Cyberweb

Mason, Lisa. Cyberweb (written on two lines on cover and title pages). New York: Avon, Hardcover, 1995. Mass Market Printing, 1996. Avon Eos Trade Printing, 1998.

Sequel to LM's Arachne. Climax has Carly Nowlan freeing the telelinks of her ex-lover D. Wolfe and of her father, letting them truly die and rest in peace (cf. vampire and zombie motif), and freeing in IRL Ouija—"I release you, Ouija," is her formula (261; ch. 15.5)—an "aborigine" with whom she had a brief sexual relationship and who owes her, for other things, in terms of his tribal code. At the end of the novel, Carly Nowlan is still associated with Pr. Spinner (a female-gendered, free-standing AI), but Spinner has assumed the excellent robot body of an Ultra: much more humanoid and feminine, and powerful; and Nowlan and Spinner are joined by the telelinker and inventor May Kovich, who exists in the solid world as a kind of cyborg, dependent upon her prosthetics—but is a hotshot in telespace (LM's version of cyberspace). The three females are associated with the male-gendered Cognatus, a mainframe AI, and with Louie Zoo, a powerful figure inside telespace and capable of acting in the solid world. We may assume they will go on to further adventures in a brewing conflict among the "Humanists," the "Silicon Supremacists" and such people as the "aborigine" tribes of San Francisco, who wish to avoid "tech-mech" society all together, whether run by humans or AI. Note also the building of a very high-speed underground rail system, with the potential to open up the world of this series, moving things and people both physically and socially. (RDE, 26/12/99)