(no subject)

I recently finished reading Donald J. Bingle’s first novel, Forced Conversion. It’s a well-written SF action book, but unfortunately I found the ending unsatisfying. The basic premise for this near-future yarn was that everybody on Earth was being forcibly “converted” – uploaded into a virtual reality matrix. The logic was that, since the virtual denizens were vulnerable to physical interference, and resources were limited, society couldn’t let the isolated few run amuck.

I had two problems with the story. First, and somewhat of a minor point, there is a situation where a character who’s been uploaded can’t be in two VR worlds at once. I didn’t understand this – once you convert something to a binary stream, you can replicate it anywhere.

My second problem is that, in the end, all the action of the story was for naught, which is all I can say without spoiling the plot. Overall, well-written but not terribly satisfying.