A ‘techno-gothic’ attack on PC users by the former garden gnome salesman, author of copious others. Henry Doors’ company, Necrosoft, sells immortality as well as software. Yes, it’s a sell-your-soul scenario in an sf-fantasy humour novel, how very original. Doors is the world’s richest man, and has created the Necronet, a virtual reality where you can act out your wildest fantasies, be anyone and do anything, in exchange for your soul. Doors’ rival, Billy Barnes, wants to take over Necrosoft and thus rule the world (it’s Barnes who turns people into skulls on the Voodoo Handbag). To further his ambitions Barnes hires a sprout-dominated detective called Laszlo Woodbine.

Comes with lots of clever jokes about science (eg the Telstar satellite becomes a zodiac sign, an amazing concept) and, for some reason, (bad) poems are inserted at various points.

Rankin lives in Sussex where one of his neighbours, in retaliation for inclusion in a previous novel, recently shot out his windscreen. Tragic. Anyone got his address or phone number for us to post here?