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Tea from an Empty Cup
Selling your soul in Artificial Reality is the ultimate online transaction
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Tea from an Empty Cup
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By Pat Cadigan
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Tor Books
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$22.95/$31.95 Canada
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Hardcover, Oct. 1998
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ISBN 0-312-86665-8
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Review by Susan Dunman
 n the future, Artificial Reality parlors provide easy access to any online destination that customers can afford to buy. Admission includes use of a hotsuit, a headmount and a private cubicle where selected fantasies imitate reality. Sexers, actioners and everyone in-between have countless AR choices, but the site currently topping the hitlist is post-Apocalyptic Noo Yawk Sitty.
The various thrills available in AR can be enhanced with the use of designer drugs, so parlor employees routinely ignore illegal activity. However, the cops are called immediately when a teenage customer is found with his throat slashed, even though he's still hooked up to his AR rig. Curiously, the logs indicate that the boy's AR avatar was "murdered" in the same fashion online. When background checks reveal that seven other deaths have occurred simultaneously in AR and real time, Lieutenant Konstantin decides she must don a hotsuit of her own to solve these electronic murders.
At the same time, Yuki--a young woman of pure Japanese descent--is conducting an investigation of her own that inevitably draws her into the post-apocalyptic playground of the hip, have-already-arrived crowd. On the trail of her missing boyfriend, Tom Iguchi, Yuki learns of his quest to find Old Japan, a theoretical AR location created to replace the physical Japan, which was obliterated years earlier by earthquakes. Rumors of a higher level of AR existence suggest that those who are true Japanese and who can maintain a rarefied, chemically induced brain state are able attain a form of electronic immortality. Although Yuki and Konstantin enter Noo Yawk Sitty for entirely different reasons, their paths lead toward a common goal that no one could have predicted.
The faster you go, the more you know
It's been more than five years since Pat Cadigan's last novel, but the "Queen of Cyberpunk" can rest easy--she's in no danger of losing her crown. Her latest book combines raw power with minute detail and extreme imagination to create a complex tale that creates more questions than answers for readers to mull over. Various scenes may seem familiar because some material from two previously published short stories--"Tea from an Empty Cup" and "Death in the Promised Land"--was reworked to form part of the novel.
A slow start may leave readers unprepared for the sudden plunge into a nebulous world of unsavory characters and motivations, trademarks of the cyberpunk world. Fortunately the two story lines are equally interesting, and each balances the other. Cadigan also uses her uncanny descriptive powers and a clever AR dialect to pull readers into her gray-shaded world. There are flashes of humor, too, which help lighten the landscape. For instance, a pleasant encounter with a friendly cyborg ends with the machine's parting shot to Yuki: "If you happen to see anything hydraulic with gears attached, think of me."
Embedded within the story are themes of identity, eternity, sacrifice and self-discovery. This can make the text seem confusing at times, and there is the nagging suspicion that the plot pretends to be deeper and more profound than it actually is. Yet Tea from an Empty Cup packs a wallop, especially for a book that weighs in at a slim 254 pages, and it's required reading for Cadigan fans, as well as for anyone who's interested in cyberpunk.
I still don't think I have this one figured out yet --but that doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed trying.
-- Susan
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Future on Ice
Orson Scott Card picks some of the best stories of the 1980s
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Future on Ice
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Edited by Orson Scott Card
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Tor Books
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$24.95/$34.95 Canada
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Hardcover, Oct. 1998
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ISBN 0-312-86694-1
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Review by Clinton Lawrence
 fter a long delay, the companion volume to Orson Scott Card's anthology Future on Fire has finally arrived. Future on Ice includes 18 of the best science fiction stories of the 1980s, along with a short preface, a long introductory essay and introductions to each story by Card.
In the preface, Card notes that it has been eight years since he first selected these stories, and that his connections to the field of science fiction have changed dramatically. Since then he has given up writing reviews and attending conventions and workshops, and he no longer even reads much in the field. But while he's distanced himself from the SF world (and feels he's not up to date with the current state of things), he remains connected to the field through his own writing and his knowledge of its history and traditions. And he says he's a bit surprised how well the stories in Future on Ice have held up in the decade since they were written.
In Card's introduction, he explores the postulation that science fiction, though often perceived as either non-religious or anti-religious, is actually the only literature left that can explore religious issues with honesty and intellectual rigor. While the stories in Future on Ice are not explicitly religious, they often do deal with serious philosophical issues. Card regards this as an important function, particularly in a world where, he argues, the traditional religions are being replaced by what he regards as new religions masquerading as something else.
Into this category he lumps not just the usual culprits like secular humanism and Marxism, but also psychology, free-market capitalism and the NRA. Finally, Card argues that morality inspired by Star Wars, in which the rebels are on the side of good and the other side is evil, guides the post-religious world. He attacks both the political left and right for this state of affairs.
Interesting essay, great stories
Although the stories are the heart of this anthology, Card's essay is something of a marvel, blending keen insights and absurd assertions in a provocative and entertaining diatribe about the state of the world. Whether it ultimately makes much sense is debatable, but it's a refreshing departure from the usual anthology introduction.
There shouldn't be much controversy regarding Card's story choices, however. Almost every selection is excellent, and some deserve to be recognized as major classics. The best story is Octavia Butler's "Speech Sounds," set in a future Los Angeles where an epidemic has wiped out the language skills of most people, revealing that one who still retains them is dangerous. George R. R. Martin's "Portraits of His Children" is a brilliant portrayal of a writer who has alienated his family, and particularly his daughter, by using events from their lives in his fiction. John Varley is represented by his outstanding novella, "Press Enter," which, in the form of a murder mystery, explores the cyber world in a manner far more realistic than the cyberpunks ever did.
Other notable stories include Greg Bear's classic "Blood Music," about a young scientist who uses his own body for experiments, and Lisa Goldstein's "Tourists," in which a man is lost without resources in a strange country. Also noteworthy are John Kessel's hilarious satire "The Pure Product," John Crowley's elegant "Snow," Walter Jon Williams' "Dinosaurs," Nancy Kress's "Out of All Them Bright Stars," S. C. Sykes' "Rockabye Baby," and Karen Joy Fowler's "Face Value."
Future on Ice clearly demonstrates that science fiction featured some very powerful writing in the 1980s. Card is quite correct that these stories hold up well. It's an outstanding anthology, and well worth the long wait.
It mystifies me when I see letters protesting that science fiction isn't what it used to be. When I read an anthology like this, it makes me grateful. Writers like the ones represented here have made the genre better than ever.
-- Clint
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