FOREIGN BODIES

In a suspenseful thriller set in the near future by the author of The Art of Arrow Cutting, Mike Galloway struggles to survive a twenty-first-century Depression, until an encounter with a mysterious homeless woman named Swifty embroils him with a time traveler with her own deadly agenda.

Sullen social commentary and a creative investigation of gender and ego prove more prominent than the slow moving plot in Dedman's second novel (after the Bram Stoker-nominated The Art of Arrow Cutting). A few decades into the 21st century, Mike Galloway is a WINnerAan official citizenAin a world full of losers. Overzealous social reforms and increased environmental distress have eliminated the legitimacy of the lives of myriad peopleAcalled strippersAwho are now permanently homeless. Galloway is fascinated by the strippers and, in particular, by Swiftie, a girl who has taken up residence on his balcony and shares his love of science fiction. Over cups of coffee, she dictates to him a story of a dangerous future where time travel might provide the only hope for human survival. What Swiftie doesn't mention is that she herself is from this future and that time travel is accomplished by a form of body snatching. Soon, Galloway finds himself in Swiftie's abandoned body, forced to learn to survive in the wilds of the urban jungleAas a woman. Galloway is aware of classic SF plots and often refers to them in an attempt to frame an understanding of his own situation. Readers who are not familiar with the genre might feel that they are missing something. The story concept itself will hook readers in, but the action takes second place to philosophical explorations. Ultimately, Dedman works out a satisfying ending without making his protagonist overly heroic or pushing a false-toned happily-ever-after. Agent, Richard Curtis.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Science fiction outing for the author of the excellent mystery/fantasy The Art of Arrow Cutting (1997). By 2014, despite rising seas, a faltering economy, a bankrupt UN, and a Big Brotherish US state, Australian Mike Galloway survives in San Francisco as a bucket-shop travel agent. One night he takes pity on Swiftie, the waiflike street person who sleeps on his balcony, and lets her inand wakes up to find she's swapped bodies with him! The man in Swiftie's body is, it seems, from the future (only your mind can time-travel back, and it must occupy a conveniently flatlined but undamaged body when it arrives). Mike perforce has to take up life as Swiftie; she calls herself Tera and feigns memory loss. Then, after a brutal massacre of Asians by suspected white supremacists, Tera recognizes one of the perps. She helps the cops uncover a rapidly growing association of neo-Nazis, at least one of whom has knowledge of the future! Several whirling complications later, Teranow Terrilearns that the neo-Nazi leader, Skye, was sent from the future to prevent a racist takeover of the western US. Now, insanely, he's building a nuke and plans to blow them sky-high. Sexually charged but undisciplined: it might find some resonance among readers with gender-identity conflicts, but for the most part a splenetic, nonconstructive rant. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Trapped inside the body of a young woman from the future, Mike Galloway faces the challenge of surviving in the grim world of 21st-century San Francisco while he searches for a way to recover his true form. Galloway's quest leads him to a racist conspiracy of Apocalyptic terrorists whose actions may lead to the destruction of the world. The author of The Art of Arrow Cutting explores the illusory borders of gender and race in this fast-paced sf adventure, which belongs in most sf collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.