Rebecca Ore seems to be one seriously underrated writer of science fiction. The back of the jacket of my copy of this book has a list of stellar SF writers singing her praises, but she never comes up in discussions of SF or even of SF writers. On a quick search, I found about a dozen passing references to her in LT Talk. I can't find her at all at SF Mistressworks, even though her novel Becoming Human should certainly count as a minor classic. My hypothesis is that she's just too damn uncompromising. When you enter her future world, it takes quite a few chapters to figure out exactly where you are. This is true even in this book, which has clear ties as an extrapolation of concerns from the 1990's, particularly genetic engineering and eco-terrorism. When you get to the end, there are resolutions but no simple happy endings.

There are three character arcs: two told in third-person subjective, the other in first-person. Willie is a drode-head. It's clear his life involves being used for some tasks, perhaps unsavory, but what they are, he never remembers. He's basically at the bottom of society, just above living purely on the dole. What exactly drode-heads are isn't explored until halfway through the book. Dorca is an assistant in an academic genetic research lab, who self-admits to sleeping her way into her jobs. Both she and her boss siphon funds and materials for side projects, but while his is for potential riches, she is engineering insects to change human behavior, in order to reduce humanity's damaging effects on the world. We meet Allison, the main protagonist, when she is captured in an act of eco-terrorism. Her treatment by the Fed is pretty brutal -- not torture, per se, but a total invasion of her mind and body. But her friends were no better. They sent her off to be blown up by a hidden nuke. The Feds offer her a deal to work with them to find whoever is creating the insects. Throughout the book, neither Allison nor the reader is ever sure what agendas anyone has, but clearly she -- and Willie, and eventually Dorca -- are pawns in multiple games.

One caution for sensitive readers: Ore's books have frequent explicit sex elements. Not extended erotic passages, but very few pages go by without some form of sex occurring.

Unique and recommended. ( )