The Final Dream and Other Fictions

In this literate science fiction collection, Pearlman comes up with some original ideas, although he tends to recycle each one several times. The weaker stories rely on shock. There is the shock of recognition (this-is-how-the-present-will-look-when-it-is-the-past): in ``Taking from the Top,'' the elderly are disposed of when they cease to have sufficient SV, or Social Value, points, and one grandfather tries to finish up his biography of the obscure poet Robert Frost; ``The Ground Under Man'' is vilified for proposing to bury his dead wife, considered an archaic practice. There is also the shock of tastelessness: a man has ``Another Brush with the Fuzz'' and is forced to wear a ``dick-and-asshole belt'' that will monitor his state of arousal, and ``What Rough Beast'' portrays some overheated bestiality. The more inventive stories create a new environment through detail, focusing on overpopulation and the legislation enacted to combat it. ``And Baby Makes Five'' portrays a mother trying to decide which of her newborn twins to have killed. In the lengthy title story, a dream maker is wreaking havoc by causing his customers nocturnal anxiety. There are some fun structural tricks too, particularly in ``A Mobius Trip,'' which cleverly doubles back on itself. These pieces, some of which originally appeared in such magazines as Synergy and Amazing Stories, are probably better read separately than as a collection. (Aug.)