The Nature of Smoke
By Anne Harris
Tor Books, $22.95
ISBN 031285286x
Review by Larry Woods
Adventuresome science fiction stories are always risky, but Anne Harris's talent rises above the genre in The Nature of Smoke to provide an intense, spunky, and hard-edged story about hard-wired biotech and the Zen nature of chaos. Magnolia is a young woman hardened by her Detroit slum adolescence who has fled to New York in search of herself and a better life. She connects with a sexy, good-looking guy but winds up having to knife him in the back over his attempt to cast her in a killer snuff video. She is rescued by Rahul who believes in double dealing as a way of life, but Magnolia is a little tougher, more resourceful and smarter -- until she encounters Cid, a biophysicist working in the Tumcari genetic project who has the ideas and means to change all their lives. Despite some flaws in characters, this brilliant first novel merits your attention.
Larry D. Woods, an attorney, is an avid reader of science fiction.
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