In a Philip K. Dick–like dystopian future, cutting-edge virtual reality has emerged as a popular, albeit controversial, source of amusement. Devouring a cephapple or “dreambean” allows the eater to become the primary player in a preprogrammed narrative: love story, historical spectacle, horror thriller—the medium encompasses all genres. Our protagonist, Quinjin, is a professional dreambean critic, rating the hallucinogenic adventures hidden within these remarkable fruits.
But something has gone terribly wrong. An anonymous “dreamweaver” has created a cephapple that, by transporting its users to the core of an inescapable nightmare, drives them stark raving mad—just the sort of ammunition the anti-dreambean movement needs to get the technology banned. Quinjin is hired to find the source of the poison and eradicate it. But the reviewer’s heroic quest becomes highly personal when the person he most cares about—his teenage daughter—eats the forbidden fruit and lapses into a coma. |
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WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
“Technology will improve remorselessly until we can be ‘wired in’ so completely that we can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. The Continent of Lies … deals with this subject brilliantly.”
“The Continent of Lies is superbly crafted. It deftly blends technology, fantasy, and myth and spices the mixture with adventure, humor, and wit.”
“[A] literary cruise missile. It hugs the reader’s consciousness as it roars through time and cultural dimensions, leaving readers stunned, delighted and baffled … Morrow writes so plausibly and so effortlessly about the impossible and the unimaginable that little bits and pieces of his narrative cling to your subconscious … This is high octane writing indeed.”
“James Morrow takes you to places you have never been before … There are Dante-like descents into various kinds of hell, and—what would a book about dreams be without it?—a generous dollop of Freudian symbolism.”
“[With] a new plot twist with every turn of the page an encapsulation would be impossible, as well as spoiling the fun. But when was the last time you read any SF that had a meeting of the characters inside the bloated corpse of a giant alien whale? What a story. Read it.”