Theme: Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality (or VR) refers to a simulation of the real or an imagined world inside a computer environment. VR technology is a very likely real world development of the near-future. On screens, this is depicted as full-immersion that replicates all five senses.

Depictions of VR began in the 1980s, although there have been a number of works that can be said to prefigure its themes. Interest peaked in the 1990s as real world fascination with the topic heated up.

Stories concern people caught in lifelike VR simulations that are unable to be detected from the real thing or characters inside VR simulations coming to life in the real world. The Cyberpunk genre made depictions of VR commonplace. There is the surprising popularity of a number of erotic films with VR themes.

Another variation on VR themes is the hologram in particular the holodeck stories of various of the modern Star Trek tv series.