ISBN 0-553-56886-8 (US pbk)

"Ted Karmade is a psychiatric technician with a shaky future, one of millions of faceless inhabitants of the City, a vast artificial environment that is mankind's last bastion on a biologically ravaged Earth. Inexplicably hired to care for Quasar Zant, psychotic young heiress of the City's richest familycorp, he is catapulted into a dizzying and dangerous world of absolute power and insatiable ambition, sleek comfort and depraved bloodlust, deadly secrets and terrifying illusions. To survive he must journey to the depths of Quasar's soul, face torture and madness, then descend into an even more nightmarish landscape -- the City's underground Warrens, where mutants live in forced exile. There he must decide if he will follow Quasar's fever-dream reality -- and whether it will lead to destruction or renewal for the entire human race." [jacket blurb, US pbk, 1995]

"A stunning extrapolation of neuroscience and a disturbing tale of tough love set against a terrifying and hallucinatory urban future." --Lisa Mason.