BOY IN A WHITE ROOM

A science-fiction thriller translated from German about a boy trapped in a virtual world.

The teen wakes up locked in a silent, white, square room, devoid of memories. He can’t smell anything, has no sense of touch, and when he tries to speak, his robotic voice sounds computer-generated. He eventually learns from a man who introduces himself as his father that he is a 15-year-old named Manuel, lives in Hamburg, and is the survivor of a kidnapping attempt during which his mother was killed and he was left for dead, his body damaged beyond repair. Through new technology, his father was able to rescue his brain, and, after a series of operations, Manuel is now able to survive a primarily virtual existence in a simulation of Middle-earth created especially for him due to his love of Tolkien’s books. But the more Manuel interacts with the outside world through the internet (with the help of Alice, his voice-activated virtual assistant), the more he comes to question whether he is being told the truth about what happened and who he really is. Carefully crafted, thought-provoking questions about identity, self, and humanity are interwoven with heavy-handed elements pulled from The Lord of the Rings and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to tell a punchy, fast-paced story that doesn’t quite coalesce into a convincing, cohesive whole in its rushed ending. The largely racially ambiguous characters are minimally described.

An intriguing if uneven journey of self-discovery.