All of the stories, as with much of Lethem's early work, have definite science fiction elements despite their widely varying content and some thinly veiled commentary on modern society.

The story explores the consequences to the protagonist's family life, especially his relationship with his son, who attempts to model his father's experience of Hell as interactive fiction on a computer.

Though not explicitly stated as such the many characters in the story appear to be computer program avatars of different aspects of the personalities of two lovers who have decided to purge their single past before embarking on a life together.

To deal with this, those forced to dwell in their cars have their own virtual reality "Apartments on Tape" to diminish their ordeal, although social security helicopters and food and drink vendors are available to provide some solace.

They run virtual reality competitions (or "scapes"), which provide opportunities for their smalltown challengers to compete in structured media environments similar to today's PC gaming.