What was this sexy sci-fi book?

August 3, 2005 8:52 AM

Help me identify a cheesy sci-fi book I enjoyed as a teenager in the 80s!

The cover had a scantily clad woman, per the genere. The story: in a world of sex, drugs, and hedonism, people meet to compete in on a virtual playing field in their minds.
Key points: I think the narrator was a hermaphrodite and took drugs to keep himself at an apparent age of ten?

It's not Pat Cadigan's "Mindplayers", but the title and plot are similar enough to confuse my memory.

posted by bug138 to media & arts (5 comments total)

Sounds like something Farmer would write.
posted by cedar at 9:13 AM on August 3, 2005

Judging from the Farmer books I've read, this one is a little too gritty for his fantasy style. Think Greg Bear or David Gerrold maybe....
posted by bug138 at 9:28 AM on August 3, 2005

Maybe James Patrick Kelly's Wildlife?

It sounds like you are talking about "Mr. Boy". His mom (a 1/3 scale Statue of Liberty) paid for him to have operations to keep him young looking 'tho chronologically, I think he was in his early 20s.
posted by aedra at 9:49 AM on August 3, 2005

That's not it, though it looks interesting!

The main thread of the book was this "mind game" thing that people were into, and eventually the climax involves some sort of a Messiah type figure roping everyone into some kind of wireless mind-game feedback loop. On mars, I think.
posted by bug138 at 10:07 AM on August 3, 2005

Sounds like it's also not The Artificial Kid. Is this kind of story its own genre or what?
posted by markpasc at 10:34 AM on August 3, 2005