BKDTHDRM.RVW   980519

"Death Dream", Ben Bova, 1994, 0-553-57256-3, U$5.99/C$7.99
%A   Ben Bova
%C   1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036
%D   1994
%G   0-553-57256-3
%I   Bantam Books/Doubleday/Dell
%O   U$5.99/C$7.99 800-323-9872 http://www.bdd.com webmaster@bdd.com
%P   560 p.
%T   "Death Dream"

Viruses, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality are the
mainstays of the thriller world, where it touches on technology at
all.  This book uses, and abuses, VR.

I am willing to accept high resolution imagery, and short latency
times.  I am willing to accept that vision, sound, and minor physical
sensations can have an impact out of all proportion to reality. 
(Wanna know how Disney forces you into your seat when you take off on
a rocket?  The base of the seat sinks.  You really feel like you are
rising.  Maybe more like an elevator than a rocket, but you really
seem to move.)  I am less willing to accept that this makes a
simulation so indistinguishable from reality that you have to ask your
wife for a password.

I have a hard time accepting the undefined but non-intrusive means of
generating specific physical sensations.  Not only is this well beyond
the technology that we have available now, but even with physical
probes the ability to stimulate a particular tactile response (or any
other, really) is very much a hit and miss affair.  (To be strictly
fair, the book does allow that this requires some brain mapping, and
does not transfer accurately from person to person.)

(Oh, and by the way, someone who is aphasic from a stroke probably
would be paralysed on the right side of the body.  I have both
professional and personal reasons for knowing this.)

I am much less willing to accept that a team of technicians, looking
for faults in equipment, cannot recognize a transmitter of some sort
where none should be.

I am little short of astounded that a primarily visual simulation
system has no external monitors.

However, I am willing to forgive all of this, given the extremely
important point that is central to this book.  Presentation of
information, in our age, has become more important than content. 
Control of information shapes, and may cripple, leaders and
governments.  The hand that holds the clicker may well rule the world.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKDTHDRM.RVW   980519