Tuesday, May 22, 2018

Six of the scariest fictional digital viruses

Sam Reader is a writer and conventions editor for The Geek Initiative. He also writes literary criticism and reviews at strangelibrary.com. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog he tagged six terrifying fictional digital viruses and plagues, including:
Zen (Virology, by Ren Warom)

Due to the chaotic, bizarre nature of Warom’s new weird/cyberpunk thriller, it might not be quite correct to call Zen a virus. An engineered goddess imprisoned inside a polar bear that might also be an extension of her soul (I said it was chaotic and bizarre), Zen uses her viral nature to hack into the citizens of the megacity of Foon Gung and use them as her personal puppets. To make matters worse, she also infects their avatars in the Slip, a combination artificial-reality and collective subconscious, meaning she owns her infectees mind, body, and soul. It’s an insidious touch that makes Zen’s ability to unleash zombies on her enemies that much worse—knowing she’s using her godlike powers to infect a person in ways that can’t easily be cured.
Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue