Introduction to Solace
“Solace” concerns the transmission of virtual-reality scenarios from one person’s mind directly to another’s. Because Gardner Dozois wrote it, it’s a superb story: compelling, horrifying, provocative. It is also instructive about the growth of science fiction over the last several decades.
The virtual-reality machine goes back at least as far as Isaac Asimov’s 1955 story “Dreaming Is A Private Thing.” In that story, the future that spawned “dreamies” looks pretty much like the present. Only the machine itself is added. Dozois’ future, in contrast, is multi-layered and different. Casually mentioned details accumulate, creating a rich, bleak surround for the story: “the bus stopped to take on methane.” “Somewhere out there a killer satellite had found its prey.” A hologram of Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi. A Santa Fe comprising adobe buildings, “mock adobe buildings,” and megastructures of “terraces and tetrahedrons.” Cambodian immigrant children chattering in Spanish. Here is a future complex enough to inhabit.
And we do. The Asimov story describes story events, and we observe them with interest. In the Dozois story, we live the events. Again through the rich use of matter-of-fact detail, we feel as if we’re riding that ramshackle bus beside Kleisterman, eating at that Santa Fe greasy spoon. We taste it, smell it, feel it in our bones.
But the largest difference between the 1955 and 1990 stories go much deeper. In “Dreaming Is a Private Thing” the protagonist faces several problems: recruiting new talent to create “dreamies,” possible government censorship due to dreamies being (gasp!) used as porn, and a star dreamer wanting to quit. In “Solace” the protagonist faces himself, and he . . . No, I won’t spoil it for you. But it’s a problem far more troubling and terrifying than employee relations.
The Asimov story seeks to entertain us, and it succeeds admirably. It is still, after nearly fifty years, fun to read. But the Dozois story is after more. It forces us to confront ourselves, and this depth of effect, plus the masterly use of detail, marks the best SF of today. It illustrates how far the field has come.
Plus, of course, illustrating the genius of Gardner Dozois.
Nancy Kress