"He's dead, Jim"

"He's dead, Jim."  Or so said Leonard McCoy on a number of Star Trek episodes.  It's one of the few examples of "geek" culture that my wife and I share in conversation.  But if McCoy was talking about the citizens (denizens?) of Elysian Fields in Bruce Balfour's The Digital Dead, the phrase would carry with it layers of meaning.

I've said that The Digital Dead is one of those books that I abandoned reading.  I gave it another try, however, and I'm glad I did. Sure, The Digital Dead has more subplots "than Carter has little liver pills."  The focus of the story is on a commercial enterprise, Elysian Fields, that gives digital copies of people a virtual reality afterlife.  Of course, this technological power is misused.  And so we have nefarious politicians, teleportation gates, extremely dangerous manifestations of AI, archaeology, alien culture, and more chase scenes and gunfights and sabotage than many thrillers.  And since this is a sequel to The Forge of Mars, we have Tau Wolfsinger again as the main character, with his Navajo background and religious beliefs.

Yes, I had a bit of trouble keeping all this straight, but I still thought it was a decent book.  The author clearly set things up for a continuation of the story, but I haven't found one that he's written.  (Prometheus Road was not it.)

Author's websites, for reference:
Bruce Balfour
The Forge of Mars