mardi 30 décembre 2014

Cyberpunk scifi book from the early 90's


I am looking for the title of a cyberpunk novel from the early 90's. The cover of my copy was red with a silver circular saw disk logo.


The story revolved around three characters; a female cat burglar and her two male roommates, a skinny welded-metal artist and a good-looking gigolo. They live in a warehouse in a future-city slum.

The cat burglar is approached by a 'feely-tv' representative to be their latest 'feely-tv' program - her life will be broadcast to their subscribers for the contracted period. People normally have anything from dumb reality TV stuff to witnessing staged murder happen to them under such contracts, but the pay is very high, so she agrees. She thinks that she can predict what will happen; it is agreed the broadcast will begin in a few days, the tv people will possibly even kill her artist friend, but she decides she can live with that if she takes the money and she leaves town with the gigolo.

Before she can adjust to the probable time frame in which the program will start, she is contracted to steal a piece of technology, and thinks she can probably do this before her feely-tv gig starts.

Things go badly wrong; she botches the heist and is chased, returns to her place to find the gigolo dead by the hand of her recent theft victim, and goes on the run with her artist friend. Eventually things get so bad she has to involve her burglary mentor, an almost legendary figure known as "the Shark", who has never been seen in person and no-one still alive knows what he truly looks like, as he never fully drops his camouflage technology to allow himself to be seen.

The book ends after a confrontation on a roof where the Shark sacrifices his reputation to save the cat burglar's life, as he considers her his adopted daughter. He drops his cloaking completely, revealing a man so old he makes extensive use of implants merely to stay alive. However, this leaves his fearsome and shadowy reputation in tatters - he's just an old man. Everyone is shocked and the entire confrontation stops. It is of course revealed that the cat burglar was being recorded for feely-tv broadcast from right after her contract signing. She is paid for both her theft and TV contracts and she and the artist leave the city for good.


Any leads appreciated! Thanks in advance.





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