Near future. Book 1 of trilogy: Ambient , Terraplane , Heathern . First novel.
"You need to be rich to survive at all. But it's easier to be dead than poor.
"Twenty-first-century New York. It's a nightmare. Reagonomics has gone mad. There's murder and mutilation on the bombed-out streets and in the corporate conference rooms. Manhattan is a zoo. There's guerilla war on Long Island.
"Seamus O'Malley is a bodyguard and assassin in the outrageously powerful Dryco organization, and he's in deep trouble.
"Taking the job sounded like a good idea at the time. Falling in love with his employer's mistress, Avalon, probably wasn't so bright. Getting caught up in the Dryden family's crazy rivalries didn't help. Agreeing to murder the Old Man was plain stupid. And getting involved with the Ambients could only complicate matters further.
"Before long, O'Malley's on the run, and there's nowhere safe to hide." [jacket blurb, UK pbk, 1991]
"If you dropped the characters from Neuromancer into Womack's Manhattan, they'd fall down screaming and have nervous breakdowns." --William Gibson.
Hardcore cyberpunk.
Recommended.
