Mnemosyne's Kiss

Cassandra Lannigan wakes up in a Kenyan hospital with a skull full of biomechanical replacements after being found more or less dead in her hotel room; she cannot, of course, remember who killed her or why, but she rapidly finds out who is chasing her. Rayanne is on the run from dealers who want to remove their drugs from her body and cut off the top of her skull for fun; if she has few memories, it is because she has spent most of her young life addling them entirely. They are not the allies each would like, but the other is all the chance either of them has. Evans's intelligently devised future is one in which ecological doom has been largely staved off by technology; technology which, needless to say, has provided a variety of problems all of its own. The speculations about the future of crime, the future of technology and the future of simple human stupidity are conceptually witty and consistently inventive, and if his idea of plotting largely consists of having his characters run around with everyone chasing them, we get to see some interesting sights along the way. Evans's first novel is an impressive debut, a cyberpunk thriller with heart. -- Roz Kaveney


Genre: Thriller