THE REALITY REACTION TEAM

In Prosit’s SF novel, an amnesiac data runner and his gifted girlfriend negotiate intrigues and deceptions in a network of virtual realities.

The setting is the year “Four Million,” an out-of-context number that clues readers to the fact that in this novel’s reality, what is seen, heard, and felt can no longer be trusted. Following two future apocalyptic “Events,” humanity’s most functional remaining society is in the former Twin Cities; Minneapolis and St. Paul, joined by high-tech boomtown Excelsior, are now the “TriCities.” The Mississippi River is a polluted sluice, wealth inequality is sky high, labor-class androids are (by law) low-intelligence thugs, and political division, pandemics, and propaganda threaten an even worse Third Event. The governing Alliance has therefore ordered a “Great Reset,” after which, elite, appointed “Caretakers” will take charge of healing the world while the rest of the population takes a 10-year “Long Nap” in virtual-reality beds. Only days before the Reset, collegiate prodigy Zigpatricia Jean finds herself named one of the Caretakers—the timing is poor, as she has taken a lover from the lower castes of computer hackers and data thieves. This lover, Josh, is unsure of his actual name and identity after his many consciousness-scrambling “drops” through the layers of VR environments that underlie the TriCities’ “TriVerse.” Josh accidentally discovers (and joins) the “Reality Reaction Team,” a squad patrolling for dangerous deepfakes, as circumstances suggest that a gigantic conspiracy surrounds the Reset. Prosit’s cyberpunk SF novel works like a chess game that plays out on multiple boards, with characters who pop in and out of realities (a funhouse hall-of-mirrors metaphor comes into play, quite literally, at the finale). There are rules to all of this, but readers will be hard-pressed to follow them much of the time. Genre fans will enjoy chewing on the bracing, deep-thought material, though they may be irked by the trope of all-powerful master villains who give too much away.

Intricate neo-cyberpunk SF that takes adventurous readers on head trips inside of head trips.