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Mark Fabi's debut novel slips nicely into the space between cyberpunk, yesterday's hot SF sub-genre, and the newest emerging sub-genre, the millennium apocalypse novel. I suppose if you're going to mix your genres, you could certainly do a lot worse. The novel follows Michael Arcangelo (as in Archangel Michael, as in the herald of the Apocalypse), a computer virus hunter and gaming expert, as he accepts a job debugging the Goodnight system, a chess machine designed to beat the world's grandmasters.

Except, of course, this is no ordinary virus. Soon it begins popping up in systems across the globe -- and revealing an alarming sense of growing self-awareness. Michael tracks the virus back to the mysterious hacker and game designer Roger Dworkin, who created it for use in an online MUD (multi-user dungeon) so real it could kill. Eventually Michael and his team must enter the now-lethal game, in a race against time to stop a virus that has seized control of the Internet and threatens to cause a Millennium Crash that will bring new meaning to the phrase.

WYRM is an intriguing foray into the state of the art of computer technology. What begins as a virus hunt leads to a sensory roller-coaster ride on the Internet. Plunging the depths of various mythologies, Mark Fabi presents us with a sharply-realized picture of Fantasy Role Playing on the Web. The first time the role-playing element was introduced it was almost like reading a separate book, yet it quickly blended with the main storyline. The dialog is witty and intelligent, and I lost count of the number of times I laughed aloud.

WYRM offers up heady speculation into the nature of the mind, and how it might lead to artificial intelligence. What I like most about this book is the smooth mix of seemingly unrelated disciplines. Somehow hacking, FRP, AI, and mythology all come together.

If I say anymore, I'm afraid I will ruin the story. Read it.

Steven MacDonald developed an abiding interest in the Fantasy/SF genre at the tender age of 14, when he chanced upon a copy of Analog. He's lived on a steady diet of F&SF ever since.