Modern society’s culture of entertaining escapism becomes a nightmare realm of mind control in Dreaming Under an Electric Moon by Kris Powers, a gritty and sinister sci-fi mystery.
Two agents of the nearly defunct FBI, Mason and Zahra, are given a seemingly open-and-shut murder case, but their prime suspect reveals a dark secret – the real killer was actually inside the victim’s mind, puppeteering the young boy to his death. In this tech-mad carnival mirror of America’s fractured future, citizens can escape the brutality of life by existing online in a fully immersive augmented reality, but like any digital space, the Virtual Universe can be hacked. The nanobot-wielding murderer now turns his psychotic sights on the two investigators, and mind-hackers are hard to control, let alone kill.
Recklessly pushing the boundaries of reality and imagination, this is stellar dystopian sci-fi that draws on some familiar motifs, but delivers a wholly original premise. The plot moves at a rapid clip and the prose is engaging, though clumsy or redundant dialogue sometimes undercuts the genuinely riveting storyline. Character development is also somewhat sacrificed for action sequences and story progression.
Overall, however, this is a surreal and wildly creative work of science fiction – an epic murder mystery with existential consequences and a cautionary tale for our contemporary world.
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