What does it mean to be human? Our bones have been measured, our hearts weighed, our blood analyzed. Our very cells have been dissected, their secrets laid bare under the powerful inquisition of the microscope. But can these metrics of flesh and muscle, reflex and strength, define human? Perhaps our minds are the better arbiter of who we are, oceanic consciousnesses made possible by the gestalt of a trillion neural connections woven into the fabric of our brains. Until science has banished the mysteries of the human mind, the question remains one for philosophers to reason through, their intellectual progress forever hindered by their imperfect understanding of a beautiful system. However, someday soon, neurology will solve for the unknown and we will know what it means to be human and whether or not it is defined by the elusive soul. What will that world look like? Will it be better or worse for the knowing? Mr. Brown muses in his sweeping trilogy.
The year is 2040 and New York has become new India. Widespread environmental collapse has devastated large swaths of inhabited land and left the Big Apple stewing in a mixture of extreme temperatures and monsoon rain which perpetually pound at a treeless, hyper-urban landscape. Refugees from Asia and the American South, fleeing now uninhabitable climbs, have flooded the city, swelling it beyond the capacity of its public services. The police labor to maintain some semblance of law and order, but justice is more often found at the point of a gun in this torrential world in which technology is as ubiquitous as concrete.
As a consequence of the influx of refugees, the city has deputized private investigators into its police force. Though these hybrid cops are permitted to keep their own offices, take their own cases and charge whatever fees the market will bear, they are peace officers, men and women who will, in an ideal world, help to strengthen the palsied arm of the law in feverish New York. Their effectiveness, however, is minimized by a world in which technology is evolving at far too rapid a rate for the law to comprehend, much less grapple with.
In New York Nights, the trilogy's curtain-raiser, we meet One such quasi detective. Hal Halliday is a smart but self-destructive investigator in his 30s who, despite the passage of many years, remains burdened by a traumatic childhood. A refugee of the NYPD, Hal was welcomed into private practice by Barney Kluger, an older, wiser man with tragedies of his own. Together, the partners and friends are submerged into the world of virtual reality (VR), when they are hired to find a missing woman. A trendy technology taking New York by storm, VR is reshaping human interaction. Bars all over the city are buying and renting out Jellytanks, immersive tubs in which humans can lose themselves, their minds transported to a million programmable vistas.
Fearful of VR's social consequences, Virex, an insurgent organization intent upon bringing down the big corporations promoting VR technology, attempt to warn the public about the emotional and physical costs of overusing the emerging technology. But their warnings are largely ignored until a rogue intelligence escapes its VR makers and flees into the Internet where its schemes to be alive and free entangle and devastate a community of alternative Women, several of whom turn up murdered. Hal must reach into his past and the sister he's all-but written off to find a way to stop the emergent AI.
In New York Blues, the trilogy's second instalment, a few dark months have past. Lonely and caseless, Hal has turned to a street kid for companionship. A refugee from the Atlanta Meltdown, Casey is a homeless girl looking for a chance to escape her origins. And so, when Hal offers her a place to stay, she quickly blossoms, becoming not only his connection to the outside world but a key cog in the biggest case of his life. For the Vanessa Artoise, movie star extraordinaire, has just darkened his door with her legendary beauty and she's willing to pay Hal anything to find her missing sister.
Seconds after accepting the case, an attempt is made on Vanessa's life, an effort that galvanizes Hal into action. Sniffing out the sister's trail, however, leads him into the dark and twisted heart of VR where powerful men troll for impressionable girls, exploiting them for the fulfilment of their fantasies and their obsessions. To find Vanessa's sister, Hal will have to confront the very creators of these virtual paradises on their own turf, a disadvantage that will not only endanger him but the few people in this world he cares for.
In New York Dreams, the trilogy culminates with the full realization of VR's potential. Where once it was only safe for humans to spend hours in the Jellytanks before having to exit from perfect hallucinations, now they can spend days in Vr, exploring ever-more-elaborate environments which can be tailored to suit the every whim of the user. How can the real world, with all its flaws and foibles, its pains and disappointments, possibly compete? Virex, which has been warning humanity about this grim future for years now, ought to be poised to best exploit this breakthrough. But the insurgency, once so noisy, has been betrayed. Key operatives at the heart of the conspiracy have been secretly replaced by the enemy.
Rendered toothless, the organization is in no position to halt the conspiracy which claims the lives of several men and women, one of which was once dear to Hal. The investigator might never have known about the deaths were it not for Casey who helps to extract him from his own VR dreams long enough to put him on the conspiracy's cold trail. Will he discover the plans of the mysterious Methuselah Project before it's too late, or will his body, weakened by his addiction to VR, fail him and leave him, like everyone else, helpless before the dawn of a new world?
Though The Virex Trilogy lacks the brilliance of plot and prose necessary for lasting acclaim, its entertaining plots and thoughtful ruminations elevate it above the fray. Mr. Brown's characters are refreshingly human, flawed specimens who lack not only physical beauty but social graces. Instead, they stagger through life, blundering from moment-to-moment, never prepared for what's to come. This faintly autistic take on human nature is both engaging and appropriate for the author's somewhat alarmist future.
There are problems here. For a series named The Virex Trilogy, there's remarkably little Virex about it. The organization, which at times appears to be on the brink of full-blown terrorism, yields its time to the cast of characters who orbit Hal's world. Not until the final novel is Virex explored at any depth and even then it is only elaborated on in the service of the plot. This, along with characters who inexplicably float in and out of the story, leaves far-too-bare the mechanics of plot. Polishing up his tapestry in order to hide the threadbare bits is not Mr. Brown's strong suit.
That said, there's much here to admire. Virtual reality has been explored before, but Mr. Brown takes up this trope not only in the service of his story, but in the interests of exploring its many and varied consequences. In this, he manages to make some thoughtful points about the underpinnings of human interaction and human experience. And so, while the tales told here are otherwise inescapably mundane in their construction, the social critiques woven into them lend life and color to both the world and its inhabitants.
Solidly entertaining... Mr. Brown won't hit many home runs, but he'll rarely strike out either. Instead, he can be consistently relied upon for a good double. There are far, far worse fates. (3/5 Stars)
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