Review: Welcome To Sym City
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 3, 2012
Re:Union is a science fiction short story set in the near future. In this possible future, the world's food supply has been ravaged by what is referred to as  4H, aka "the Four Horsemen". Because of 4H, the world was left with not nearly enough food to feed the human population. Enter a science and technological creation known as SymSpace, a virtual reality world. This virtual reality world, however, isn't the internet where you simply log off and go about your life. Because of the food shortage and population, people's brains can be (and have been forcibly in the past) scanned into Symspace where they can entirely live, also known as "Converting".The main character is a young man and former high school football player who has spent a decade and a half since his parents' passing looking for his lost love, Michelle. The story deals with him looking for her in SymSpace and somewhat debating that living in SymSpace is not really living at all.All in all, at seventeen pages it was a decent and enjoyable read. It's safe to say that Re:Union is not your typical "post-apocalyptic" story. Not that there's anything wrong with it but many always seem to take the same road--society breaks down, every man for himself, groups are formed that always begin to fight one another, etc. Here, Eric Liu takes us in a difference direction. After countless go hungry and starve, many turned to computers to essentially leave this reality behind. Though really much of this is just backdrop as the primary focus is on Troy trying to find the love of his life who disappeared fifteen years before in SymSpace.Had I had to actually pay for the short story, I don't think I would have been disappointed.