Reality bites

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/04/2025 (216 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In Seattle-based science fiction writer Daryl Gregory’s latest novel, he takes the popular genre trope of humanity being part of a computerized simulation and presents it in one of the most absurd yet mundane settings — an American bus tour.

When We Were Real opens with a handy seating chart with a list of who’s on the bus: the driver, guide and tourists including an engineer, comic book writer, nurse, same-sex honeymooners, a pair of nuns, a rabbi and a pregnant influencer, among others.

Gregory also presents an itinerary for the North American Impossibles Tour — a trip through several strange oddities that appeared seven years earlier, at the same time everyone learned that their lives, and the world they lived in, were all a simulation.

When the Announcement came and let people know about their reality (or lack thereof), it was followed by the Freakout — years of confusion, suicides and shootings. But, seven years later, most have just accepted their virtual reality. Some try to make sense of it, while others take it in stride.

The tour group includes both those looking for deeper meaning and those looking for a good time.

The pregnant influencer wants her child to be the first born in an Impossible, thus becoming too famous to be deleted.

The many characters are a bit hard to keep track of at first, but once the story gets moving it’s easy to sink into Gregory’s strange story, which perfectly blends humour, philosophical musing and action.

The Impossibles are imaginative, whimsical and defy physics, and it’s easy to believe people would want to travel to see them up close. There is a “frozen” tornado, a flock of live hollow sheep and perfectly timed “Geysers of Mystery.” Part of the book’s appeal is wondering what the next Impossible will offer, right up to the group’s final stop at Ghost City.

The most intriguing of the lot is the Tunnel, which people can spend months in by themselves, all while “real” time doesn’t pass, and the Zipper, a gravity-defying gorge where people can walk fields or raft through water, even while on the gorge’s sides.

At one of the early tour stops, Jean-Pierre and Dulin, the engineer and comic book writer (and best friends) meet an on-the-run woman named Gillian, who convinces them to let her join the tour, despite clearly having a secret, and potentially dangerous, motivation.

Cue a few tour romances, an accident on one of the tour stops and more secret motivations to make a fun, fast-paced journey through a surreal American landscape.

Gregory has written several sci-fi novels and a few comic book series.

His work has won several genre awards and he currently has two books in development for television. The wild imagery of the Impossibles could also make for great TV in the right hands.

If you’re unfamiliar with Gregory, When We Were Real makes for a great introduction to his work. It can be a bit confusing at times, but overall it is imaginative and a lot of fun.

Alan MacKenzie is a Winnipeg-based writer.