"Webrider" by Jayge Carr

First appeared in Ellen Datlow's The Third Omni Book of Science Fiction, reprinted by Donald A. Wollheim, Arthur W. Saha, Pamela Sargent.  

Summary:

Twig is a webrider. She can travel over space and time. The danger is groupies--those who, like her sister, try to ride the web but cannot and die.

Discussion:

This opens with a fine energy--matching William Gibson's more frenetic prose with Samuel Delany's Aye and Gomorrah, adding a touch of Jeffery-Carver-style space travel (where travel is, at least in part, a state of mind) and something of the author's own. It's an interesting concoction. It's not a major work but thought-provoking. It takes a look at art--how hard it can be to learn on one's own, but with the proper mentor....