Crashcourse

Nobody wants to live on Earth. The place is a hole, and a lethal one at that. Cass, Moll, and Dosh are working on getting off-world and never coming back. Cass is a high tech burglar, Moll is a metal Sculptor, and Dosh is an actor - when he's not a prostitute, that is. Dosh is savagely beaten by a trick, and the three begin to realise that what they are doing will get them nowhere. Enter Coelacanth Studios with a job offer. The Aris - the wealthy elite - are in search of stimulation for their jaded palettes, and they want reality. And of course these days you can plug into the emotions of the actors. So they take the job, and are told that filming will start soon. Enter the paternally abused Mallore, whom they rescue from her erstwhile pimp, and whom Cass suspects as being more than she seems to be... Life is dirty and cheap, death swift. Very Gibsonesque. Moll and Dosh are stupid, but then they need to be for the plot to hang together, and I thought that a little transparent. That said: the potential future was believable, and the style quite straight-forward, ala Cadigan, or Brust, which is no bad thing.