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The passer
Justin Cronin (Orion Books)
IN THE canon of contemporary science fiction, reality is a fragile concept. Books and movies have probed, hammered and torn the fabric of the material world to reveal countless deceptions.
Such revelations are the source of paranoid nightmares in works like The matrix, The Truman Show or William Gibson neuromancer. Then there are the more lucid deceptive fantasies in the vein of Total recall, Creation And Westworld. Elsewhere, there are stories in which utopian filters obscure harrowing truths.
In this last category you can find an equal place for the brilliant pulp of …