Phantasma Vid

by Erik C. Banks

Behind the scenes of the store Phantasma Vid, and its collection of stories, a race of super beings gets ready to pass down a slightly used universe to its heirs, barely driven, a few dents and scanning lines, a real bargain at 15 billion light years! A wild romp though the Universe.

Genres: Science Fiction

130 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 17, 2011

About the author

Erik C. Banks is Professor of Philosophy at Wright State University, with a focus in history and philosophy of science. He also has interests in history of physics, American literature, languages, fine art, Kant and science fiction. His first book Ernst Mach's World Elements appeared in 2003 and his second book The Realistic Empiricism of Mach, James, and Russell: Neutral Monism Reconceived appeared in 2014.

Reviews

[Zachary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating series of vignettes that manages to fold itself in to a bizarre meta-narrative. The contents of this book represent what I consider to be one of the most enjoyable elements of science fiction short stories. Brain candy. A bevy of jewels await to be picked at, twisted around, and toyed with for those of adequate curiosity and imagination. A distinctly enjoyable read.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the interest of full disclosure, I knew the author of this book and he has recently passed away. That said, part of the reason I hadn't previously read this book was I was afraid I wouldn't like it and then would be expected to write a review of it. I can't pretend to like things that I just don't like. It's not in my skill set. I now wish I had read it earlier so I could have discussed it with him, but in hindsight I regret a lot of things.

So, this book is kind of an homage to one of those forms you saw in new wave science fiction, the "fix-up novel." This kind of novel wasn't limited to science fiction but in the 50s and 60s there were a lot of outlets for short fiction, but publishing short fiction in book form was still a risky commercial venture. So, authors would contrive ways of making their collections of short fiction look like a novel.

This book is definitely conscious of the tradition it is operating in, and has a meta-fictional element to it. I'm not sure all the stories stand up on their own without the connective tissue, but some of them would, and within the context of the meta-story they all work pretty well.

If there was one word to describe this book it would be fun. There is a lot of playing with the tropes and philosophical concepts that were present in new wave science fiction and any fan of that period of sci-fi is going to get a kick out of it.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a lot longer to finish this than I had planned. A very interesting read overall. I've already recommended it to a few people.

[Bonnie Dale Keck · Rating 4 out of 5]

kindle unlimited, interesting but a bit disjointed in places to me, would have given it a lower rating but since had to keep stopping to do 'chores' and such wouldn't have been fair since usually able to read straight thru a book and that might have been part of issue

Behind the scenes of Phantasma Vid, and its collection of quirky stories, a race of super beings gets ready to pass down a slightly used universe to its heirs, "barely driven, a few dents and scanning lines, a real bargain at 15 billion light years." A metafictional romp through the universe, the mean streets of 80s New York and beyond.