DREAM OF GLASS

Big, dense philosophical yarn employing computers, aliens, information theory, and God to prove the relationship between the individual and society. Following wars and upheavals, near-future California is ruled by a fascist theocracy known as the Rose PostPublic after its founder and mentor. Cyberspace, the ``glass'' of the title, is full of sixth-form Artificial Intelligences who store information in Miller crystals; and the Rose is slowly gaining control of an alien spaceship, unoccupied but full of wondrous artifacts and advanced computer/information crystals. The Rose's Chief Semanticist, Colin Ardath, orders his best computer interfacer, Alexa Augustine, killed, cloned, then rebuilt by Quincunx, an AI who is secretly a revolutionary. The new personality, calling herself Augustine, must be carefully nurtured by Ardath's psychologists—but she emerges with her interfacing abilities enhanced. Augustine realizes, however, that she's a computer copy and, with Quincunx's help, breaks free of the Rose's control. Ardath created Augustine to investigate a virus that is destroying the computer Net, and that he suspects emanates from the alien ship; Augustine, who can't resist the challenge, discovers that the truth is far stranger—and she will have her revenge upon Ardath. Impressively wrought, and full of cutting-edge ideas, while top-heavy with philosophical discussion: thoughtful and often stimulating, but it weighs a ton.