Article: Virtual afterlife leads edgy new stories

Imagine the afterlife: angelic choirs, harps, wings and maybe even God. Now visualize eternity as a virtual reality brought to you by "Disney-Mitsubishi"--and welcome to hell.

This dystopia is the premise of "In Xanadu," by Thomas M. Disch, one of the superb stories in Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction, edited by Al Sarrantonio (Roc, $24.95). It's the best collection of new science fiction in recent memory.

"Xanadu" uses verses from

Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" to head mini-chapters exploring how virtual reality can substitute for life after death. Your mind is recorded, and after you die it's fed into a hard disk "heaven."

Beware the fine print, though. In Disch's vision, ...

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