Cadigan, Pat. Tea From an Empty Cup. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1998.
Reason read: Read in honor of January is Drink Tea month even though this has nothing to do with the beverage.
I have admitted this before, science fiction is usually not my cup of tea. Or in this case, an empty cup is completely accurate. I made an exception with Willis’s Doomsday Book because it was clever and, more importantly, there was substantial character development. I had a hard time drinking in Cadigan’s Tea From an Empty Cup because it was missing the element that matters most to me – the character development. I ended up not really caring about a single character. Unfortunately, that made the ending bitter and hard to swallow.
The premise is simple, a young man is found murdered with his throat slashed. He isn’t the only victim but for homicide detective Dore Konstatin, it is important enough that she dons the victim’s ‘skin suit and enters the artificial reality of Nee Yawk Sitty, the apocalyptic cyberspace playground. She needs to play the same game Tomoyuki Iguchi played before he died. She needs to be him before he died. Her first lead is an allusive witness by the name of Body Sativa. Meanwhile, Tom’s friend, Yuki, is trying to uncover the same mystery.
Confessional: At first I thought this was a science fiction erotica story. The references to sex come quickly and often (pun completely intended).
No quotes to quote.
Author fact: Cadigan is famous for his science fiction.
Book trivia: Tea From an Empty Cup is dedicated to five different people. I wish I knew why. They all seem like very important people, though!
Nancy said: Nancy said Tea From an Empty Cup is “a great example of melding of science fiction with postmodernism” (p 69).
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Cyberspace.Com” (p 69).
~*LunaSea*~ 