Garbage Head — Christopher Willard

In the media-saturated world of this post-modern novel, the lines between reality and virtual reality are blurred. A boy nicknamed Garbage Head, the inevitable product of this world, has developed the ability to predict what those on TV and the radio will say before they say it. At first, he finds fame on television, the very medium to which he is supernaturally privileged, but then is deemed a threat by the government and taken before a fitting adjudicator: a president more consumed with reruns and celebrity gossip than with leading a nation. The format of the book's text simulates the manner in which much of the public now gleans its information: surfing the Internet. Readers gather points of view and sound bites from various spots in the text in real time and, just as in today's world of endless stimuli, must construct Garbage Head's story from this array of messages. Written with zeal and humor, this cyber fable poses a pressing question: When technology provides the only links to humanity -- when everyone is searching for a meaning that can only be found within -- where and by whom is human culture made and unmade?