AMNESIA MOON

Oddball dreamtime/fractured-reality yarn from the author of Gun, With Occasional Music (1994). In a sometime future following an unspecified disaster, a man named Chaos lives in the projection booth of the abandoned Multiplex in the town of Hatfork, Wyoming. Chaos can't remember his past, and tries to blot out the present with homemade alcohol. At night, though, he dreams that he's named Everett and has a house, a computer, and a woman named Gwen. When the Hatfork food supply runs out, Chaos confronts the repulsive Kellogg, whose dreams apparently give Hatfork its reality. Rejecting Kellogg, Chaos heads for California accompanied by fur- covered adolescent Melinda, who complains of dreaming Chaos's dreams. In the mountains, they stumble into a green fog where Chaos remembers another name, Moon, but forgets everything else and must be rescued by Melinda. Reaching California, the two find that Vacaville's citizens are graded according to how lucky they are, while their bosses have dreamed themselves movie-star lifestyles. In San Francisco, a powerful dreamer transforms people into objects; Chaos, remembering he's Everett Moon, turns into a clock. Intriguing, to a point. But explanations are never forthcoming, and readers wanting substance rather than sheer weirdness, no matter how imaginative, won't be satisfied.