More Words, Deeper Hole

I recently reread "Press Enter []", which I imprinted on pretty hard when I first read it as a teen, and found that it was just as powerful and just as flawed as I remembered. The tech gobbledegook is nonsensical (even for the mid-80s), as is the premise. The race aspects are as peculiar as you would expect for a white guy writing about an Asian woman as the romantic interest for a white man who was brainwashed in the Korean War; Varley's clearly trying his very best, but his very best isn't quite good enough to distinguish between "this is my character's racism" and "this is my racism", nor to explain why Lisa and Victor would have any romantic or sexual interest in each other at all. And I found Victor's psychological and emotional struggles, and his quite justified descent into deep paranoia, absolutely gripping. The last line makes no sense at all and it basically doesn't matter.

So for me it was worth rereading, but it might not be for you.