SOJALS rating:

Mediocre (2/5)

I first read this in April 1990 and most recently in April 2001

Allie Haas is into getting out of her head. Dare her to take a drug and she'll do it. Jerry Wirerammer is her dealer and like dealers everywhere doesn't care so much for his clients. This time Jerry persuades her to try an illegal, stolen "mindcap". This experience goes very wrong She ends up hospitalised and criminalised, facing a serious sentence. But then she's given one last chance - to take up a dangerous and, to her mind, loathsome career as a mind-player.

Once she embarks on her new career, the novel becomes a serious of episodes as she handles various cases, learning about herself and her own skills in the process.

This is a very satisfying book. It may be a little deeper than than I initially realised. I should spend more time thinking about the various psychological conditions that were described. Jerry Wirerammer's slow mental deconstruction is superbly executed.

It also powerfully describes the reform of an addicted personality, becoming increasingly able to abandon the causative environment.

What's it got? cyberpunk attitudes, drugs and electronic direct-to-brain interfaces, technological telepathy and a lot of thinking about the human mind.