Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom

4.5/5

A fantastic exploration of a world in which we could view and interact with alternate versions of ourselves who made different choices at key moments in our lives. Well, that's a bit of a simplification of a story that is rooted in complicated quantum mechanics and computer “pads” with limited lifetimes - but it makes for a fascinating read nonetheless.

We follow Nat, one half of a “data broker” duo with her partner Morris, and an experienced young therapist Dana. Both characters have issues in the past that they are yet to properly confront, but their existing lifestyles propagate them through each day without much challenge. This changes when the more financially opportunistic (see: shady) Morris tries to raise money for their suffering branch, concocting a scheme that involves two halves of a celebrity couple grieving after a car crash kills their partner.

Whilst the plot may sound simple, there is a lot of great world-building done between each story point, including realistic scientific experiments and a look at how this invention affects wider society. The Prism is one of those inventions that just upon hearing of it one can imagine how radically it can change our entire world, and further how unhinged it would be to have constant access to what are effectively our alternate lives. The group therapy mechanism and mental health discussion was the right avenue to approach this idea, yet Chiang does not forget about the real-world traumas that push people to these places such as drugs and violence.

The conclusion of the story is highly satisfactory, uplifting and realistic. Chiang postulates that our character is not made of moments in isolation, but rather the continual choices we make each day that push us in one direction or another. It not only perfectly cleared my conscience of the slight distress this story was causing, but tied up all the plot points from the story itself.