The Nature of Smoke

"The Nature of Smoke" is OK, cyberpunk. Its about a near-future, have-not women who gets a lucky break and toughs it out to get a better life and almost love. The cover blurbs on the trade edition seriously over-hype this story. The exhortation to "READ IT OR BLEED IT!" almost lost me. Yes, there is sex, drugs, and violence. And, it is actually well-handled. The novel does not become the tawdry, parody of the genre you might expect from reading the cover. The author's prose is good. Her action scenes are particularly well done. I also believe male characters come off rather well for this niche of the genre. One problem I had was that in some places the author's attention to detail is very good, in others it falls (way) down. In addition, the plot lines also required a "suspension of belief" in places. There were just too many coincidences moving the story along. "The "Nature of Smoke" is OK. It is not as good as the lesbian, cyberpunk written by Nicole Griffith or Pat Cadigan(which I highly recommend). Read it despite the cover.