Review: Smart, fast-paced, visionary sci-fi meets classic noir
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 12, 2012
How do we maintain our essential human connections in an age of hyper-connectedness? How do we keep ourselves grounded in reality when there are so many realities to choose from; one layered thinly on top of another in a perplexing veneer of "maybes?"  What defines sanity in a world where avatar and self have become hopelessly interchangeable? How do we hold on to those genuine but intangible lifelines to our humanity; emotion, intimacy, community? And, having "evolved" this far, what is the inevitable next-step in hyper-connectedness? Cybernetic implants?  Bionic mobile devices artfully merged into non-dominant hands on an outpatient basis by robotic plastic surgeons? Plug 'n' Play high-speed-ready optic prosthetics with built-in heads-up display? Synthetic interchangeable washboard abs? Computer-generated pheromones?Adam Penenberg's "Virtually True" is a frenetic headlong rush through a colorful multi-verse of intrigue and illusion, hard-boiled noir and high-tech magical realism; squalid dystopian nightmare and lush cyber seduction; a cosmic data-storm of brilliant ideas and unforgettable imagery. The author portrays a future not so very far off; unnervingly close to present reality for much of the world; less prophetic vision than logical projection--and with what sweeping effortlessness he describes it;". . .the wars that led to the establishment of Luzonia as an independent nation were a result of Mother Nature's wrath. She was tired of being battered by business, her resources robbed, her land raped, her bounty carted off as booty by the earth's only creature outfitted with a thumb. In a fit of pique over global warming, she melted the polar ice caps, raised water tables, flooded coasts, submerged low-lying areas, suffocated crops, washed away cities and towns without a trace, drowned people, animals and insects. Cities like New York and Tokyo exist precariously, a single disaster from extinction. Other lands--other peoples--Bangladesh, Sri Lanka--accepted their fates stoically, fading into the blue.. . . Man-made flooding, man-made drought, man-made wars. Man-made natural disasters. Because of man-made materialism.  But as in a marriage that turns sour when one partner cannot tolerate the other's abuse, the earth turned on them. She spat out the man-made toxins that trickled into her, poisoning those who poisoned her, convulsed whenever faced with greater man-made contamination, grinding man-made cities to powder, offered sanctuary to a new array of insects, impregnable to man-made pesticides."Into this grim future, Penenberg's protagonist, journalist True Ailey emerges from the great literary tradition of smart-mouthed gumshoes and hard-boiled reporters, though he has not wholly succumbed to cynicism. A cyber-savant, able to navigate massive data streams manifested within virtual reality; inside these "meta-worlds" True has no equal. But VR addiction--"mnemonia"--has compromised his health, alienated the love of his life, and all but ruined his professional career. Now he finds himself in the capitol of Luzonia, one of the bleaker corners of the developing world, little more than a stringer for a CNN-like infotainment network, itself part of the vast "corpocracy" that dominates the globe.  An old friend offers a tantalizing scoop--a story that could put True's career back on track--but the friend is assassinated before he can spill the details, and True is left with more mystery than he can handle on his own.The search for the killer takes the form of classic whodunit with the smartest elements of sci-fi, techno-epic and geopolitical thriller folded into a rich, spicy adobo; think Philip K. Dick at his post-apocalyptic perception-bending best including his familiar recurring theme of the phantom twin; the brooding zeitgeist of Alan Moore's "Watchmen," the cyber-punk whiz-bang of "Max Headroom," and the artist's unerring eye for the minutiae of human suffering in Alfonso Cuaron's masterful cinematic interpretation of P.D. James' "Children of Men." The dialogue sizzles in the best "better-than-real" tradition of Robert Heinlein, Elmore Leonard and Raymond Chandler.But Penenberg is at his most original, vivid and animated when describing the irrepressible life that teams in the dust, far below the radar of sheltered Western consciousness  We view the action as if through a head-mounted camera at street level; hurtling through the mad perpetual rush-hour traffic of some swarming developing-world megalopolis like Mumbai, Jakarta or Karachi, but distinctly of the author's imagination; lumbering superannuated buses belching fumes long-since banned in the West; auto-rickshaws, pedi-cabs, tuk-tuks, drivers of unpowered vehicles hitching rides with grappling hooks attached to bungee ropes on the back of overloaded lorries and vans, careening through dark side streets and alleyways to grim shanty towns cobbled together from the cast-off packaging of ruling-class luxuries and toxic detritus, their residents barely eking out subsistence while black and gray markets thrive, where traditional haggling takes on a new high-tech twist with cash cards and portable debit machines.The narrative pace does occasionally drag, weighed down by surplus "tech," and one-too-many forays into the arcana of Japanese politics. But otherwise, "Virtually True" is a riveting read that leaves us, as most intelligently entertaining books do, with much to think about and replay in our imaginations long after our e-readers have been turned off. Highly recommended!