Becoming Real

by Sean Fenian

Michael Hagerty—GhostRayder, to his fans—reviewed video games and made game videos for a living. He was intimately familiar with virtual worlds. They were his everyday bread and butter. He was quite certain he understood very clearly the lines of demarcation between game and reality, between what was physical, and what was virtual. What was real, and what was not.

Then one day, not long after he reviewed a newly released VR open-world adventure game, a mystery source sent him a modified version of the game, and asked him to go back in and try it again.

Michael would soon find out, amid a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek with shady multinational corporations and shadowy government agencies, that the question of real or virtual, human or not, was far more nuanced and less clear-cut than he had ever believed possible.

••••••

Sean Fenian's, Becoming Real is an exploration of the natures of humanity and reality.

Or perhaps it's a commentary on some of the blind spots of video game design.

Or perhaps it's an SF postmodern love story with a twist.

Or perhaps, it's all of these things… and more.

Becoming Real may be about Michael Hagerty… but it's not really about Michael Hagerty.

••••••

This eBook is © 2025, Sean Fenian and Fenian House Publishing. It has been constructed to be fully compliant with HTML5, CSS3, and the EPUB 3.3 specification.

Published by Fenian House Publishing

225 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 19, 2025

About the author

Sean Fenian is a generalist and open-source evangelist who is tired of several decades of working in the information technology sector. He is broadly knowledgeable in many subjects, with a long-standing informed layman’s interest in physics and related science in particular. He has been an avid reader of SF and fantasy since his teens, and first became aware of, and began campaigning on, environmental issues in the late 1970s. He is proficient with weapons both ancient and modern, has trained in four different martial arts, and believes that understanding basic firearms safety is like knowing basic first aid, CPR, or how to use a fire extinguisher. He firmly believes that it is a basic human responsibility to treat all beings fairly and decently, and that the true measure of a person is how you treat others.

His past volunteer activities include educational historical re-enactment, marine mammal rescue, and handicapped riding therapy. He has been formally diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, but stubbornly persists in trying to understand people anyway.

He dreams many things. Occasionally, some of them become reality. But only occasionally.

Reviews

[Sean Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

The opening chapter of this really gripped me. The idea has been done before, but this is a well-executed story with a likable main character and brilliant execution. Reading the author's afterword, the idea behind RealMe's history, the whole Deep Sleep Inc plan would be an exciting novel in itself. I read it cover-to-cover and very much enjoyed.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Different strokes

If you were an AI and people were after you where could you hide??? And if you had met a real person with whom you were totally compatible with ,do you think they would help hide you??

[Andy Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hated the writing, but an interesting story nevertheless.