THE JAMAIS VU PAPERS
By
A wacky postmodern chase through time, dreamspace, and parallel universes in search of a runaway psychiatric patient and the ultimate meaning of reality, by a husband-and-wife team of contributors to New Realities, Utne Reader, etc. ""Jamais vu"" translates as the sensation of never having experienced a moment before, and such a sensation is the fervent desire of psychiatrist Hector Glasco's patient Hilary. A beautiful, famous Hollywood actress, Hilary is cursed with the ability to know, an instant beforehand, everything that's going to happen in her vicinity. To cure the excruciating boredom her condition breeds, Glasco offers her a mysterious ""metaphor pill"" that was given to him by an illustrious colleague. Hilary pops the pill, babbles, ""I have no words!"" for several minutes, then promptly disappears. Thus begins a playful romp through all the theoretical realities of current scientific thought as Glasco--ever-dogged--searches through his own dreams and other abstract worlds for clues to his patient's whereabouts. Along the way, he bumps into such Alice-in-Wonderland-like conundrums as semiotics, the uncertainity principle, and particle physics, and composes The Jamais Vu Papers--in which he quotes and/or interviews such luminaries as Tom Robbins, Jamake Highwater, and Timothy Leafy. An annoying tendency to name-drop and a rather self-congratulatory style mar this computer-network-type creation--loosely based on a newsletter previously published by the authors--but its lively humor should appeal to amateur futurists or those who like their scientific theory spoon-fed.