Customer Reviews

Knight of Delusions

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The alternate or simulated reality within reality idea has become almost a genre unto itself these days, but this was one of the earliest works I know of to explore the idea. Given that, is easy for me to forgive the fact that a sense of closure was difficult to achieve, or perhaps none was intended. I read this long ago, but I do recall feeling a bit lost and unsatisfied at the end. But its not the destination, its the journey, right?

The fact that I still remember this and other Laumer stories decades after I first read them stands as a testament to his thought provoking ideas even if some might slight his prose. When I looked up 'Knight of Delusions' I was surprised how many of Laumer's books I have read in the past and count as my favorite novels. 'Dinosaur Beach', 'The Day before Forever', the Retief series [very funny], and 'The House in November'. Sometimes memories of these stories have haunted a dream [day or night] without me quite remembering where they came from.

Why can't we get Hollywood to make a decent movie that isn't a comic hero or a sequel?

As a reading experience, I might actually have given Knight of Delusions a lower score. On the other hand, I give Laumer credit for developing a virtual reality story years before it was commonly attempted (1972).

A tough guy detective named Florin gets a very strange assignment. He is supposed to guard a senator during a last ditch effort to restore the senator's mental health. Or perhaps he is trying to guard the senator against the advisors who are actually trying to kill him? Or maybe he has some kind of future with the girl who seems to keep appearing in the bar with him? Or perhaps it really is all linked to giant alien lizards after all?

The prose is interesting, as Laumer uses the diction of hard-boiled detective fiction to take on a science fiction subject. It mostly works well, although there are times that it ends up making the description feel abbreviated, and not much time is spent exploring the world(s) the character moves through. My larger quarrel is with the plotting. It almost seemed as though Laumer had a really good idea, and then painted himself into a corner trying to work it out.

Knight of Delusions may well be a good read for people with a particular interest in treatments of virtual reality. The Tor 1982 edition comes bound with two other stories: "Thunderhead" and "The Last Command".