What's Worth Reading?

HEADCRASH

Move over Neuromancer: here comes Headcrash, barreling into the expanding cybernetic frontier with a grand crescendo of satiric speculative fiction!

PLAAAAH!!! That was a mouthful ; ) But a meal of so many appetizing and spicy courses deserves accolades.

Bethke's story opens on Monday, May 15, 2005, out front of recently-bombed Monolithic Diversified Enterprises Corporate Headquarters. The fictional MDE is paradigmatic of real life international megacongomerates, of which we have all heard many tales. (Note the icon ''ConGlomo'' on Rocko's Modern Life.) Our hero, 23-year-old super-nerd Jack Burroughs, aka "Pyle," aka "MAX_KOOL," watches with some amusement as the rain tweaks a car alarm. His new boss's car alarm. His new ball-busting female boss's car alarm.

Bethke's Orwellian corporate future immediately takes hold of the guts, tormenting the reader with visions of Pierce Brosnan with an Alpha Complex, Woody Allen wandering around in a nightshirt, and Demi Moore in a power suit clicking down aluminum corridors in stiletto heels. In Headcrash,, the hapless peons of MDE corporation blow off steam on the job by engaging in virtual war reminiscent of marathon Doom sessions: ghastly harbingers of reckonings to come.

Jack observes a distrastrous snowballing of events in the first few chapters, and finds his corporate future looking bleak. With his erstwhile virtual sidekicks, Don Vermicelli, DON_MAC, Eliza, and Gunnar Savage, Jack takes a tire-squealing turn onto the Information Superhighway. He soon finds himself in the heart of silicon madness when he takes on a hacking job for cybervixen <heart>Amber<heart>. as a result of which he comes to face, er, ''challenges undreamt of,'' in a VR suit with ''interface'' suspiciously reminiscent of Mapplethorpe art.

In pursuit of the almighty buck, Jack & cronies penetrate into the virtual theme parks of author & computing tycoon Franklin Curtis: the dreaded Castle Franklinstein. (Note amusing similarities to Wolfenstein 3-D, precursor to Doom) However, Bethke's satire doesn't end there--no sirree--our intrepid heroes bumble through a succession of virtual realms, beginning with ''Mesozoic Mall'' running through ''Thoracic Park'' and back. I leave it to the reader to determine what notorious author is being spoofed in Headcrash!

In spite of the somewhat overused "Infonugget" device, I couldn't put the book down. I ROFLed my way through every side-splitting page of this searing satire. Highly recommended for the wired and wily hack who craves a stimulating diversion from both the Information Doomsayers and the High-Priests of Virtual Salvation. Bethke manages to make goofballs of 'em all....er....us all....

'96