MINDSTAR RISING

Greg Mandel, late of the Mindstar Battalion, has been many things in his life. Commando. Freedom fighter. Assassin. Now he's a freelance operative with a very special edge: telepathy. In the high-tech, hard-edged world of tomorrow, Mandel is the man to call when things get rough, but this time he may have bitten off more than he can chew....
Decades of global warming have changed the geography of the world, altered climates, and wreaked havoc on lives and economies. Now, after decades of hardship and turmoil, the world is beginning to pull itself back together, thanks in large part to the efforts of one man: Philip Evans. A visionary industrialist, Evans is the head of Event Horizon, an organization on the cutting edge of everything from zero-gravity manufacturing to artificial intelligence. But now someone is trying to sabotage Event Horizon - and kill Philip Evans.
Hired to find the saboteur, Greg Mandel must cut his way through a treacherous maze of corporate intrigue and startling new scientific developments. And nothing less than the future is at stake.

Critically acclaimed in his native England for four novels, all SF, Hamilton makes his stateside debut with the novel that launched his writing career and that begins his Greg Mandel trilogy. Set in a 21st-century England recovering from massive global warming, the story reads like a collaboration between William Gibson and Ian Fleming. Freelance operative Mandel is a veteran of the Mindstar Battalion, whose men received telepathic powers via implanted glands. Now he is the ally of the teenage heiress of a high-tech industrial empire, Julia Evans, in a desperate battle against Kendric di Girolamo, a ruthless and obsessed financier, and Leopold Armstrong, former leftist dictator of England, who is trying to regain power. Plenty of action, exotic hardware (particularly computers), urban grunge, double handfuls of eccentric, decadent or criminal characters and enough willing women to raise the eyebrows of the politically correct hallmark this fast-moving tale. SF fans may particularly enjoy, as a change of pace, experiencing a vision of the future that coheres but that takes its clues from British, rather than American, society and history.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

British author Hamilton's debut is the first of a cyberthriller trilogy set in a near-future England where global warming has wrought vast changes in the geographic, environmental, political, and economic landscape. Greg Mandel, a veteran of the Mindstar Battalion, now survives happily on various small commissions. His particular advantage is a gland whose secretions give him the psi powers of empathy, truthsense, hunch. Greg's latest job involves the company Event Horizon, owned and operated by dying industrialist Philip Evans and his cyber-enhanced young granddaughter, Julia: Someone is sabotaging its orbital factories in an attempt to bankrupt the company and seize its secret new invention, a room-temperature superconductor. Greg's investigation points toward evil financier Kendric di Girolamo. Soon, Philip dies, after having had his personality stored in a computer; but then a computer virus nearly zaps him for real. And Kendric, or someone, sabotages the superconductor tests. So Greg calls in a psi-powered colleague, Gabriel, who can predict the future. Another virus attack takes Philip and Julia off-line, while Greg and Gabriel strike at Kendric--only to fall into a trap. Turns out that Kendric has acquired a very powerful ally indeed: the communist ex- President, Leopold Armstrong, whose hated minions nearly destroyed the country, and against whom Philip and Greg have been fighting for years. Believable characters and a solid plot set against a carefully worked-out backdrop: an assured, effective debut from a writer to watch. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Published in England in 1993, this first book in the Greg Mandel trilogy introduces us to an England suffering from the environmental and political effects of global warming, an energy crisis, and a credit crash. Mandel, an assassin, is hired to protect a teenage corporate heiress. As Mandel goes through his paces, Hamilton fully describes the devastated countryside and political machinations in a country struggling to cope in a bleak future. Recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.