OUR PERFECT WORLD

In Dehmelt’s SF novel, a detective investigates a techno-religious cult with an anti-government agenda.

Not everyone in the future is thrilled with how much technology has reshaped society, including everything from automaton waiters serving breakfast in restaurants to “hybrid” wives designed to be more appealing to their husbands. Luckily, there are people like Duncan Chausser to keep such Luddites in line. The government pays Chausser and his cigar-smoking, primarily Spanish-speaking partner, Leo Montserrat, to “find the people who are too human and make them see true logic.” Their current assignment is Gerald Lieber, an anti-government terrorist whose tech-skeptical beliefs have not stopped him from building a reanimated (and much hotter) AI version of his deceased wife. Lieber has also created an application called Our Perfect World, a kind of virtual reality video game in which users join Gerald in a cult-like community dedicated to harnessing technology in a “more controlled, more spiritual, more holistic” way than those currently in power. As Chausser dives deeper into Lieber’s analog and digital worlds, including taking a closer look at his estranged, self-destructive son, Hans Karl, the detective struggles to keep straight what is real and what he simply wishes to be. Dehmelt plays with tropes from cyberpunk and beyond, and the sardonic, chain-smoking Chausser, still smarting from a recent failed marriage, makes for a fun guide to this AI dystopia. The author has a taste for the surreal—at one point, Chausser goes looking for one of Lieber’s associates only to find the man’s body half-consumed by guinea pigs—but he doesn’t give his playful creations much room to breathe. The prose is dense, and information is rarely imparted in a straightforward manner, forcing readers to spend most of their time trying to orient themselves within this unfamiliar world. Given that the topics here—artificial intelligence, virtual reality, technofascism—have been addressed so often in fiction, Dehmelt’s opaque postmodern style may prove a more onerous obstacle than the average SF reader is willing to negotiate.

An often entertaining, always ambitious SF novel.