PLOT SUMMARY (Crashcourse)

Morning in our place starts around four in the afternoon. There's damned little to get up for before that. The Gooders haul themselves out to their pretend work, their shops and offices and schools and clinics and workshops, by traditional after-breakfast, making like real pretend people. But on the Strip where life goes on all night you see the first early worms crawling out of their holes to get a coffee in before sundown, and the last late birds dragging back to their pads about the time the cits are getting around to lunch. [page 14]

You can turn Gooder, put a peg on your nose and stick all you've got into convincing yourself you're improving the neighborhood while you bring up your kids to play the same way. You can lose yourself in Electronic Wonderland with decor by our award-winning pharmaceutical industry and pretend none of it's hapening. Or you can try to work your way out. We're working. Mokey's a sculptor, Dosh is a whore and I'm a thief. It's a desperate remedy. [page 11]

I'd put the style down as gritty and poetic, definitely enjoyable to read. Baird's use of language sometimes throws one for a minute, but not in an unpleasant way. The female protagonist puts forth some entertaining thoughts, and Baird makes some very poinant and amusing observations. Not exactly a source of deep philosophical and moralizing material, but not brainless schlock by any means.