%A Rosenblum, Mary %T Chimera %I Del Rey %C New York %D November 1993 %G ISBN 0-345-38528-4 %P 403 pp. %O paperback, US$4.99 Mary Rosenblum's CHIMERA is set in a future in which most business communication takes place in a global network of "virtual offices". This novel presents a challenging exploration of cyberspace as a realm for the presentation of the self. In today's business world, we are used to being evaluated on the basis of such qualities as our body language, our clothes, our accent, our professed values, and--in professional America, at any rate--above all on the basis of our formal educational credentials. Not many of us are ready for a world like Rosenblum's, in which we will compete on the basis of how well our visualization software edits our body language and presents our chosen image of self, and in which virtual reality artists are the aristocrats of the global Net. As a verbal, book-loving, command- line person whose computing experience began with Fortran and the Heath Disk Operating System (HDOS) and who has never much liked the MTVization of the media, I must say that I hope for a future information environment that is considerably less visual than Rosenblum's. But I liked the fact that her book made me uneasy about the possibilities. This, Mary Rosenblum's second novel, is a good book, well worth reading for anyone who is interested in the Internet and communication via computer. In the words of the Del Rey Discovery motto on the inside cover, this "something new" is "worth the risk."