GRAY MATTERS

by William Hjortsberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1971

Nothing but gunmetal halls as far as the scanner can scan, and for a few of the cerebromorphs in the Depository's drawers no amount of ESB entertainment or brain-to-brain guru counseling can resign them to disembodiment. The recalcitrants of Level One (the earliest and spiritually the lowliest) were living in bodies when the Great Awakening came with its surgical reforms; now Vera Mitlovic, in one cannister, views and reviews her screen triumphs, and Skeets Kalbfleischer in another activates orgasms in the pleasure center in between plane-crash nightmares. And in another sculptor Obu Ituki plots to commandeer an Amkopak unit and ascend through degrees (floors) of enlightenment to the top where brainless bodies wait. . . . Vera and Skeets and his ex-astronaut auditor (who knew her in the flesh) meet in the telepathic beyond of memory merge. However they do not escape the effects of Obu's revolt. The idea begins to cool in the brain-pan when Obu acts up among the serene reconstituted beings outside, but the opener in the vaults is an ingenious and pointed anti-utopia.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1971

Categories: FICTION