The front cover has a quote from “The Denver Post” (that well-known literary reviewing journal) that this “succeds on making cyberpunk fun again.” I wasn’t aware that it had stopped being fun when it was well done. Unfortunately, for me at least, this one isn’t well done. It read very much like a first novel, althoughit’s the author’s sixth published novel. There’s a decent plotline underlying it with an interesting idea, though i’m not sure it’s really cyberpunk. It seems to teeter on the edge of being parody/humour without reaching into being funny, but with the bizarre edge ruining thenormal suspension of disbelief. For me, humour like Surfing Samurai Robots or Aprin’s Phule series (review to come soon, I read them this year but haven’t reviewed them yet) allows for a greater suspension of disbelief since things are meant to be absurd. When you approach this line without being funny, the absurdity breaks the disbelief.

It isn’t the main plot that’s the problem for me, but the characters. They all seem like they’re out of central casting, with their requisite background of craziness. ex-cop, former mental patient, spritualist, antiques thief with Asperger’s Syndrome, abusive criminal boyfriend, conspiracy theorist waiter and on and on. The constant sexual undertones of the main character’s interactions with the females in the book would be spot on in a hard bioled detective parody, but this isn’t such a pardoy, or if it is, it doesn’t parody hard enough.