Desideratum

Another review in the Feb. Locus caught my eye:

In Stephen Dedman's "Desiree" the protagonist is a lonely high school boy named Sebastian. A friend gives him a piece of shareware called "Venus", which purports to create your ideal mate online. Sebastian plays along, and finds himself very attracted to the girl simulated by the program -- in many more ways than physically. But of course she's not "real" -- and what's more she's shareware, and if he can't pay for her she'll be deleted....

Unfortunately, the story appears only in an e'mail magazine called Oceans of the Mind, which appeareth not in the mighty tomes of WorldCat. The teaser from their website is tempting, but not enough to lay out $19.95 for a year's subscription. So I guess I will just have to hope that the story is one day published in "meatspace", rather than exclusively in virtual form.

Ironic, huh?

(Insert regularly-scheduled observation about the difficulty of archiving electronic publications here. Y'all know it well enough I don't have to type it again.)