SOJALS rating:

Very good (4/5)

I first read this in July 1992 and most recently in November 1996

Gabriel Ludovic is designer working for Diversifications, one of the big entertainment corporations.

His daughter, Sam, left home at sixteen and is floating around the fringes of society making a name for herself as a hacker and an engineer.

Gina, Visual Mark and the Beater got together very successfully twenty years before to make rock videos, but they've partied too much since then to be that together at anything anymore.

Keely's best friend keeps killing himself

Dr Lindel Joslin has discovered how to tap in directly to the human brain and she needs some subjects on which to try it. Big business is determined is of course determined to urgently exploit this technology.

Finally, there's something surprising loose in the internet.

This is a masterpiece of SF and one of the classic cyberpunk novels. Gibson of course defines the medium, but Cadigan got the music. This is a whirlwind of a book recalling Norman Spinrad and John Brunner from a generation before. This so much better than its predecessor "Mindplayers"

What's it got: full-immersion virtual reality, artificial intelligence, direct-to-brain interfaces, nanotechnology, wild teenage hackers and malignant virii, drugs and rock and roll (even a couple of bursts of Hendrix and Dylan),

Oh, and it has the most pragmatic, albeit politically incorrect, quote in years:

"If it you can't fuck it and it don't dance, then eat it or throw it away."