Romanzo interessante, abbastanza avvincente e con uno sfondo narrativo molto originale ed intrigante. Il quid della storia in realtà non è che sia poi così originale (anzi) ma il contesto tanto "intenso" lo rende un qualcosa di avvincente. Purtroppo il finale è terribilmente tirato via, poche decine di pag. per concludere una storia che avrebbe necessitato molto molto di più, l'autore avrebbe potuto tranquillamente raddoppiare le pagine totali se si fosse dedicato per es. a spiegare questo strano mondo, la sua nascita, significato e "contenuti".
Peccato. ( )

An unlikely chance encounter with a pair of gas angels making, um, "space love?" gives the protagonist, Axxter, a video recording to sell to Ask & Receive, the primary information clearinghouse agency servicing the residents of Cylinder. He gets practically nothing in return, however, because Ask & Receive knows how desperate he is. Still, the money he does get keeps him on the wall another day, but he needs something better than gas angels to make it work. If he could just get hired by one of the two big tribes that rule Cylinder’s known wall, he'd be set. Freelancer's dream, though, right?

This book was nominated for several awards, the author is well known and fairly respected, and the main premise of the book sounded good to me when I bought it. So why didn't I finish it? Well, this may sound stupid, but I couldn't get past the image of a sci fi novel opening with images of two angels floating around in the air/space, having torid/sensual/whatever sex in full view of everyone, even though it's apparently quite rare to see, and of how Axxter gets his dated camera and lens and videos this, zooming in on the hottie female angel and her exquisite face and expressions, and then, after their mid-air gyrations, their expressions of post-coital bliss as they float away from each other. It just seems TOO DAMN STUPID! How the hell are you supposed to take a cyberpunk/dystopian book seriously after reading that shit? Literal angels? Having sex? And if my memory serves me correctly, I believe the protagonist even wondered about angel babies? I've read more stupid sci fi scenes, believe it or not, but this is pretty high on my list. So, I just couldn't go on no matter how promising the book was alleged to have been. Thus, even though it has a rating of over a 3.7 on Goodreads, I can only give it one star and say that I cannot recommend it. ( )

There is only the building, cylindrical and huge. And, choices are few: live a dull and conventional life on one of the horizontal levels, or live a creative, yet precarious, vertical existence on the building’s exterior.

Ny Axxter lives in a cyberpunk world, dystopian and corporate controlled. He’s just another gutsy punk trying to cut it on the fringes of a society run by faceless corporations. His journey is fueled by the need to survive. If he’s lucky, he might learn something on his journey, but in the end his hard gained knowledge will only scratch the surface of the unknown. However, only by surviving another day, and growing slightly wiser, does progress occur. It’s an exciting journey. Come along for the ride. ( )

Poetic and imaginative, this early Jeter is more magic realism than SF, but the author keeps swerving back and forth across that line. The marriage of technology and whimsy has rarely been more satisfying. ( )

One of my favorite Jeter SF books along with The Glass Hammer, and Infernal Devices. Great stuff. ( )