Mirage by F. Paul Wilson and Matthew J. Costello Disappoints on Many Levels

Since discovering (and devouring) the Repairman Jack series by Libertarian author F. Paul Wilson I've been seeking out his other fictional novels and short stories as well. I suppose he deserves significant credit for the fact that, despite the variety of tales he has told, I was more than halfway through his more than forty novels before I found one that was disappointing. Even then, the book is not entirely his own, but was co-authored by Matthew J. Costello, probably best known as the scripter of the mid-90s video games The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour.

Mirage tells the tale of Julie Gordon, a 28 year old research scientist who is so dedicated to her work that she has neither time nor space in her life for anything else, including her family. And fascinating work it is. You see, Julie has created an amazing virtual reality program that allows her to enter the memories of her subjects and display their "memoryscape" as a computer-enhanced 3D world through which she may journey at will, uncovering the past as perceived by her subject. When Julie receives word that her estranged twin sister, Samantha, has lapsed into a mysterious coma it doesn't take long for her to pack up her equipment and fly overseas to try and discover what's gone wrong in her sister's brain despite the still experimental nature of her invention.

While exploring Sam's post-apocalyptic memoryscape, Julie soon learns far more about her sister than she ever wanted to know. Then it doesn't take long for her to start unraveling family mysteries that she never realized existed. As Julie begins to manifest a physical presence within her sister's damaged psyche it doesn't take long for her to realize that Sam's life may not be the only one in jeopardy.

Even as I typed that description of the book I once again got excited to explore this tale myself, just as when I first came across a copy of this decade old book. Unfortunately, the reality of reading the tale didn't do justice to the story's basic summary. I'm not exactly sure where the book started to fall apart, but I do know that, for me, the use of a second persona viewpoint narrative during Julie's explorations in the mindscape were not conducive to getting lost in the story. Obviously penned primarily by Matthew J. Costello, the scenes read like a video game play-by-play. I assume this was intended by the authors as a way to heighten the self-visualization of the memoryscape as interactive media, but all it did was detract from the unfolding story.

Additionally, that story turned out to be far less compelling than any previous F. Paul Wilson tale I've encountered thus far. It's not so much that nothing interesting happens in Mirage - it has as many twists and turns as any similar work - it's just that all the 'surprises' seem to be heavily telegraphed. Despite having heard nothing of the tale besides the jacket copy there was not a single surprise in the reading. The story of the Gordon twins is, indeed, a fascinating one, but it's always disappointing to finish a book with the thought "I could have told this story better" rattling through one's brain.