Dervish is Digital
Pat Cadigan
Pan, paperback, 230 pages, £5.99
Published October 2001
ISBN 0330391070
Review by Mike Don (2001)

In Virtual Reality, as in the real world, a police officer’s lot is not a happy one. Tracking down criminals in VR and, even worse, obtaining usable evidence in what is really an entirely illusory experience, proves a near-literal headache for Cadigan’s put upon returning character Detective Dore Konstantin.

The VR environment in Dervish is Digital lies somewhere between the all-encompassing computer generated experience of Gibsonian cyberspace and Neal Stephenson’s more exuberant, freewheeling approach. Here, Konstantin tangles with a demented individual who has, allegedly, turned himself into an entirely fictional entity. Her investigations involve a degree of physical effort that Nero Wolfe would find acceptable, yet plunge her into a vortex of multiple layers of virtual realities that even Philip K Dick would find daunting.

Cadigan’s dry, witty style is a delight and, although the conclusion is something of a prosaic let down, Dervish is Digital is a fine, pacey blend of crime novel and cyber thriller.