Loop (novel)
Encyclopedia
is the third in the series of Ring
novel
s by Koji Suzuki
.
The story revolves around a simulated reality
, exactly the same as our own, known as the Loop: created to simulate the emergence and evolution
of life. It is in this alternate universe
that the events of the previous novels, Ring and Spiral
took place.
In the course of events, he meets a woman named Reiko and falls in love with her. Reiko becomes pregnant with Kaoru's child, which makes Reiko vulnerable to MHC. Kaoru continues his investigations which lead him to a man (and the last surviving person involved in the LOOP) named Amano. Amano revealed to him that LOOP was a project involving a hundred supercomputers strung together with the aim to recreate life. Amano tells Kaoru of a lab in New Mexico where another scientist might be alive. Kaoru venturs there only to find the scientist dead. He enters the lab and finds a pair of virtual reality goggles and gloves. He tries them and minutes later, he is in the LOOP.
In the loop, he sees everything but one event intrigued him, the emergence of the Ring Virus. There in the LOOP, he sees complete details of the events in the previous novels from different angles. After some discussion with Amano, he knows that the LOOP's creator wanted to recreate Ryuji's death and by doing that, he could clone him and insert him into a woman's womb. But what they made was a cloned Ryuji with the Ring Virus in him. When Ryuji was born, the virus escaped and mutated.
Desperate to find a cure for MHC, he ventures only to encounter a storm leaving him on the verge of death. Then, he was saved by an old man. After telling the old man the truth, it turned out that Kaoru was Ryuji's clone. Because of that, Kaoru has an exceptional gift, immunity to MHC.
In order to know what made Kaoru immune, he had to be analyzed. An analysis machine was created. The bad side though is that the analyzed object must be molecularized, meaning that Kaoru could die. As a hero, he agreed.
After that, the old man transferred Kaoru's analyzed molecules in the LOOP. He promised that his wife could see him through the VR Goggles and Reiko won't be alone. In the LOOP, Kaoru is sitting watching the stars, thinking that Reiko is watching over him.
Ring (Suzuki novel)
is a Japanese horror novel by Koji Suzuki, first published in 1991, and set in modern day Japan. It was the basis for a film of the same name , and two remakes: a Korean version and an American version ....
novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s by Koji Suzuki
Koji Suzuki
Koji Suzuki is a Japanese writer, who was born in Hamamatsu and currently lives in Tokyo. Suzuki is the author of the Ring cycle of novels, which has been adapted into a manga series. He has written several books on the subject of fatherhood...
.
The story revolves around a simulated reality
Simulated reality
Simulated reality is the proposition that reality could be simulated—perhaps by computer simulation—to a degree indistinguishable from "true" reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation....
, exactly the same as our own, known as the Loop: created to simulate the emergence and evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of life. It is in this alternate universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
that the events of the previous novels, Ring and Spiral
Spiral (novel)
is a 1995 Japanese novel, a part of author Koji Suzuki's Ring Cycle series. It is the second in the Ring Trilogy, and a film based on the book, Rasen was released in 1998. The English translation of the book was published by Vertical Press in the United States and by Harper Collins in Britain.-...
took place.
Plot
The story revolves around a medical student named Kaoru Futami whose father has contracted a deadly disease called Metastatic Human Cancer(MHC), a cancer involving both animals and plants. Kaoru knew that his father was involved with a massive supercomputer project named LOOP. The LOOP was a computer simulation of the emergence of life but still unable to simulate such a thing. It is known that everyone who was involved in the LOOP has died of the same cancer.In the course of events, he meets a woman named Reiko and falls in love with her. Reiko becomes pregnant with Kaoru's child, which makes Reiko vulnerable to MHC. Kaoru continues his investigations which lead him to a man (and the last surviving person involved in the LOOP) named Amano. Amano revealed to him that LOOP was a project involving a hundred supercomputers strung together with the aim to recreate life. Amano tells Kaoru of a lab in New Mexico where another scientist might be alive. Kaoru venturs there only to find the scientist dead. He enters the lab and finds a pair of virtual reality goggles and gloves. He tries them and minutes later, he is in the LOOP.
In the loop, he sees everything but one event intrigued him, the emergence of the Ring Virus. There in the LOOP, he sees complete details of the events in the previous novels from different angles. After some discussion with Amano, he knows that the LOOP's creator wanted to recreate Ryuji's death and by doing that, he could clone him and insert him into a woman's womb. But what they made was a cloned Ryuji with the Ring Virus in him. When Ryuji was born, the virus escaped and mutated.
Desperate to find a cure for MHC, he ventures only to encounter a storm leaving him on the verge of death. Then, he was saved by an old man. After telling the old man the truth, it turned out that Kaoru was Ryuji's clone. Because of that, Kaoru has an exceptional gift, immunity to MHC.
In order to know what made Kaoru immune, he had to be analyzed. An analysis machine was created. The bad side though is that the analyzed object must be molecularized, meaning that Kaoru could die. As a hero, he agreed.
After that, the old man transferred Kaoru's analyzed molecules in the LOOP. He promised that his wife could see him through the VR Goggles and Reiko won't be alone. In the LOOP, Kaoru is sitting watching the stars, thinking that Reiko is watching over him.
External links
- The Ringworld - a fansite covering all aspects of the Ring series and movies
- SaruDama - Contains reviews of Loop and other Suzuki novels