The high-tech action in Christian's debut is propelled by an intriguing conceit: that Reva, an assassin, can pick her way across different realities branching out from her ""Now,"" allowing her to choose an alternate ""line"" where she can take advantage of gaps in a victim's security system. Once Reva has switched one line too many, however, she has no way of recognizing, and returning to, her original ""Mainline."" Reva has spent her entire life learning to adapt to this truth, which has rendered friends, relatives and lovers into slightly, or even wholly, different people than the ones she first knew. But now Reva has grown infatuated with Lish, a female ""holdout"" who smuggles illicit goods to the watery planet R'debh. Reva desperately wants to remain on Lish's Mainline. As the action reaches a frantic peak, smugglers, cops, aliens and sea gods converge, and it seems ever more unlikely that Reva will be able to stay in the reality she knows, with the people she has grown to love. Christian uses this premise to explore the opacity of other's true selves. While she does not give this theme the full care it deserves, she manages to pack a lot of plot into an intelligent and thoughtful package. (June)
