The Dreamer by William Hjortsberg

'The Dreamer' by William Hjortsberg

from Penthouse, February 1979

Here's a tale of proto-cyberpunk that went through some different incarnations in print media in the 1970s.

 

Hjortsberg (1941 - 2017) is perhaps best known for his 1978 horror novel 'Falling Angel,' which later was made into the 1987 film Angel Heart. His 1971 sci-fi novel 'Gray Matters,' which uses the brains-in-a-jar theme, is reviewed here. 

 

'The Dreamer,' which was published in the February, 1979 Penthouse, is an adaptation of a novelette Hjortsberg published, as a chapbook titled 'Symbiography,' in 1973.

'The Dreamer' benefits from a fine illustration from Don Ivan Punchatz:

As a spoiler-free summary, I'll say that 'The Dreamer' is set in the near future, after a catastrophe (probably nuclear war) has left much of the planet a wasteland, peopled by nomads whose lives are nasty, brutish, and short.

 

Civilization survives in the form of the City, a high-technology enclave run by a cadre of bureaucrats, who are in turn aided by sophisticated computers. Within the City, the populace take their pleasure in reliving the dreams of others, via the aid of specialized neurolink devices through which they can 'download' the dreams from the network.

 

Par Sondak is one of the small coterie of professional dreamers, whose dreams are recorded and then distributed - for profit - to the audience in the City. To enhance his dreaming experiences, Sondak resides in isolation in a well-guarded oasis of greenery in the midst of the wasteland.

 

As the novelette opens, Sondak is facing something of a crisis. Direct Experience Tapes, or DETs, are overtaking dreams as a commodity. DETs, a sort of GoPro technology as it might have been envisioned in the early 1970s, can feature all manner of experiences that are real, not dreams. And the lotus eaters in the City have a preference for DETs that feature explicit sex and violence.

 

Unless Sondak can come up with a way to compete with the DETs, his career (and its accompanying affluence) as a professional dreamer is in danger.

 

But a chance encounter with a wasteland nomad, 'Buick' of the Cincinnati clan, plants an idea in Sondak's head......

'The Dreamer' is a good mix of proto-cyberpunk with a 'Mad Max' sensibility. Its prose is clear and unadorned, the characterization of Per Sondak and his nomad acolyte adroidt, and its portrayal of a near-future society in keeping with the tenor of the early 1970s. I find 'The Dreamer' to be superior to 'Gray Matters.'

While both the 1973 chapbook 'Symbiography' and the 1979 Penthouse are not easy to come by nowadays, the novelette is included in the 2004 omnibus, 'Odd Corners: The Slip-Stream World of William Hjortsberg,' which is quite affordable. Those with an interest in proto-cyberpunk may want a copy.