ventures into themes of utopia, gender and free will, but it lacks the sophistication and depth of the best speculative fiction-whether literary or SF.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

As if determined to master every genre, Forbes, whose fine previous novels centered on mystery (Nowle's Passing) and romance (Alma Rose), sets her third effort 1000 years in the future. When Level 2 Information Analyst Lydian travels to Paris to meet Merle, an intriguing online acquaintance, face to face, she learns that he has the incredible ability to change his appearance and location at will. Merle offers to teach Lydian how to do this, and she easily masters the skill. After a series of misadventures that draw the attention of the authorities, the misfits realize the world as they know it is a sham, a virtual-reality simulation intended to keep humanity from learning that the real Earth is a desolate wasteland incapable of supporting life. Just what to do with the information becomes a moot point when Merle and Lydian encounter an organization of altruistic renegades who have also discovered the truth about the world. Despite rare moments of lyricism, Forbes fails to match the standard of her previous work. Her world-building is rudimentary compared to more seasoned and committed practioners of SF, and the heavy doses of exposition smother the bland characterizations. The book ventures into themes of utopia, gender and free will, but it lacks the sophistication and depth of the best speculative fictionwhether literary or SF. (May)

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews

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.