Daddy's World, by Walter Jon Williams (2001)

Daddy's World reminded me of Philip K. Dick's Ubik, in a very good way. It does nothing new, and there is almost no jargon that can distinguish it from the kind of pre-cyberpunk SF being written in the 70s, which is probably for the best, and adds to the immediacy of the story. The story is narrated from the perspective of a child, and as it is with such things, Jamie, our protagonist, falls squarely within a larger, time tested tradition of using child narrators and protagonists in SF. This has several advantages, since the kind of pure wonder you'd expect a certain kind of SF to exude is best experienced through the eyes of someone who is most vulnerable to it. Jamie is stuck in a wonderland of his father's making, but everything goes downhill when he is made aware that the wonderland isn't real. Which begs that age old question: if you were happy before, and won't ever be as happy later in the knowledge of a greater truth, is that greater truth worth knowing in exchange for that happiness? Not an easy theme, and far greater writers than Williams have tackled this theme and come away ambiguously, but Williams himself does a brilliant job, and it's as good a fictional meditation on death, virtuality and childhood that I have read.

Bears comparison to: The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe

Rating: ****/5 stars

Year: 2001