cover image Memini

Memini

Dan Pearlman. Prime Books, $29.95 (328pp) ISBN 978-1-894815-69-7

Pearlman (The Final Dream & Other Fictions) goes for the satirical jugular in this often hilarious if ultimately wearying Swiftian exercise, full of Joycean wordplay. In the author s unrelenting cyberpunk dystopia, Memini and two other large corporations or ""conglobulates,"" Mishugi and Occipet, control a world divided into two groups: brain-damaged ""tekkies"" and grumbling but mentally sound ""oldfolks."" Memini s in trouble because its president is convinced that he s a high school student confounded by a hostile board of education. Readers should be prepared for a whirlwind ride with no pause for breathe. Fans of more conventional SF may be put off by the explicit sex and the absence of sympathetic characters.