Identify a sci-fi book?

September 11, 2012 6:40 AM

Can you identify this sci-fi book, given ridiculously few details?

So i read this in the mid-80s.
It definitely wasn't "sophisticated" sci-fi, my recollection is that it was a bit pulp-fiction-y.
Set on a non-earth high-tech, future, grimy type planet.
The main character had received surgery in the past that gave him exceptional skills in hand to hand combat.
This surgery had subsequently been made illegal, and the fact that the character still had these modifications made him a rarity.
The surgery gave him things like exceptional reflexes (he could suddenly see everyone move slowly).
His nails would grow out into long lethal claws with poison on them.
He was suddenly stronger.
He could turn these abilities on/off as needed.
The only bit of plot i remember was a fight in a bar where he tore a few people to shreds - a police officer tried to arrest him for having forbidden modifications, but he got away with it somehow or another.

This has been driving me crazy on and off for years, i'd love if anyone could help. I have tried asking at LibraryThing but to no avail.

Thanks!

posted by kev23f to grab bag (17 answers total)

Unhelpfully, it sounds vaguely familiar. I think he was on a quest to find some sort of alien... thing? Maybe hidden alien spaceships.
posted by curious_yellow at 6:57 AM on September 11, 2012

Maybe....Consider Phlebas, by Iain M. Banks? The main character is a mercenary from a now-extinct race of shapeshifters, which I recall could do many things including growing poison claws and change his appearance slowly, but...he is on a quest to find a runaway ship mind, which is like a sentient spaceship, as I recall.
posted by vetala at 7:01 AM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Vetala may have it, if your recollection is wildly hazy.
posted by odinsdream at 7:12 AM on September 11, 2012

The thing about a surgery (technically, a synergy of a surgery and a drug) granting the ability to see everybody move slowly is an element in Joe Haldeman's novel Buying Time (also known as The Long Habit of Living), and some of that novel is off-Earth. None of the rest fits, though. No claws, especially.

(I think that Consider Phlebas, like all of Banks, would fall on the sophisticated side of a sophisticated vs pulp-fiction-y dichotomy, if I understand what that dichotomy means.)

I'd suggest asking this question in rec.arts.sf.written; they're very good at this kind of thing.
posted by stebulus at 7:19 AM on September 11, 2012

Oh, and Buying Time is a little late by your specifications: it was published in 1989.

Consider Phlebas was published in 1987.
posted by stebulus at 7:25 AM on September 11, 2012

I'm pretty certain it's not the Banks. There were a whole whack of these sorts of books in late 80s, so it may be hard to pin down. Cobra by Timothy Zahn meets almost all your criteria though.
posted by bonehead at 7:28 AM on September 11, 2012

Definitely not consider phlebas, although i'm a fan. It's at the opposite end of the spectrum.

curious_yellow - hidden alien spaceships, that bit is ringing a few bells.
posted by kev23f at 7:30 AM on September 11, 2012

Zhan's Blackcollar books may also be close to what your looking for, but they're much more explicitly mil-SF.
posted by bonehead at 7:30 AM on September 11, 2012

thanks for the suggestions bonehead - i'm looking into Zhan now, but at first glance i don't think that's it.
posted by kev23f at 7:34 AM on September 11, 2012

It's been ages since I read it, but could it be Michael Kring's Space Mavericks? I recall one of the protagonists being able to change into a form with claws and fangs.
posted by cerebus19 at 9:03 AM on September 11, 2012

I have read this before too! I'll check my library when I get home and see if it's still there …
posted by Mouse Army at 9:47 AM on September 11, 2012

Are you sure you're not conflating the two main characters from Neuromancer? (Case's general mods and Molly's razorgirl mods.)
posted by cobaltnine at 9:53 AM on September 11, 2012

Sorry, upon a little further research, I was definitely thinking of Consider Phlebas.
posted by Mouse Army at 10:02 AM on September 11, 2012

The section I was thinking of for Zahn particularly is the mid-part of Cobra, originally published as "When Jonny Comes Marching Home" in Analog in 1984. The super-soldier home from the war gets assaulted in a bar, his computer kicks in and he kills someone.
posted by bonehead at 11:03 AM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Do remember anything about the physical book, or the cover? Maybe what the publisher's logo looked like?
posted by kittensofthenight at 1:24 PM on September 11, 2012

It could be any one of many Shadowrun novels.

The claws coming out of his fingernails with poison tips gives it away.
posted by porpoise at 7:23 PM on September 11, 2012 [1 favorite]

Cerebus19 - you have it! The second i saw the cover i knew that was it!

I am totally delighted to have found this out, many thanks to everyone here who helped out.

Looking into it, little did i know as a callow youth that this book would end up on most "all time worst sci-fi lists"! In addition, the author Michael Kring never finished the trilogy, so i guess i'll have to live in suspense.

Very happy here, thanks again Cerebus19, i'm off to buy a used copy. (thanks to bonehead too, weird cos your descriptions of Zahn's novel almost fits perfectly.
posted by kev23f at 11:50 PM on September 11, 2012