While We're Young

"If you ever wished Blade Runner was a little more French New Wave, this is the book for you." -- John Chrostek

Wealthy young Uptowner Edie Hamilton, all charm but worn out by existence, is Downtown on one last drinking binge before she quits Earth for Mars. Her bartender for the night, Mike Orion, himself a devoted drunk, is desperate to get to Mars, and falls hard for Edie, who's prepared to use her Uptown travel rights to take him with her. But Mike instead accepts a job from his mysterious friend and benefactor Robert Goodis: he's to escort a child android shell to the terraformed red planet -- a child shell, but animated with the mind of Vela Lenn, Goodis's ex-partner. While Goodis means to keep his promise to Vela to destroy her mind should it become too far separated from her body, Mike is fixated on settling into an idyllic life on Mars with Edie, whose overpowering maternal love for the child android shell makes it impossible for her to envisage happiness without Vela.