Overview
Alex Munn works in Manhattan's "Television City" as head writer for an ordinary soap opera. But when his TV bosses decide to use brand-new virtual reality technology to produce the most involving drama series ever, Munn signs on to revolutionize the TV industry. In his spare time, though, he creates another virtual world: "Munn's World." It's set in gaslit 1850s New York City, where a vicious serial killer called the Fishman is disemboweling victims in the Bowery. But now, something has gone terribly wrong. It's unscripted, it's terrifying, but the Fishman has somehow escaped from Munn's World—and followed Alex into the present.
Alex Munn is recruited from his job writing soap operas to create the most involving drama series yet, using virtual reality technology. In his spare time, though, he creates another virtual environment, "Munn's World, " wherein gaslit 1850s New York is brought to life. There, a vicious serial killer called the Fishman is on a rampage in the Bowery, and Munn prepares to track him down. But suddenly, something goes horribly wrong, something that wasn't in any script--the VR killer escapes into today's world. TP: Bantam.
Editorials
Marsha McCurley
George Foy in Shift writes about virtural reality television writer's character that apparently escapes from his VR show and starts murdering people in real life. In the future, the crime itself may take on a bit of twist.— Mystery Readers Journal
Publishers Weekly -
PW called this near-future thriller "a compelling noir mix of science-fiction thrills, virtual-reality wonders and 19th-century horror." (Apr.)Carl Hays
Just when it seemed cyberspace was wearing out its welcome, along comes this fresh and powerfully imagined new take on the coming video revolution. In the ratings-hungry entertainment world of near-future New York City, Alex Munn is a rising young "xtv" producer whose forthcoming virtual realitybased series, "Real Life", promises soap opera junkies full interactivity in three dimensions. Already bored by the show's cliched characters and predictable plots, Munn spends increasingly more time on his unsponsored pet project, "Munn's World", a crime drama that tracks a serial killer through the seamy underworld of 1850s Manhattan. Neither Munn nor his video-engineer assistant, who adds the random factor to the show's programming, is prepared for what happens when the serial killer begins making his grisly presence felt in the everyday world beyond xtv's electronic margins. Munn's deliciously glib narrative voice and an irresistibly compelling story line are key elements in making Foy's stunningly vivid, all-too-plausible vision of the next wave in entertainment media one of the best cyberspace vehicles since Gibson's "Neuromancer" and a deserving candidate for every major sf award.Kirkus Reviews
New York XTV scriptwriter Alex Munn staggers drunk through most of his life, having written the first few episodes of a new soap, Real Life, destined to be the first virtual reality broadcast. In his spare time he's created another virtual reality, Munn's World, too gritty and authentic to interest XTV, set in 1850s New York, where participants track down a serial killer known as the Fishman—he slashes his victims as though he's gutting a fish. Neither can Alex handle separation from his beloved wife, actress Larissa. Worst of all, a gang of Asians toting automatics and carpet-cutters are trying to kill him! Then he stumbles into Larissa's apartment and finds her dead—tied up and mutilated as if by the Fishman. Alex's alibi is weird poet Kaye Santangelo, with whom he danced naked on an East River barge before descending into an alcoholic blackout. After being jailed, nearly murdered again, then dramatically escaping, Alex approaches his XTV buddy, computer whiz Zeng, who helped set up Munn's World—only to find Zeng slaughtered, Fishman-style. Someone else clearly has access to Munn's World, but why the elaborate and gruesome frame-up? Kaye discovers the explosive truth in the first episode of Real Life—which Alex can't even remember having written.Grimly effective New York scenes—both old and new—blend with convincingly extrapolated virtual realities in Foy's (this is his sixth outing) tautly plotted, highly colored cyber-thriller. Still, there are drawbacks: It's overlong and overweight, and the present- tense narrative, no matter how fashionable, doesn't help.