Chi: A Novel of Virtual Reality

Besher's pop cult following should be delighted by this psychedelic merry-go-round of holistic mumbo jumbo and virtual reality treats. In 2038, humanity is still searching for the next big score; if not money, then chi--the primal life force. The wealthy have access to ways to harness and technologically enhance chi. In the fleshpots of Thailand, Butterfly, a transsexual hooker, is looking to steal chi technology from unsuspecting tourists. Instead, she meets a being so extraordinary, so bursting with supernatural chi, that it may redefine the boundaries of human potential. The story, like a Rube Goldberg device, then bounces into a series of highly entertaining but seemingly random events that ingeniously move the plot forward. Wing Fat, an obscenely obese Asian merchant who markets sex, drugs and decadence, tries to sell a piece of super-size chi. Two orangutans who have humanity thrust upon them through technology see their lives torn asunder. There's a love story related to Paul Sykes, a freelance journalist, through his contact with Rodney the Philodendron, an exceptional plant with recall of the green communications network; Rodney is tapped into by an ""algorithm for converting chlorophyll into an organic search engine."" These incidents, and many others, lead to an event of cosmic import on an island off the Thai mainland, where the nature of reality may be changed forever by the power of chi. Though Besher's (Rim; Mir) parts may be greater than the whole, and his vision more scintillating than deep, the ride he provides is wildly inventive, provocative and exhilarating as he struggles to make inner space, cyberspace and green space meld into one fluid world. (July)