Amazon.com (ISBN 0553505882, Paperback)

John Meaney's short stories in Interzone magazine gave him a reputation in SF circles as a highly promising writer. The promise is fulfilled in his debut novel To Hold Infinity, which has all the authentic flash and dazzle of cutting-edge science fiction. It's set in a colony world whose "Luculenti" aristocracy are genuinely superior to the common herd, thanks to built-in brain enhancements that provide all-senses Net communication and multi-tasking processing power. The implications are nicely explored, with characters manipulating the market and buying and selling companies during fleeting pauses in conversation. An utterly hissable serial-killer villain exploits the permanent Net links of fellow Luculenitis to assimilate their minds using vampire software and to steal their add-ons for himself--his mind is multiplied by hundreds of these "extra brains," though the legal limit is three. Others sense that something's wrong, and tough heroine Sunadomari Yoshiko from primitive old Earth becomes entangled in the invisible, multi-levelled struggle for people's souls. When the megalomaniac killer goes too far in public, the hunt is on and Yoshiko will be the bait. The book glows with biological and nanotechnological wonders, strange weapons and surprising perspectives. It is deservedly shortlisted for the 1999 British Science Fiction Association Award. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk