ISBN 0-00-224154-4 (UK hbk),,, 0-586-21455-0 (UK pbk),,, 0-312-13045-7 (US hbk)

"Is Primavera a self-replicating cyborg bloodsucker or a poor little dead girl? Ask Ignatz Zwakh, when he stops bleeding.

"Forty years ago Cartier Paris cooked a virus that bridged the wetware-software divide. It was sent East to infect the fake Cartier dolls being made there. The dolls in turn would infect their male playmates -- and make them impotent! Long term genocide a la beau monde.

"Revenge was swift. A new virus hit the West. Infected men did not become impotent -- quite the opposite -- but worse still, any daughter born to them, no matter how cute, turned into a doll at puberty. Not a cute doll. Deadly. DNA recombined to adopt the structure of polymers and steel. Quantum magical allure straight from the space-time foam at the heart of her matrix.

"Nanoengineers had unleashed machine consciousness. Revenge does not account for it: something infinitely more sinister is happening. Only Primavera and her wild teenage lover Ignatz, who tells this story, know what power is really behind the microbiotic army dedicated to overthrowing the human gamete. Can they reach Dr Toxicophilous before the CIA or the pornocrat Kito or their combined assassins and nanomachines reach them?" [jacket blurb, UK pbk, 1993]

"Dark, edgy, and inflicted with just the right degree of lyricism." --William Gibson.

"Dark and Sexy techno-exotica." --Richard Kadrey.