Tea from an empty cup - Pat Cadigan

From 'the queen of cyberpunk' (Guardian), a vision of post-apocalyptic AR chic, mayhem and murder featuring the luckless Lieutenant Konstantin.

No matter the blood spilt in AR, surely a body is safe in the real world, you would think, while the game goes on. But Lieutenant Konstantin is looking for the RL killer/s of those sad AR junkies who end up dead in their suits.

In aesthetic pain, up against the latest thing in nervous systems, Konstantin will discover there's no percentage in getting mad at a subroutine and no point substituting her real self for an avatar. She finally makes it into the heart of the deadly game but will she make it out again?

Junkies meanwhile are looking for another out door, the egress. to online immortality, the chance to be barbarian, vampire, wild-child, homunculus, evolved dragon - anonymity assured whatever the choice - for ever. If all they want is theme parks, no one can make them want anything more, but some players do indeed want more.

They want their world back: Japan. It crumbled beneath the sea in a series of earthquakes, leaving behind poignant memories in exile. With a unique grasp of ritual and the technology concerned, godlike full-Japanese surfers of NETsuke will stop at nothing to create New Japan.

While westerners think using garbage for culture is recycling, the Japanese are using Bunraku puppets to magical effect. Konstantin is in to something much deeper than she ever imagined. And so is the reader.