The Cybernetic Walrus (The Wonderland Gambit, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "I don't know what single factor had concentrated so much of the computer industry in Washington State, but most of the time I was glad..." (more)
Key Phrases: Matthew Brand, Cynthia Matalon, Walt Slidecker (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A corporate takeover forces brilliant computer programmer Cory Maddox to look for another job. He accepts a government position too tempting to refuse?to continue the work of the late Matthew Brand, a virtual reality pioneer. After settling into his new environment, Maddox slowly begins to realize that what he has known as "reality" is not what it seems. Veteran sf author Chalker (Shadows of the Well of Souls, LJ 2/15/94) embarks on a new series that explores the boundaries of human identity, space, time, and the nature of reality itself. Chalker once again demonstrates his talents as one of the genre's leading raconteurs. For most sf collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Booklist

Fresh from a trilogy of episodes in his Well World saga, Chalker quickly inaugurates a new series that explores the mind-bending limits of virtual reality. Cory Maddox is a brilliant programmer for a fledgling computer network company. He is promptly recruited by the National Security Agency when his company suspiciously sells out to a competitor. His new job involves reactivating an aborted virtual reality project pioneered by computer wizard Matthew Brand, whose incorporation of top secret alien technology apparently led to his demise. Checking out the agency's cyberspace realms, Maddox is soon trapped inside a perfect reproduction of base reality with no clear way out or even any certainty that base reality actually exists. Characteristically, Chalker's initially hard-sf premise gives way to increasingly bizarre and sometimes confusing plot developments, including body switching, alien intervention, and alternative universe hopping. Die-hard cyberpunks may want to pass, but Chalker stalkers should be delighted. Carl Hays --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: Del Rey; 1st THUS edition (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 034538847X
• ISBN-13: 978-0345388476
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 3.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,055,875 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First get a good grip on Reality, September 10, 2002

By	Worldreels (MANKATO, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cybernetic Walrus (The Wonderland Gambit, Book 1) (Paperback)

Jack L. Chalker's theory of existence was spelled out in Book I, P. 223: "... Sometime, somebody, in a world we otherwise know nothing about but which has to be far more advanced than the one we now knew, built a vast computer for some reason and put tremendous knowledge and capability into it. Something went wrong, or so it seemed. A group, a small group, of people from that original place, that true universe, had come into the system and gotten lost, then trapped, in an ever-increasing series of exquisitely detailed virtual universes.. [Brand] was the only hope of getting everybody together again and back to reality. ..."
Chalker wrote, "All reality is programming. We cannot know the real: we are trapped in an endless series of simulations, all of us, and some, like myself, in simulations within simulations. ...." He uses an IT, a thing, a faceless one or a gray ancient to speak these lines, rather than a flesh and blood character. This device implied a para-programmer, one outside the mind of man. This invented God is in control not only of the author outside the story's pages but in control of all the characters within the pages of the book.
Reality now has a counterpart, virtual reality. The characters, en mass, stare into the mirror of their own minds and realize that they had no measuring rod with which to gauge their own realities. The mind is self reflective. The mind has no outer objective way to measure either its input or output. The characters reveal the dead end of human thought. The fact that the tactile nerves register solidity reveals little regarding production or projection of such solidity. There is no way to distinguish whether the neurons fire due to sensory input rather than from say drugs or computer generated inputs. Reality, thus loses its previous foundation.
Chalker posits an Existence Computer with limitless memory able to fill in a separate reality for each and every mind. Everyone gets their own set of individual mental constructs. With this god-like computer unlimited universes to surround each person's set of ideas could be created. (P. 211 BK II). Taking this idea one step further, each person is a circuit on the mother board of the universe. Every solid item that surrounds a person is created within another little circuit. The whole universe is the giant circuitry, the mother board of existence. We are all but chips, powered from this hidden source of energy that we call existence. Chalker names his god character Matthew Brand. Brand understands the circuitry and power of the Existence Computer enough to become part of it. Brand was able to join with the energy reactor in order to control the energy flow into the mother board of the Existence Computer.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best cyberspace series yet!, December 19, 1999

By A Customer

Jack Chalker continues his tradition of unique ideas and perspectives in the Wonderland series. What starts out as a classic cyberspace story quickly turns in unexpected directions. This book will definitely get you thinking about the true nature of reality. If you liked the movie, "The Matrix," get this book! The movie stole Chalker's ideas without giving credit, and the book explores the ideas to a greater depth. Too bad Del Rey is so short-sighted and has not reprinted the 3rd book in this series.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent - A great read!, April 15, 1997

By A Customer

Chalker always amazes me with his imagination. Much of fantasy/science fiction literature follows familiar established themes with some originality thrown in from time to time. For all of that, it is very entertaining for the most part. It is very hard for a writer to surprise his readers today. To be able to take familiar ideas, put subtle twists on them using current technology, and create something so completely new and entertaining is a true gift and Jack Chalker has it. I can't begin to express the enjoyment his works have given me. This series has to one of his best yet