The Real Story starts with the patrons of Mallory's Bar & Sleep experiencing something that doesn't make sense. Angus Thermopylae walks into the bar with a beautiful woman at his side. Angus is an evil man and a suspected pirate/smuggler with a reputation for being a loner. The young attractive woman at his side is Morn Hyland, a law enforcement officer who should want nothing to do with someone like Angus. It is obvious to many of the patrons that she is a captive of some sort but she doesn't seem to be acting like one. Enter the dashing Nick Succorso, who confronts Angus and appears to rescue Morn away from him. The patrons of Mallory's then speculate on what they just witnessed and it is clear to many that this is a classic case of a hero (Nick) rescuing a victim (Morn) from an evil villain (Angus.) While that is indeed true, it is also not "The Real Story."

Stephen R. Donaldson wrote this novella because he wanted to take the classic character triangle of hero, victim, and villain and have his characters switch roles as the story progresses. And while this is the case in "The Real Story" what happens is actually far more complicated than that. As is typical of Donaldson, he weaves uncomfortable subject matter into his story and grabs your attention with it. In The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever he offered up the subjects of rape, leprosy, and possession and forced the reader to be conflicted by manipulating them into rooting for an undeserving anti-hero. In The Real Story the subject matter is even more uncomfortable and all of the main characters are deeply flawed.

In Donaldson's future there is a psychosis known as Gap Sickness. After an interstellar craft uses hyper-space to cross "The Gap" on rare occasions a member of the crew may start to commit despicable atrocities. This illness can cause a person to do violence to themselves, attack or kill other members of the crew, or even to destroy the ship itself. Gap Sickness is incurable and unpredictable and the only solution to the problem is to insert a "zone implant" into the affected person. Such an implant allows the individual to be remotely controlled in order to prevent them from being a threat to themselves and the rest of the crew. Due to the nature of the technology misuse of such an implant is classified as a capital crime and punishable by death. This is the stage upon which The Real Story unfolds.

Without spoiling too much suffice it to say that all 3 of the main characters in this tale are deeply flawed and despite the disturbing nature of how they treat each other I found myself eager to continue reading. I aligned with none of the characters but still needed to know how it was all going to play out. It seemed that Donaldson had once again grabbed my attention with subject matter I could do without. Is it like slowing down to view a traffic accident or watching footage of a disaster on the news? Perhaps but the tale was interesting enough for me to pick up the second book after I was done with this one so I could see what happens next. This is a short story and complete in nature, but as the first book of a series it did leave me wanting to know more.

Scott Brick is a well known narrator to audiobook fans and he and Donaldson often team up together. Scott's narration on The Real Story is solid as usual and he remains the narrator for all 5 books of The Gap Cycle so the entire series is in good hands.