by Lewis Shiner

isbn: 0385266839
subject: Fiction and Literature
finished: Summer 1997

Dave is out on parole and a friend gets him a job taking care of 23 cats in a house on the beach according to the terms of an old woman's will. He hooks up with some skaters that live nearby, has a hilarious run-in with a UFO priest, and gets into trouble when an escaped con begins operating out of his house. My only previous encounter with Shiner's work was in Mirrorshades, so I was expecting a cyberpunk novel. Slam does adhere to the cyberpunk aesthetic, but the lack of emphasis on computers and technology makes it difficult to categorize. Who cares, you ask? I agree -- Slam is a great book; much better than most cyberpunk I've read, which tends to be overly fascinated with toys.