Halcyon Dreamworlds

by Lee R. Baldwin

In the lavish online universe, Halcyon Dreamworlds, players control exotic avatars with their thoughts alone. They experience the illusions of sight and sound, taste, smell and touch, and succumb to deeper hungers in that lawless sauna.

It's not virtual anything.

Amid gritty realities of 2029 America, Logan Fischer struggles to cleanse herself of cyber addiction as players in their millions live their innermost fantasies in the Dreamworlds. While an ultra-rich mastermind works to destroy privacy, Logan must battle free of that alluring pleasure-pit and accept the challenge to win back a world's future.

The Ultras must prevent that.

302 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 30, 2015

About the author

I've been a writer all my life (creative copywriting, tech doc, fiction from age 12) and in 2011 turned to fiction with the publication of my mystery novel, Angle of Attack - An Adventure in Aviation, Love, and Crime. I followed that up two years later with Next History - The Girl Who Hacked Tomorrow, a rather dystopian view of how a young woman rids the world of the patriarchy. By 2015 I'd published Halcyon Dreamworlds ~ enslaved by the future of desire ~ which is about people hypnotized by technology within an online virtual world where the feelings are real and death is a fact of life.

Now I'm writing Spec Fic short stories about the coming consciousness of smart machines, and finishing a new novel, Savage Genesis, Book One, which explores a possible origin of life. The implications of where did we come from are always present in my writing.

As I sit here right now, I am trying (again) to figure out how to market my books. In 2012 I thought I knew. Now, in 2019 I don't know zip.

At bottom, I require anything I publish to be a good STORY first, and then good at whatever genre target I'm shooting for.

Reviews

[Marian Thorpe]

Imagine a world not too distant from our own, where the current research into neurological bridging between human minds and computers has become a reality....a two-way reality. The entertainment-industrial complex, run by the rich elite of the world, sees the potential for complete mind control, bringing the mass of workers into line through implanting ideas and reactions into the brains of all participants in the virtual reality game Halcyon Dreamworlds, through the simulation's neurological controller. As Halcyon Dreamworlds is already the escapist alternative to the drudgery of daily life for many, if not most, of the population, there seems little to stand in the way of this plan.

Logan Fischer, big-box-store drudge with a past marked by failures she'd like to forget, is one of those whose alternative life in Halcyon Dreamworlds is more appealing to her than her reality. She is nearly swept away entirely into the glittering, decadent sexuality of the simulations, until her one trusted friend and family member is found dead...and the cause may be the neurological bridge, the 'spider', that links his brain directly with the computer program. Devastated by this loss, Logan finds herself being drawn deeper and deeper into the converging worlds of the police investigation and the lives of the elite who control Halcyon Dreamworlds, and who count no cost to great in their bid for world domination.

Fast-paced and complex, Halcyon Dreamworlds is believable science fiction, raising questions about technology that are relevant and challenging. Author Lee Baldwin's background as a human interface designer in Silicon Valley no doubt adds to the veracity of the technology and its potential. The political issues in the background of the novel are the political issues of today, if more extreme, also adding to the sense of possible reality. There are no huge dystopic events here, only the expansion of climate change, the decline of the middle class, and an increasing isolationism in the West.

Baldwin uses language effectively, with a flair for description and dialogue. Characters are complex, with the main characters presented as more than stock figures, and in the case of the protagonist Logan, with a back-story which shapes her actions.

If I have one niggle it was the novel's pacing, which I found to be a bit uneven, not quite hitting the right balance for me between world-building and narrative action. Production quality was good; I noted one mis-placed comma in the Kindle version I read. Overall, 4 stars for a thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking story.

Review by Goodreads Author Marian Thorpe Empire's Daughter and Spinnings: Brief Fantasies in Prose and Verse

The author provided me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

[G M Lawrence]

This is not a litrpg

Is ok I guess it is just not a litrpg it is a story about a company that has a virtual reality program that can be very addictive like with drug usage not a game world book.