When We Were Real by Daryl Gregory - Book Review


When We Were Real 

by Daryl Gregory

"When We Were Real" by Daryl Gregory is a madcap adventure that follows two friends on a cross-country bus tour through the mind-boggling glitches in their simulated world.

Earth as we know it has changed. It turns out that we're all in a simulation. This was announced to every human on the planet one day in 2017. Since that day strange anomalies, dubbed "Impossibles", have appeared all over the world. Simulation or not, there's money to be made so enterprising companies have started their own coach tour, for a tidy sum!

JP, suffering with a brain tumour, is convinced by his best friend, Dulin, to take one of these coach trips across the USA to see the pick of the crop when it comes to America's Impossibles. Joining them are a couple of nuns, a rabbi, a heavily pregnant influencer, a conspiracy-busting film maker and his son and a bunch of 80 year olds who believe they are living each day over and over...even though they most obviously are not. And a woman on the run from the FBI, who may just be in contact with a being from the future.

I really enjoyed this take on a road trip novel. It was fun and got more and more ridiculous as the book progressed but not in a way that wound you up. The impossibles were interesting and I would love to see another book in this universe to see what other things the Simmers have created.





 

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