Cyberweb

Set in the same universe as Mason's previous Arachne, this chronicle of San Francisco attorney Carly Nolan-who loses her position because of an anomaly in her ``telespace'' link, known as an ``arachne'' for its spiderlike appearance-and her robotic companions Saint Download and Pr. Spinner fails on several levels. One of these is its prose: ``Two women, astonishing and beautiful, the way the water of the Bay was beautiful when poison slicked its surface in green and blue swirls and astonished him with sudden sickness at its taste.'' More perilously, Mason seems awed by the gadgetry she presents, more so than readers are likely to be. Finally, she posits a romanticized band of ``aborigines,'' led by Ouija, who seem little more than Luddites. (Says Ouija, of his people's life: ``We hunt, we feed, we fuck, we are free.'') Mason allows her sympathies, not her characters, to move the story line, which culminates in a contrived tearjerker ending. (Feb.)