The most over-used New Age career advice is "Follow your bliss." For Slocum, protagonist of this near-future, emotionally charged novel mixing the generic (Town) and the specific (Town's Portuguese residents), it might have been "Flee your bliss." Foy (The Memory of Fire, etc.) starts Slocum off down and out, living on a disabled sloop in a rundown marina in a decayed New England seaport. Then things get bad. Desperate to regain real feelings after leaving a fast-track position at X-Corp Multimedia and destroying his marriage through addiction to 3-D drama, Slocum faces both a challenge and a mystery when an ocean liner pulls in next to his sloop. The liner's first officer wants Slocum's berth, and its seemingly sole passenger, a young woman named Melisande Yonge, wants to meet him. A hurricane is coming up the coast, and everyone is scrambling for safety. Slocum, trading on contacts and bartering away his last possessions, finds himself fighting for his sanity and Melisande's heart against the computerized tentacles of X-Corp. In a style that imitates the sensory experience of 3-D, the author presents the hardscrabble existence of people who reject security for freedom in a world where a sign like "Donaldson Salvage" has rusted out to "SO SA VAGE." Despite undeveloped elements like a serial killer and computer sentience, the book retains a tight focus on Slocum's mental and physical plights. The gathering tensions will keep Foy fans turning the pages. (July 3)
