DR. ADDER

A trip through the sewers, literally and figuratively: one of the most relentlessly nauseating sf yarns ever. Near-future Los Angeles has become Rattown, a vast festering slum crawling with whores, pimps, drug addicts, and dropouts. Battling for control of Rattown: John Mox and his Moral Force vs. surgeon Dr. Adder, dedicated to supplying his customer's ultimate fantasies (mostly amputations, castrations, and other mutilations). Then from Phoenix comes E. Allen Limit, with a ""flashglove""--a mechanical arm with built-in deadly weapons. Excited, Adder has the flashglove attached, but is immediately assailed by Moral Forcers and subsides into a deathlike coma. Meanwhile, Limmit journeys through the sewers to consult the Visitor, an alien intelligence who turns out to be just as deformed, rotten, and senseless as everything else. And eventually there's a computer-world confrontation between Mox and Adder, as Jeter details every particle of vomit, pus, gore, feces, etc. (""Limmit reached in and pulled the shattered head out of the bowl, dripping. Little clumps of brain tissue, like soft pink cauliflower, and one perfect staring eye floated in the red water. Ah, fuck it, he thought, and squatted on the toilet seat after dropping his pants down to his knees."") Foul and--unforgivably--pointless.