Mystery & Crime, Fiction Subjects, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Mir: A Novel of Virtual Reality

Name: Mir: A Novel of Virtual Reality
Author: Alexander Besher
ISBN: 9780684830872

by Alexander Besher

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Overview

The year is 2036 and the world is in the grip of a new cold war. The Berlin Wall is back up and concentration camps have been recreated. It is an eerily familiar conflict with a chilling new twist - this is a battle for control of cyberspace and the Wall and the camps are both of the virtual variety. It's a time when epidermal programming is the cutting-edge fetish among the fringe dwellers of the hacker underworld. These epidermal programs are sentient tattoos that can travel on-line and perform tasks for their owners on the Net. They can even move from body to body in forbidden techno-pagan rituals. Now the Mir virus is on the loose, traveling as a passenger on the tattoos. Like the tattoos, Mir can migrate from consciousness to consciousness, from body to body, from individuals to entire nations, both off-line and on-line. No one, nothing, is safe in its deadly path. Trevor Gobi, son of the legendary virtual reality investigator Frank Gobi, is on the trail of Mir. His girlfriend Nelly has become infected through a tattoo, a tattoo that assumes a phantasmic form of its own as it incubates on her body, as it threatens her very existence - and the entire World Wide Net.

Synopsis

Follows the devastating effects of a virus spawned by means of the Internet on a future world fraught with rival virtual reality operating systems

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Editorials

New Scientist Magazine

"A gleeful romp through a dislocated postmodern future, in which the boundaries between 'omnispace' and the 'meat' world are becomingly increasingly blurred . . . Eastern philosophy and software engineering blend into chaotic patterns of meaning and confusion in a global society where proper observance of Feng Shui is as important as connections to cyberspace . . . A fast-paced . . . witty book."-New Scientist (U.K.)

SFX Magazine

"(MIR's) narrative zooms from Monte Carlo to San Francisco, from the real world to Omnispace, in a frenzy of evocative imagery and sparkling imagination. A relentless pace and an expansive cast (make this novel) . . . one that is rarely less than enjoyable."-SFX magazine (U.K.)

The Daily Express

"An ironic slice of life from the year 2036, where for the truly fashion conscious, tattoos with a mind of their own are the latest dangerous craze . . . The result is intelligent, amiable and amusing."-The Daily Express (London)

The Herald (Glasgow)

"'Mir' is a new tattoo which carries a super-virus, able to take over computers as well as people. In the best Hitchcock fashion, a series of innocent people become possessed by it while its creators and other villains chase them to get it back."-The Herald (Glasgow)

United Kingdom

"(MIR is) wildly imaginative and extremely intelligent with its strong plot and good ideas, this is a book I recommend to all science fiction fans."-Black Tears (U.K.)

Publishers Weekly

The brave new world Besher envisioned in his well-received debut novel, Rim (1994), a fizzy blend of Eastern spiritualism and Western cyber-technology, has flattened in this sequel into a virtual retread of the Cold War, 21st-century style. Trevor Gobi, 24, son of Rim's hero, Frank Gobi, lives in a world of virtual nations where Germany's Fourth Reich, complete with cybernetic concentration camps, confronts neo-czarist Russia and the U.S. for online superpower supremacy. On vacation in Europe, Trevor's girlfriend, Nelly, starts to sport a new virtual tattoo and becomes the unwitting carrier of the newest Russian cyber virus (and secret weapon), code-named "Mir," which can control consciousness as if it were programmable software, moving one's spirit on- and offline at will. While Nelly and the virus, which she nicknames "Sinbad," enter into a heated sexual relationship, agents of the U.S. Avatar Immigration and Naturalization Service and thugs from the Russian/Japanese mob close in on the unsuspecting pair. The ensuing chase leads to a global virtual performance aimed at infecting the world with Mir. Besher's funky rhythms misfire, however, and the climax sputters out too soon, with the lovers reunited and the world no wiser. This is a curiously pedestrian outing from an author who, judging from his first novel and portions of this one, boasts an extraordinary imagination and invigorating humor. Editor, Bob Mecoy. (July)