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Our Cyber World #9
Virtual Identity
She claims someone has framed her, only to discover her virtual self has taken over her life…
Sandra Tomek has been renditioned. Under interrogation for scheming to illegally export computer technology to foreign nationals, she discovers she’s been hacked. Someone has stolen her identity. Someone has cloned every bit of who she is, and that someone is running her life using her virtual version. To exonerate herself, Sandra agrees to cooperate with the government investigation as a double agent. But her efforts to chase down her virtual clone will reveal a far bigger hoax and will make her question her very self—her very identity.
Sandra Tomek has been renditioned. Under interrogation for scheming to illegally export computer technology to foreign nationals, she discovers she’s been hacked. Someone has stolen her identity. Someone has cloned every bit of who she is, and that someone is running her life using her virtual version. To exonerate herself, Sandra agrees to cooperate with the government investigation as a double agent. But her efforts to chase down her virtual clone will reveal a far bigger hoax and will make her question her very self—her very identity.
- GenresScience Fiction
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 30, 2016
8 people are currently reading
194 people want to read
About the author
Eduardo Suastegui
24 books78 followersEduardo Suastegui has loved to daydream since he was a child. With formal education in math and science, affirmed through hands-on engineering experience in designing, building, and integrating gadgets of varying complexity, that daydreaming fed technological innovation. On the side, it also fueled artistic expression.
Of late that daydreaming has engendered stories about hackers, rogue AIs, and space travel, with more than a few stories about a dog trainer and her military K9s sprinkled in. Rumor has it he may even have a Western or two in him.
Eduardo loves to dive into fast-flowing, character-driven stories. With each of the books he reads or writes, he hopes to continue that adventure. For him, a great story is one that moves ahead, but which also moves you. More than anything, through his writing he hopes to connect with readers and so share a piece of himself with those who pick up all that daydreaming turned into written words.
Of late that daydreaming has engendered stories about hackers, rogue AIs, and space travel, with more than a few stories about a dog trainer and her military K9s sprinkled in. Rumor has it he may even have a Western or two in him.
Eduardo loves to dive into fast-flowing, character-driven stories. With each of the books he reads or writes, he hopes to continue that adventure. For him, a great story is one that moves ahead, but which also moves you. More than anything, through his writing he hopes to connect with readers and so share a piece of himself with those who pick up all that daydreaming turned into written words.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 9, 2016
This book was sent to me in exchange for an honest review and since I am one of his ARC readers had the privilege to review this one as well.
Who is Sandra...who is Rod...Who is Cynthia and what what do they all have to do with the virtual world...these are just a few questions that you will find when you read this book and will they walk out or stay in the world that was created with twists and turns in every direction who is to be trusted and who should you run from...hopefully you will find that out when you read this and hopefully you will enjoy it...happy reading
Who is Sandra...who is Rod...Who is Cynthia and what what do they all have to do with the virtual world...these are just a few questions that you will find when you read this book and will they walk out or stay in the world that was created with twists and turns in every direction who is to be trusted and who should you run from...hopefully you will find that out when you read this and hopefully you will enjoy it...happy reading
February 20, 2016
Remember at the end of eXistenZ, the 1999 movie starring Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law, walking away from that final scene being unsure if it was yet another stage in the virtual reality presentation? Jude Law's character, the "virtual reality virgin" Ted Pikul, was pulled and shoved from one insanity to the next by his ignorance of whether he was in a real world or in the virtual reality game.
The entire story of Sandra Tomek and Rodrigo Ochoa in Virtual Identity has that same "still in the game" flavor.
You know the queasy thrill when the dead Brian O'Blivion showed up for a TV interview in 1983's Videodrome with Debbie Harry and James Woods? The appearance of the virtually-real, yet physically-deceased professor marked the point in the movie when what you knew was real started to spin out of your grasp. In Virtual Identity, that point occurs somewhere around the middle of Chapter Two. The James Woods character in Videodrome, Max Renn, at least has his Harlan, with a condescending "Patronne," to tell him why he has lost the boundary between reality and television.
Sandra Tomek has no such clue; she has slipped from a real existence to the shifting sands of virtual reality with scarcely a murmur of explanation. In fact, the core story-line of the novel seems to be her search for any stable, truly-real place to stand. Is Rod Ochoa an antagonist? a reluctant co-conspirator? a boyfriend caught in the same sting as Sandra herself? Is Sandra herself the villain, a terrorist-traitor selling secrets, or the innocent pawn of a cloned virtual self? Perhaps she is something entirely unsuspected, defined by shadowy "others" who have trapped her in this VR simulation.
