Perfect State

[sawyl]

Another short read for the Hugos. This time it's Brandon Sanderson's Perfect State.

Perfect State opens with an account of an absurd fantasy world from Kairominas the First, Alornia's god-emperor. But it quickly becomes clear that the world is a simulated reality, that everyone but Kai is a machineborn simulation, and that Kai himself is just a brain in a box. Under orders from the mysterious Wode, Kai agrees to travel to a consensual reality to meet a liveborn so that he can father a child. Annoyed at the prospect, Kai orders Besk, his chancellor, to pick the least compatible woman on the Wode's list.

Crossing into the new reality, a noir-world that seems deeply alien, Kai meets Sophie, his date, turns out to be unexpected intriguing. When the city of Maltese is attacked by a giant robot dispatched by Melhi, Kai's great and enduring nemesis, the pair come up with a fiendish plan that involves hacking the simulation to make Kai's Lancing magic work against the colossal mechano-man. Needless to say, all is not what it seems, and Kai learns a lesson which helps him finally grow up.

I wasn't sure what to make of Perfect State at first but it quickly becomes apparent that Sanderson's tongue is firmly planted in his cheek. Thus Kai's fantasy world with its ridiculous system of magic that uses the Grand Aurora to power something called Lancing and Lancesight — a power that Kai has devoted his life to studying. Or Sophie who, despite her feminist protestations, dresses like a femme fatale and peels her clothes on a rooftop in a storm.

The central question the book poses about whether simulation is better than reality is interesting but familiar from Descartes to the Matrix. Kai's final answer, which essentially seems to be that you can still grow as a person despite a completely artificial environment, is an interesting take on the problem, especially because the ending is open enough to allow the reader to impose their own ideas on the shape of things to come.