SOJALS rating:

Good (3/5)

I first read this in 1988 and most recently on the 8th January 2006

Mercedes Night is a top videostar, a massive celebrity. She is glamorous and outrageous, intelligent, sexy, wild and - much of the time - lost in a haze of drugs.

She is unique. one of a kind. Or rather she was but no longer. She has been cloned and, unknown to Mercedes, her living, breathing clone sisters are secretly being sold as heavily-drugged sex slaves to the highest bidders.

Evil billionaire Theodore Regan has bought one, but he's foolishly going to ease off on the medication that keeps his slave sedated and cooperative.

Lieutenant Andrew Willis of the National Police is investigating a suspicious building that will turn out to be connected with this case.

Willis' faithless informant will be involved as well. Unfortunately he will as usual be too stoned with his friends Karen, Torrence and mad Arthur to really understand what's going on. Plus they'll probably be dead soon anyway, slaughtered where they sat.

The government, in collusion with the National Police, see an opportunity. Perhaps they can brainwash one of the clones and use her to bring down a rival presidential candidate, Warren Keyes, coincidently the secret boyfriend of Mercedes Night.

Mercedes' old friend Christy is leaving bad old Earth behind. She's leaving on a colony ship to another world. But she wants her brilliant boyfriend, Lance, to go with her. Lance is reluctant. He wants to stick around on Earth long enough to be recognised as the world's genius creator of artificial intelligence.

Lance's creation Lancelot, the brain in a box, sees more clearly than his master that Lance should stick with Christy and get out while the going's good, but hey, Lancelot is only a computer.

This is quite a ride. It's reminiscent of Philip K Dick's writing and Michael has so many ideas to jam into this slim novel that some of them don't really get the space they deserve.

It's a glamorous, wild. mind-expanding and intelligent book. Brilliant, actually.