Old Twentieth

Haldeman, Joe. Old Twentieth. New York: Ace (hardcover), 2005. New York: Ace (pb), 2006.

Variations—done with JH's usual intelligence, elegance, and insight—on such standard SF themes as extreme longevity, with the hope of immortality; VR; generation starship; AI; a "time machine"; computer take-over; "Chinese boxes" of reality (nested realities, Russian dolls, ontological slippage); suspended animation. See for VR existence with people in worlds created by a self-aware cybernetic system, itself within the great machine of coordinated starships. (RDE, 28/08/06)