Synners Pat Cadigan Four Walls Eight Windows 435 pp. $13.95 Available from Powell's Books.

Synners is set in the all-too-familiar post-quake Los Angeles straight from the annals of dystopian literature and post-apocalyptic cinema. It would be unfair to dwell on clichés and hackneyed plot devices, though, because the typical setting in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Cadigan is successful because she does not feel the need to sterilize her technological environment, or have pseudo-Neanderthals in loincloths worshipping the battle-scarred head of Bob's Big Boy. She has managed to mingle super tech with freedom and filth, thus making a most welcome departure from the likes of Star Trek, 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale.

Much of the book takes place on the Mimosa, which is the remnants of the Hermosa and Manhattan piers, and the Fisherman's Wharf. The Mimosa is the area where the disaffected youth and the old and crazy congregate, and it is also the hang-out for some of the most impressive hackers in Los Angeles. I should mention that Cadigan invented the language spoken by the Mimosa youth; it's a little hard to follow at first, but eventually you'll realize you are whack to the language -- so problem solved.

Cadigan weaves her tale using various perspectives rather than focusing on a single character. Her ensemble cast is made up of extremely different personalities whose plotlines intermingle and link. Sam is the first major character we meet; she is an emancipated seventeen year old vegetarian who just so happens to be an ingenious computer hacker. We're also introduced to Gina; we join her sitting in a courtroom, waiting to hear what all of the charges against her are going to be, and how much of a slap on the wrist she and her mean-looking dreadlocks are going to receive. Gina makes music videos for a company called EyeTraxx, which has just been acquired by the book's megacorporation, Diversifications. Finally, we meet Gabe, who produces advertising simulations for Diversifications. Actually, it would be more appropriate to say that he used to produce...well, pretty much anything. Gabe spends most of his work time in a simulation he modified, in which he plays at being a hero with two tough girlfriends -- Marly and Caritha -- and he spends his free time sitting at home, avoiding disappointed looks from his wife and conversing with his dataline module, Melody Cruz. Gabe also happens to be Sam's father.

The plot of Synners is an interesting new spin on technology and mind manipulation. Cadigan devised new machines and implements called implants and sockets, which alter the brain and neural pathways in and out of the mind. In the not-too-distant future, Cadigan suggests, people won't need therapy any more, or traditional dieting, or hypnosis or anything besides implants. The implants can curb an overactive appetite or libido. Jones, one of the characters who comes within the protagonists' respective spheres of interest, is a death-obsessed depressive. He has had implants installed at one of the many feel-good mills, which allow him to die pretty much whenever he wants. But as it always is with the human animal (or machine), we must always be on the lookout for the next newer, better, shinier thing. Cadigan suggests that in this world where implants are the norm, the next best thing is sockets.

Sockets translate thoughts and images from the brain to be directly transported to a medium outside of the body. By using the sockets, a movie director could simply visualize an action sequence -- and as long he was connected to a video screen or recorder, those images would directly translate into an exact picture from his brain. There is no middleman. Naturally, this concept is very inviting to people who don't feel that they can truly express themselves, because the words, the lyrics, the brushstrokes or whatever get in the way of the ideas. This thought is never more true than with Gina's long-time boyfriend, Visual Mark. As Gina notes, it should have been "visualizing" Mark because that is what he does -- he visualizes all of the time. Diversifications, who acquired the socket technology in their takeover of EyeTraxx, decides that Mark is the perfect candidate to be the guinea pig for socket implantation; they will market the new concept to the population through music videos made by Visual Mark and Gina.

I'll end my plot description there rather than spoil your own discovery of Synners' intriguing world, but Cadigan's fictional technology deserves further discussion. The sockets, as Cadigan describes them, are a direct I/O pathway to the brain -- in itself, scarcely a new idea, particularly in cyberpunk fiction. Cadigan takes the concept a little further by broadening the possibilities inherent in the "line out" from the brain, with concepts like Mark's visualizations anchoring the story more solidly in the real world than in the cyber-ephemera of Gibson, Stephenson et al.

Overall, I was very pleased with Synners, and I'm not surprised that the book won the Arthur C. Clarke Award when it was first published. Cadigan's future-world isn't a particularly unique setting, but she compensates by introducing some truly intriguing technological concepts. Admittedly, some of her ideas seem a little implausible or convoluted, but Cadigan clearly did her research; she offers an informed and vibrant commentary on technology and the human dependence thereupon.

-- Cheryl Minton

Four Walls Eight Windows is an independent, New York City-based publisher founded in 1987, publishing about twenty-eight books a year. Their list emphasizes literature and quality non-fiction -- from Walt Whitman to the wildest cyberpunks around, from a history of bicycles to the lowdown on the US meat industry. They are the epitome of cool.