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Chi
Humans have played around with virtual reality long enough. Now it's Mother
Nature's turn.
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Chi
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By Alexander Besher
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Simon & Schuster
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$24.00
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Hardcover, July 1999
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ISBN 0-684-83088-4
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Review by Susan Dunman
 hi is the Chinese name for the vital force or energy believed to enliven
all matter. By the year 2038 it is also a valuable commodity that can
impart various types of human desire, potential, intelligence, sex appeal,
and vitality to those who can afford it. Such a unique product commands a
high price on the black market, and much of the illicit trade is supplied to
the West by Wing Fat, a 650-pound godfather in the Southeast Asian chi
underworld.
Wing Fat's minions siphon chi from the bodies of abducted tourists,
children, and any other unfortunate who generates a high level of energy on
the portable chi-meters carried by chi bandits. This collected energy is
used to produce powerful synthetic chi, until a completely new strain appears
in Thailand that eclipses any known fabricated concoction.
Half a world away, at the Chi Expo in San Francisco, the leading
corporate producer of neural chi chips, Deedee Delorean, waits expectantly
for a demonstration of new product from her supplier, Wing Fat. To
Delorean's astonishment, a talking orangutan informs her that Wing Fat has
discovered a vast new reservoir of chi with properties that allow the creation
of such things as talking monkeys. Freelance reporter Paul Syker, who is
hiding from conference security guards, overhears the orangutan's
announcement that Wing Fat has discovered a new and improved breed of humans
who "have the green eye and see the black sun." The hairy messenger carries a computer chip with proprietary information for
Delorean, but Syker manages to steal the chip and then heads for Thailand to
unravel the mystery.
Insight, humor and violence
Chi, the third novel in Besher's Rim series, has the raw, gritty feel of a
cyberpunk book though it actually deals with the metamorphis of current reality rather
than the creation or destruction of an alternate reality. The author
dangles subplots in front of readers like a fisherman setting a trot line full of hooks, and with plenty of well-baited selections, readers will find
it difficult to resist the many ideas vying to catch
their attention.
For starters, there's Mort, a hacker friend of Sykes who uncovers an
algorithm for converting chlorophyll into an organic search engine and uses
his philodendron plant to hook into organic cyberspace. Back in Thailand,
childless couples unwilling to adopt have resorted to purchasing genetically
altered baby orangutans that look and act human until the onslaught of
adolescence. Then a large part of the Chinese population observes, all at
the same time, a beautiful hallucinogenic butterfly that inhibits feelings
of violence and signals the coming of a sea change in the previous
world order.
Chi is packed with insight, humor, violence and rampant imagination.
Unfortunately, Besher doesn't carry his initial momentum through to a
satisfying conclusion. There is no effort to tie up loose ends, and many
questions remain unanswered. Just like a roller coaster ride, there are
lots of thrills along the way, but travelers end up exactly where they
started. However, readers who enjoy ideas more than plot should give this
one a try, as well as those who enjoyed the previous two novels in the Rim series.
Chi is probably what a Robin Williams monologue for SF fans would be like. Rapid-fire ideas from every direction that can leave you dazed and amazed.
-- Susan
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A Signal Shattered
If you think Wall Street is a jungle, just try doing business with aliens
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A Signal Shattered
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By Eric S. Nylund
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Avon Eos
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$23.00/$34.00 Canada
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Hardcover, Sept. 1999
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ISBN 0-030-97514-9
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Review by Curt Wohleber
 t's been a bad couple of months for Jack Potter. In Signal to Noise Jack
made humanity's first contact with an extraterrestrial being. But the alien
called "Wheeler" turned out to be an interstellar scam artist, part of an
organization that plunders the knowledge of other civilizations before
destroying them. Jack leads the entire human race into a deadly trap, and
only he and a handful of others escape Earth's transformation into a ball of
molten rock.
A Signal Shattered opens with Jack holed up on the moon with a few other
survivors. They have some miraculous alien devices, including machines for
instantaneous communication and transportation across vast distances. What they don't
have is enough air to breathe or enough power to teleport to a more
hospitable location.
Jack's back-stabbing former business partners, Isabel and Zero, have found
safe havens elsewhere in the galaxy. Though they seem to be holding all the
cards, both are curiously eager to make a deal with Jack. Meanwhile, Wheeler
wants Jack to join his organization. He has two options: work
for Wheeler and assist in the destruction of entire worlds, or refuse the
offer and sacrifice what's left of the human race.
As if he didn't have enough to worry about, Jack has also been infected
with a virus designed by Zero to boost human intelligence by dividing the
brain into independent nodes. Zero's idea was to turn the human brain into a
parallel processor; instead, Jack and others infected with the virus are
slowly going insane.
Slow start, smashing finish
A Signal Shattered gets off to sluggish start with Jack trying to figure
out which surviving member of the human race has sabotaged his moon base.
It's a comedown after the literally Earth-shattering finale of Signal to
Noise. So many of the characters are ethically challenged that the question
of which one of them caused what particular bit of mischief isn't all that
interesting.
Nylund hits his stride, however, once the tedious sleuthing is over and
Jack figures out how to escape the moon. A galaxy-wide game of
cat-and-mouse ensues, with humanity as the prey. Another alien offers help,
but he seems a little too friendly, and Jack realizes the only way to get
Wheeler off his back may be to trust those who once betrayed him.
Signal to Noise suffered from a shortage of sympathetic characters. This
gradually changes in A Signal Shattered as even the most unsavory players
reveal needs and vulnerabilities.
The book can be tough going for those readers with only a vague
grasp of quantum physics and computer science, but in the
tradition of Greg Bear and Stephen Baxter, Nylund reaches exhilarating
heights of outrageous scientific extrapolation. During Jack's epic final
confrontation with Wheeler, Nylund even manages to wring sweaty-palmed
suspense out of the reinstallation of a computer operating system.
Despite an unpromising start, A Signal Shattered improves on its
predecessor, offering a more focused story line, richer characterization, and
some really cool technology.
-- Curt
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