Dervish Is Digital [Paperback]

Pat Cadigan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2002

Detective Lieutenant Doré Konstantin is up against it.

Konstantin is Chief Officer in charge of TechnoCrime, Artificial Reality Division. It sounds better than it is - in fact, the AR Division consists of three people and a case load of nearly impossible to solve crimes.

Now, as if handling her heavy case load almost single-handed weren't bad enough, she's got a stalker to deal with.

A woman named Susannah Ell claims that she is being stalked by her ex-husband, Hasting Dervish. It seems implausible at first - Dervish is an extraordinarily rich and powerful man, who should have better things to do. But as Konstantin starts to look into it, she discovers that it's not quite so impossible to believe: Dervish has traded places with an Artificial Intelligence, and is busy committing crimes no one has ever thought of before.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In Artificial Reality, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden--or so they say. Run a con game in AR, and the law does not prosecute; have sex with a virtual child persona, and the police do not interfere. But infringe on a powerful corporation's copyright and the law rushes in. And so Detective Lieutenant Doré Konstantin unhappily finds herself appointed Chief Officer of the TechnoCrime AR Division. Virtual crimes are almost impossible to solve, her two-person staff is usually assigned elsewhere, and she spends so much of her life pursuing software pirates in AR that her sanity may be in danger. Things can't get any worse.

Then she is assigned to track a cyberstalker known as "Dervish," whose virtual persona is capable of manipulating AR in unprecedented ways. Konstantin reluctantly acknowledges Dervish's victim may be right: Dervish may have done the impossible. He may have traded places with an Artificial Intelligence, letting the AI take possession of his body as his mind escapes into the cyberverse of Artificial Reality, which he can manipulate as no software, even AI, ever could--impossible manipulations that include deleting all the exits from AR, and perhaps even killing the trapped investigator, Doré Konstantin.

Dervish Is Digital is the witty, sharp-edged, hardboiled sequel to the equally exciting and stylish SF mystery Tea from an Empty Cup. --Cynthia Ward --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

British author Cadigan (Fools; Synners) returns to the provocative Artificial Reality multiverse of Tea from an Empty Cup (1998) for an equally intriguing sequel. Promoted to the dubious post of chief officer in charge of TechnoCrime, AR division, Det. Lieutenant Dor‚ Konstantin maintains her ironic view of the off-balance world of AR and the people who frequent it. Artificial Reality is a new and separate country, with rules and customs alien to the Real world ("as the screens were obliged by law to remind you before each and every session in AR, nothing was true, everything was a lie, and all of it in billable time"). While checking reports that a casino ring in AR's "low-down Hong Kong" has been brainwashing clients, Konstantin stumbles into a similar investigation by a separate police agency or so they would have her believe. Meanwhile, AR-based clothing designer Susannah Ell wants to file stalking charges against her ex-husband, Hastings Dervish. The problem, she says, is that Dervish is digital: somehow he's managed to leave his body behind and enter AR completely. In a world where reality is completely subjective, Konstantin's search for the truth takes her once again through the shifting planes of AR's consensual hallucination. Cadigan's writing is crisp and tight as ever in this brisk cyber adventure, as told through Konstantin's wry observations. Once again the author draws the reader into a strange but fully realized world whose only constant is its unflinching view of human nature. Agent, Merilee Heifetz.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (July 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312876564
• ISBN-13: 978-0312876562
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,725,276 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Alice in Cyberland, October 19, 2001

By 

Kevin Wohler (Lawrence, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dervish Is Digital (Hardcover)

In Pat Cadigan's previous novel, Tea from an Empty Cup, she introduced readers to Doré Konstantin, a homicide detective tracking down a murder leading to AR (Artificial Reality). In Dervish is Digital, Cadigan returns to the world of AR, where everything is a lie and must be accepted as such. Konstantin, too, is back, heading up the TechnoCrime division, a job that is more like purgatory than actual hell, but nevertheless not her life's dream.

If Tea was cyberpunk mixed with Eastern mysticism, one must sum up Dervish as cyberpunk with a healthy dose of Lewis Carroll. This is not so much a mystery novel as a trip through the looking glass. As Konstantin chases her elusive white rabbit, the reader is not asked to understand what is going on, but to hang on and enjoy the ride. Unfortunately, the ride has little dimension to it, feeling flat and unimaginative.

While I immensely enjoy Cadigan's writing, this book left me cold. The story did not have the grit that I have come to expect in Cadigan's worlds. (Maybe because I recently finished her excellent collection of short stories, Patterns.) This novel felt like an unfinished story in many ways. It is as if the characters and plot had been put into place, but without the scenery. Sure, there are weird moments aplenty in Dervish, but it is all the same kind of glitter that we saw in Tea. There is nothing here that suggests this story is taking us someplace new. If anything, the AR world becomes as monotonous to the reader as it has become to Konstantin.

While Konstantin makes repeated metaphors of carnival rides, the book is anything but. A strange trip, to be sure, but never real. The story seems forced, and the situation seems hollow. Even the end of the novel leaves the reader feeling cheated somehow.

If this is a reflection of Cadigan's own feelings about cyberpunk, perhaps she should move on to something that excites her before she (and the reader) dies of ennui. Pick up Synners again for a truly great cyberpunk story.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rollr coaster ride of the future, June 29, 2001

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dervish Is Digital (Hardcover)

Detective Dore Konstantine runs the three-person Techno Crime, AR (Artificial Reality) Division. Though swamped with work, as the net has become a copyright nightmare, Dore would not mind if they could win one once a while. Proof is difficult at best to find and justice is a cyber thought of the mundane realm.

However, Dore is stunned when designer Susannah Ell claims her former spouse wealthy Hastings Dervish is stalking her via artificial reality. Stalking is a real world dangerous dilemma, not a cyberworld problem. Susannah wants Dore to make Hastings stop preferably by arresting him. A disbelieving Dore knows the world of cyberspace is filled with lies, misinformation, and deadly illusion. In this place, Dore seeks the truth amidst the cesspool of AR while Japanese police peer Goku believes her target is working the Hong Kong casinos. Is that in the real world or the artificial world? Either way, Dore is going to learn just how clever and dangerous Dervish really is.

The return of Dore Konstantine, cyberspace police officer, is a joyful event for those readers who relish something quite different in their police procedurals. Like with its predecessor (see TEA FROM AN EMPTY CUP), DERVISH IS DIGITAL is a wild ride that never slows down for a moment even when the readers enter AR, a place that seems more authentic than our reality does at times. Talented Pat Cadigan takes the police procedural into places that few, if any, has gone before.

Harriet Klausner

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting future view, confusing plot, October 8, 2001

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dervish Is Digital (Hardcover)

Police Lieutenant Dore Konstantin is a cyber-cop. Her job, to track artificial reality and track down the criminals who reside there. The problems--artificial reality is a tricky place, nothing is really illegal there, and some very nasty people seem to live there.

One of the nastiest just might be Dervish. According to his ex-girlfriend, Dervish has switched places with an artificial intelligence, actually becoming digital. Certainly his powers over cyberspace seem far stronger than any human should be able to afford.

Konstantin finds herself out of her league and seeks help, but in cyberspace, who can you trust.

Author Pat Cadigan provides an interesting forecast of how both the web and criminal society may merge as well as pinpointing some of the problems our police will have to face. Unfortunately, Konstantin is just a little too helpless and a little too confused. Even the final resolution rings a little hollow--what, exactly, did Konstantin do to bring about this resolution?

DERVISH IS DIGITAL makes for interesting reading, but it just drips with promises that aren't quite explored.