Each new turn in the tale brings Sandra closer to madness, insanity of the kind that Max Renn or Ted Pikul would well understand:
The ongoing confusion about what is real and what is part of the VR simulation, for the reader no less than for Sandra, draws you along. You want to resolve the mystery. You want to find the edible core of this artichoke you are peeling leaf by pointed leaf, but each new layer reveals only another spiny conundrum. At one point, Sandra expresses her frustration with the impossibility of recognizing "real" reality while still wrapped in the haze of virtual-reality madness. What's wrong? she asks Rod. How would we even know?
This is Volume 9 in the Our Cyber World series, and it includes characters we've met before. The focus is so inward, though, that you scarcely need to be familiar with them to be enmeshed in Sandra's internal quest for identity. In the end, she may find a place to be herself.
How real that terminal identity may be, however, is left as an exercise for the reader.
The entire story of Sandra Tomek and Rodrigo Ochoa in Virtual Identity has that same "still in the game" flavor.
You know the queasy thrill when the dead Brian O'Blivion showed up for a TV interview in 1983's Videodrome with Debbie Harry and James Woods? The appearance of the virtually-real, yet physically-deceased professor marked the point in the movie when what you knew was real started to spin out of your grasp. In Virtual Identity, that point occurs somewhere around the middle of Chapter Two. The James Woods character in Videodrome, Max Renn, at least has his Harlan, with a condescending "Patronne," to tell him why he has lost the boundary between reality and television.
Sandra Tomek has no such clue; she has slipped from a real existence to the shifting sands of virtual reality with scarcely a murmur of explanation. In fact, the core story-line of the novel seems to be her search for any stable, truly-real place to stand. Is Rod Ochoa an antagonist? a reluctant co-conspirator? a boyfriend caught in the same sting as Sandra herself? Is Sandra herself the villain, a terrorist-traitor selling secrets, or the innocent pawn of a cloned virtual self? Perhaps she is something entirely unsuspected, defined by shadowy "others" who have trapped her in this VR simulation.
Each new turn in the tale brings Sandra closer to madness, insanity of the kind that Max Renn or Ted Pikul would well understand:
It made her think about who she was, or thought she was, or believed she ought to be, or others expected her to be. Could she or anyone else identify the real Sandra? Did such a person even exist?
The ongoing confusion about what is real and what is part of the VR simulation, for the reader no less than for Sandra, draws you along. You want to resolve the mystery. You want to find the edible core of this artichoke you are peeling leaf by pointed leaf, but each new layer reveals only another spiny conundrum. At one point, Sandra expresses her frustration with the impossibility of recognizing "real" reality while still wrapped in the haze of virtual-reality madness. What's wrong? she asks Rod. How would we even know?
This is Volume 9 in the Our Cyber World series, and it includes characters we've met before. The focus is so inward, though, that you scarcely need to be familiar with them to be enmeshed in Sandra's internal quest for identity. In the end, she may find a place to be herself.
How real that terminal identity may be, however, is left as an exercise for the reader.
February 17, 2016
I alpha-read this; it appealed to me as a puzzle-piece and the final product provides plenty of material to chew over. The virtual reality concept has enormous potential for nested-doll trickery and it's thoroughly exploited.
February 26, 2019
Disjointed, no plot, no outcome
Difficult book to read, as there is no timeline, reader getting as confused as the protagonist as to what is real, what is virtual. I must have missed the deep philosophical implications, it just felt like a giant waste of time.
There is only one character who is wasted and out of it most of the time..the other actors weave in and out, and you can never tell who is real, so everything ends up disconnected.
Difficult book to read, as there is no timeline, reader getting as confused as the protagonist as to what is real, what is virtual. I must have missed the deep philosophical implications, it just felt like a giant waste of time.
There is only one character who is wasted and out of it most of the time..the other actors weave in and out, and you can never tell who is real, so everything ends up disconnected.
February 22, 2016
While ultimately a think piece about how technology designed to save us work can turn around and bite us in the butt, this Cyber thriller is an action movie waiting to be made.
Much like the film "Inception", the virtual reality as portrayed in "Virtual Identity", can play havoc with even the sharpest of minds like the protagonist in this cautionary tale.
Throw in a dash of government agents overstepping their bounds in the interest of "protecting us" and you'll find this novel can entertain as well as warn about the possible downside to too much tech in the not so near future.
*Note: written after reading a review copy of book.
Much like the film "Inception", the virtual reality as portrayed in "Virtual Identity", can play havoc with even the sharpest of minds like the protagonist in this cautionary tale.
Throw in a dash of government agents overstepping their bounds in the interest of "protecting us" and you'll find this novel can entertain as well as warn about the possible downside to too much tech in the not so near future.
*Note: written after reading a review copy of book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews