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George Stetten was a graduate student and staff at M.I.T. in the late 1970's, part of the research community that was developing artificial intelligence and what would later be called virtual reality or the metaverse. This was his first (and only) novel.
Review by Ashton at Amazon.com
"Browsing through the brightly-jacketed books in the sci-fi section at my neighborhood used book store led me to
discover this simple-looking paperback, unassuming in many ways, but with an intriguing title and alluring black-andwhite
cover illustration.
"The first sentence opens with layers of place, time, and action that suggest a far-future Earth. The prose continues in
a beautiful lyrical cadence with fugues of poetic writing that introduce us, quickly, into a world in which science and
high technology have resolved as one with the one inescapable attribute of reality: the mysterious unknown.
As many good authors do, Stetten demands the reader release much convention and ego and submit to his
unorthodox style. But unlike many good authors, Stetten does this in a delicate, hypnotizing way that, in my opinion,
makes him not just a good, but a great author. Stetten's song carries the reader through a plot that is as inscrutable
as reality's own, precipitating the whole time more metaphysical and epistemological ideas than any work I've read of
such short length.
This book was, to me, breathtaking."