Synthesis and Other Virtual Real

Deserts, oceans, Antarctic wastelands--the locales in Rosenblum's first short-story collection and hardcover debut (after three paperback novels, most recently, The Stone Garden) tend to be extreme. Her characters, not surprisingly, live on the edge. Farmers struggle to survive in a drought-stricken future America. Sailors work to bring a captured iceberg to port. Virtual-reality artists throw everything into their work. Several of the nine stories are set in the arid universe of Rosenblum's widely praised first novel, Drylands. ""Water Bringer,"" for instance, concerns a disabled child who can work small miracles but who finds his talent rejected by his embittered father until a stranger brings temporary hope to their parched farming community. Moving from the desert to the ocean, ""Flood Tide"" concerns a father and son who argue bitterly over the son's decision to leave Earth for Tau Ceti. Also noteworthy is ""Synthesis,"" which involves a virtual-reality artist torn between his art and his loyalty to an aging, tyrannical father. Rosenblum writes about people caught up in painful conflicts, often intergenerational. Her characters usually achieve some form of reconciliation--with their parents, with their children or, at the very least, within themselves. Her prose is strong and her insights true; although more than one story here deals with virtual reality, the pleasures afforded by this collection are very real. Illustrations by Elizabeth L. Bourne. (July)