Durval Menezes’s Reviews > The Persistence of Vision > Status Update

"The Persistence of Vision": I've mixed feelings about this story. Eponymous with the book, it's not Science Fiction by any measure, despite being certainly speculative -- more like a 'social experiment' story. It's about a restless person (the protagonist) finding utopia; about Language (note the big L) and how it not only conditions how we see the world but how a society can organize around it. Fantastic, 4.5/5.

"Overdrawn at the Memory Bank": this must be one of the pioneer stories about Virtual Reality and brain-computer interfaces. And it has aged well, at the present time when many of its then-speculations are turning into reality, it still reads as a fresh and interesting tale. My rating: 4/5.

"In the Bowl": humans settling in Venus, from the perspective of a crash tourist on a clock looking to make a buck. Touches on a subject that would be (rightfully) considered taboo in today's culture (sexual interest between a very mature 13-year old girl and an adult man, initiated/instigated by the girl and resisted by the guy). Interesting ideas like force-field suits and crystal-based life forms. 3.5/5 stars.

"In The Hall of the Martian Kings": great short story, reads a bit like "The Martian" by Weir, but completely different. Also a First Contact story but in a very unexpected way. Ending was a bit 'meh ', partly b/c of a big time jump right before it (and therefore too little space to explain the latest happenings, leaving them a little 'in the air), plus a minor suspension of disbelief issue. Even so, rating 4.5/5.

"The Black Hole Passes": amazing tale about a First Contact of the SETI variety. Good hypothesis as to why we haven't heard from any alien civilizations so far. Mix it with black holes as a source of both danger and riches, plus the sexual tension between lovers that have never met but see each other every day, and you have a good description for this story. Rating 4.5/5.

See previous note.

"Retrograde Summer": the complexities of family life in an interplanetary society where traveling to Pluto takes 9 days, multiple sex changes are common, ditto cloning, fatherhood is little more than insemination, and children can divorce their mothers. To top of off, the author adds a prediction about Mercury that was only confirmed recently -- doesn't feel like 1970s SciFi but rather much more recent. Rating: 4/5.

"The Phantom of Kansas": interesting concepts (what did it mean to be "me", backing up people's minds and restoring them on cloned bodies when they die, what is "art", to mention just a few". The narrative is also nicely done. The ending is a little 'meh', but well, you can't have everything -- my rating is 3.5 for this one.

Started reading this. Was recommended by Samuel R. "Chip" Delaney, as part of an interview he gave to Heavy Metal Magazine publicaciones on their 1983/01 issue, at p.7.