Mirage

Julie Gordon, a leading research scientist at the age of 27, has created the most exciting virtual reality program ever—a computer-enhanced, 3D voyage into the mind. When she receives the news that her estranged twin sister Samantha is in a coma, she realizes that her sister is dying, and no one can determine the cause. Now, the only thing that can save her sister is Julie's experimental program. Julie must enter her sister's mind and confront the evil lurking within—before it destroys them both. Publishers Weekly Novelist Wilson (The Select) and CD-ROM scriptwriter Costello (The 7th Guest) take the reader on a high-tech voyage to the brain centers of human memory in this vivid cyber-medical thriller. Julie Gordon, a 28-year-old New York neurophysiologist, is pulled away from a breakthrough research project investigating memory via virtual reality technology when she gets an anxious call from her uncle in France. Her estranged twin sister, Samantha, has fallen into an unexplainable coma and seems to be dying, though she does not have a discernible illness. Julie agrees to use "memoryscape," the spectacular computer program she helped create, to search the minefield of her sister's memory. As Julie already knows, both sisters' history is irrevocably scarred by visions of the tragic house fire that killed their parents 23 years ago. But even more secrets haunt the pair. Now, returning to England with Sam and her uncle in a desperate effort to help her sister recover, the secrets Julie didn't know are revealed. Ultimately, Julie's entire identity is called into question as she confronts the possibility that the twins' careful liberal education may have been an elaborate experiment on the human brain. The virtual reality sequences in the novel provide stunningly surreal images, compensating for a plot steeped in melodrama. Although the revelatory conclusion may disappoint some readers as too contrived, others may see it as shocking, and most will be entertained by the med-tech details along the way. (Nov.) Dr. Julia Gordon, 28, designs a virtual reality program that "sees" memories. Her hope is to adapt this technology for Alzheimer's research. Little does she realize that she will experiment on a subject closer to home. Julie's estranged identical twin sister, Sam, lies inexplicably comatose. Their Uncle Eathan, who reared them from age six, begs for help. Using her VR program, Julie tries to "see" the cause, but Sam's memoryscape is devastated. Further, Julie has sensory perception within Sam. What she uncovers is deeply troubling: her father and Eathan were identical twins; her father was a neurochemist who experimented on Julie and Sam to further his unacceptable research; and her father was sterile. Suddenly, she understands that she and her sister are in deadly danger Dedicated young Julie Gordon has no time for anything except her work. A leading research scientist at just twenty-eight, Julie has created the most exciting virtual reality program ever: a computer-enhanced, 3-D voyage into a subject's mind, where memories become a surreal landscape of people, places, and events from the past. The memoryscape is a disturbing, exciting place, where the erotic mixes with the innocent, the mysterious with the mundane. The program is still