When Joseph Conrad sent his narrator into the heart of darkness, Africa was unknown territory. Revisiting the scene now, Greg Jackson dispatches his explorer to an even stranger destination: an algorithmic universe.
Jackson, a Granta Best of Young American Novelists in 2017, won prizes with his story collection Prodigals. His debut novel, The Dimensions of a Cave, could hardly be better timed. New fears about AI give it disquieting relevance. Conspiracy theories mingle with deep state corruption. Gradually it grows into a Chandleresque adventure: down these mean cyber streets a man must go. Dropped into the thick of it, the reader might get the feeling of arriving late at a party where everyone else has already been introduced.
Quentin Jones, a veteran journalist, is telling a group of old friends a mind-blowing story. After his article on the US government’s involvement in a morally murky virtual reality programme is spiked, he’s secretly approached to track down Bruce – the Kurtz figure here – who went into the programme as an observer and has vanished.
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