Customer Reviews

Bad Dream

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Veteran British science fiction writer John Christopher tells a subtle, lyrically poignant saga on the potential dangers of Virtual Reality in his latest novel "Bad Dream". In its understated way, it shares much of the same themes echoed in such classic cyberpunk fiction as William Gibson's "Neuromancer, without resorting to much of the rich detail found in Gibson's literary debut. Instead, it works as a tranquil psychological thriller about an unlikely hero, Michael Frodsham, a minor British government healthcare bureaucrat, dealing with a dangerous Virtual Reality technique designed by the German half of his family, and Great Britain's domination by a coercive, almost tyrannical, European Federation. Christopher's villains are intriguing, three-dimensional characters whose motivations are easily understood - if not appreciated - by the reader. This is yet another fine work of science fiction by the author of classics such as "No Blade of Grass" and the Tripods trilogy.

I am an american reader who read Christopher's early work years ago. Christopher has matured as a writer, and I was very impressed by the complexity of this novel, both politically and in terms of character development. Here is a character far from a Hollywood hero; a thoughtful, doubting man living in a web of personal hiistory and family relationships who must come to grips with a horrifying secret. The novel is set against a not too distant future that is a bleak vision of Britain's place in the EU, vividly imagined by Christopher. A book that would be an excellent choice for reading groups, there's a lot to think about here, issues of technology, freedom, and resposiblility the West must face soon.