Realtime Interrupt

A man working on a VR system ominously called Pinocchio wakes up in a body that is a dozen years younger than the one he had yesterday. You guessed it: he’s a sim, but where is his meat body?

Hogan had the computer chops to write a state-of-the-art virtual reality tale, but Realtime Interrupt never tells us enough about the tech to make us suspend our disbelief. I wish Neal Stephenson or William Gibson had written it.

I've been rereading some old books recently deciding what to keep in my library, and recently read again two other novels by Hogan, and both made me wonder what I had liked in him, but this one reminded me why I do have several of his books on the shelves, even if in the end it's not a keeper. Starchild was disappointing and with Mirror Maze I found the political themes heavy handed, but Realtime Interrupt is a good yarn, more in the classic hard science fiction vein. In fact there's some dry, scientifically sophisticated material here about computers, artificial intelligence and the nature of humanity and reality. At the same time Joe Corrigan makes a good protagonist. He's largely likeable, sometimes roguishly charming, and has a true show more emotional arc through the events of the story. This reminds me somewhat of Charles Platt's The Silicon Man, another tale of virtual reality with similar themes, but more on a personal than political level. Hogan lived for some time in Ireland--Corrigan is a native, and there are some scenes set there, and Hogan depicts the Irish with affection and without affectation. And the last lines left me smiling. Not a classic, but definitely a good read for anyone interested in this theme looking for an entertaining work of science fiction. show less

This was entertaining, I enjoyed several of the characters, and the Irish sections weren't horribly 'oirish'.

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