Synopsis
Growing up in the burned-out slums of Detroit, Magnolia is filled with the need to fight, the will to survive. She runs from her dysfunctional white-trash family, all the way to New York City, where she connects with a sexy, good-looking guy who takes her back to his high-rise apartment. Everything's going great, until after they make love, when he comes at her with a knife. Her natural instincts take over, leaving her would-be killer with a knife buried deep in his back. That's when she sees the video camera that has recorded everything. She runs, right into the arms of Rahul, a brilliant megalomaniac who threatens to turn her in...unless she takes a job in his empire of illegal activities, ranging from creating bioandroids for sex-snuff films to trafficking in illegal drugs and political assassination.
Life in the Detroit slums was crap, but she knew how to get along. But in Rahul's world of double-dealing, life is cheap, and Magnolia, though tough, resourceful, and canny, is suddenly in way over her head - until she meets Cid, a biophysicist with theories beyond Rahul's wildest dreams. As Rahul's net closes around them, Cid devises an outrageous and startlingly original escape for herself and Magnolia. With a synthesis of Rahul's own brilliant biogenetic creation and a diabolically clever chaos-theory virus, they're out to remake the world...and save their lives.
Reviews
The science in Harris's impressive debut SF novel is soft?chaos theory and fractals are invoked in an almost mystical fashion?but the craft is solid, presenting strong action and intrigue, substantial characters and clean, vigorous prose. Magnolia, a teenager, escapes the slums of Detroit and heads to N.Y.C. There, she becomes embroiled in the schemes of Remus Rahul, the inventor of artificial life that is plant-based but humanoid and conscious. Magnolia is self-reliant, independent?but not the typical cyberpunk femme fatale. Other well-realized characters include Rahul's aquatic creation, Tumcari, and Cid, the dreamy, pot-smoking scientist who becomes Magnolia's lover and whose research leads to even stranger life forms. Harris largely glosses over the scientific mechanisms, but there's sufficient speculation and futuristic detailing here to adequately background a deeply human story that hints at transhuman processes of order amid randomness.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Sometime in the next century, Magnolia flees from a hopeless existence in the slums of Detroit. In New York, she's picked up by the weaselly Dano and almost becomes the victim of a snuff broadcast; but, turning the tables on Dano, she stabs him and escapes. The broadcast is observed by megalomaniac scientist Dr. Remus Rahul, who steers Magnolia into his organization, hoping to use her as a template for a line of superior android ``robots.'' Instead, unknown to Rahul, she ends up in his secret complex in Siberia, where she discovers Tumcari, a half-human aquatic creature created by Rahul and researcher Cid (she becomes Magnolia's lover). Cid learns that Tumcari's cellular mitochondria somehow communicate with one another, even when separated from his body, giving him remarkable new abilities. Eventually, Rahul discovers both Magnolia's whereabouts and Cid's experiments, and the two flee to Amsterdam. Here, all the characters converge in a sort of chaotic strange attraction; many become infected with the virus that Cid has developed to spread the communicating mitochondria that offer an ecstatic gestalt communion. An exciting and encouraging debut--flawed, furious, fizzing with ideas, and with a plot that bangs and crashes like boxcars in a switching yard. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
After inventing plant-based androids who cannot think for themselves, bioscientist Dr. Remus Rahul seeks to infuse his creations with spontaneity?but must first find a donor. Harris's multilayered storyline includes lesbian love, chaos theory, and an infectious virus that changes everyone. This tale of future Earth is recommended for sf collections.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Chaos theory, one of contemporary sf's trendier motifs, becomes the source of both inspiration and menace for a duplicitous underworld inventor and his rebellious assistants in Harris' striking debut. Fleeing to New York from a life of crime and poverty in Detroit, Magnolia nearly meets death at the hands of pornographic snuff film producers before being rescued by Rahul, a wealthy designer of sophisticated androids. After being promised money and luxury, Magnolia winds up at Rahul's mansion in Polish Siberia, sharing quarters with the brilliant biophysicist Cid, a pair of dangerous bodyguards, and a strange, half-human creature who lives in the greenhouse pool. Rahul remains mysteriously absent, and Magnolia quickly learns that Cid and company, while using Rahul's lab for their own experiments, have actually kidnapped her from him (he had planned to "copy" Magnolia for a new breed of intelligent robots). Harris aids a somewhat convoluted plot with memorable characters and mind-bending ideas, including the use of fractals and chaos theory as the foundation for creating new life-forms. Carl Hays
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