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Virtuality: A Novel
It's 2065 in Southern California. Virtuality's post-Orwellian, pre-Matrix satire is a near-future dystopia on the verge of collapse. When a mysterious hacker disrupts transmissions, four quirky misfits find out that the streaming infotainments of their customized MyndScreen™ brain implants have noxious side effects-not to mention the addictive free extruded soyalgent food that everyone's eating. Who will succumb to corporate commercialism on steroids? Who will survive the apocalypse?
392 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 25, 2025
1 person want to read
About the author
Derek Cressman
6 books93 followersDerek Cressman is an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction based in Sacramento, California. He is a graduate of the Stanford Online Certificate in Novel Writing and has served as a teaching assistance at The Writers Hotel Mini MFA conference.
Derek has testified before committees of the United States Senate, California State Assembly and Senate, and California Fair Political Practices Commission; served as an expert in federal litigation; and authored four books: Virtuality (2025), Reality(TM) 2048--Watching Big Mother (a 2019 finalist in the American Bookfest Fiction Awards and 2020 Grand Prize Short List awardee for the Eric Hoffer Book Awards) When Money Talks--The High Price of "Free" Speech and the Selling of Democracy (which received an honorable mention in the 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards for political science)and The Recall's Broken Promise--How Big Money Still Runs California Politics. His columns have appeared in Alternet, The Christian Science Monitor, The Hill, Huffington Post, Orange County Register, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, St. Louis Post Dispatch, US News and World Report, and Washington Monthly.
When he’s not writing, Derek enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters. He credits his time running marathons and mountaineering with building his fortitude to tackle obstacles of social change. He is an avid woodworker and picks at the banjo when he needs a break. Derek grew up in Colorado Springs and graduated with honors from Williams College in 1990 with a degree in political science.
Derek has testified before committees of the United States Senate, California State Assembly and Senate, and California Fair Political Practices Commission; served as an expert in federal litigation; and authored four books: Virtuality (2025), Reality(TM) 2048--Watching Big Mother (a 2019 finalist in the American Bookfest Fiction Awards and 2020 Grand Prize Short List awardee for the Eric Hoffer Book Awards) When Money Talks--The High Price of "Free" Speech and the Selling of Democracy (which received an honorable mention in the 2016 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards for political science)and The Recall's Broken Promise--How Big Money Still Runs California Politics. His columns have appeared in Alternet, The Christian Science Monitor, The Hill, Huffington Post, Orange County Register, Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News, St. Louis Post Dispatch, US News and World Report, and Washington Monthly.
When he’s not writing, Derek enjoys spending time with his wife and two daughters. He credits his time running marathons and mountaineering with building his fortitude to tackle obstacles of social change. He is an avid woodworker and picks at the banjo when he needs a break. Derek grew up in Colorado Springs and graduated with honors from Williams College in 1990 with a degree in political science.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 27, 2025
Virtuality: A Novel by Derek Cressman is a razor-sharp, darkly satirical dive into a near-future world that feels disturbingly plausible. Set in 2065 Southern California, this novel masterfully blends dystopian suspense with biting social commentary, exposing the terrifying consequences of unchecked technology, corporate control, and digital addiction.
The concept of the MyndScreen™ brain implant is chilling in its realism, customized infotainment directly injected into the mind, slowly poisoning its users without them even realizing it. The addition of addictive, synthetic food as another layer of control is brilliant world-building, making this dystopia feel both grotesque and eerily familiar. The four misfit protagonists are engaging, flawed, and deeply human, each representing a different response to a collapsing system.
With echoes of Orwell and pre-Matrix cyber dystopia, Virtuality doesn’t just entertain, it warns. It challenges readers to question consumption, autonomy, and the price of convenience in a world where everything is optimized except the soul. This is a bold, intelligent, and timely novel that deserves serious attention in the speculative fiction space.
The concept of the MyndScreen™ brain implant is chilling in its realism, customized infotainment directly injected into the mind, slowly poisoning its users without them even realizing it. The addition of addictive, synthetic food as another layer of control is brilliant world-building, making this dystopia feel both grotesque and eerily familiar. The four misfit protagonists are engaging, flawed, and deeply human, each representing a different response to a collapsing system.
With echoes of Orwell and pre-Matrix cyber dystopia, Virtuality doesn’t just entertain, it warns. It challenges readers to question consumption, autonomy, and the price of convenience in a world where everything is optimized except the soul. This is a bold, intelligent, and timely novel that deserves serious attention in the speculative fiction space.
Displaying 1 of 1 review