Comments on: What was this sexy sci-fi book?

Question: What was this sexy sci-fi book?

bug138 — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 08:52:33 -0800

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.

By: cedar

cedar — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:13:00 -0800

Sounds like something Farmer would write.

By: bug138

bug138 — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:28:53 -0800

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....

By: aedra

aedra — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:49:59 -0800

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.

By: bug138

bug138 — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:07:54 -0800

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.

By: markpasc

markpasc — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 10:34:36 -0800

Sounds like it's also not The Artificial Kid. Is this kind of story its own genre or what?