Maul by Tricia Sullivan
01/12/2003 . Source: Sue Davies 

pub: Orbit. 355 page enlarged paperback. Price: £10.99 (UK). ISBN: 1-84149-312-0.

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Then there is lipstick, boys and what colour your holster should be for your automatic pistol. For Sun all tooled up and ready to go it should have been an ordinary day's shopping.

Unfortunately it's Bonus Time at Clinique a coded challenge from another crew for Sun and her mates. For Sun's friend, Suk Hee, it's a simple choice of lipstick shades but things get nasty when 10Esha and her crew show up and have their own opinion.

It's all too much for Suk Hee who destroys the perfume counter in an explosion of gunfire with 'Die Hard' proportions.
Never ever criticise a girl's lipstick...

So Sun and her friends are all cast adrift in the Mall with police, security guards and worst still 10 and her cameras that seem to follow them everywhere. In an increasingly bizarre journey, Sun must find a way to save her friends and escape from the Mall. Only the strong will survive.

Meanwhile, in another place and time, Meniscus plays the Mall game. It distracts him from the pain as experimental azure bugs that open up new dimensions of agony consume his body. For Meniscus is an expendable clone. He is being used as a test subject because as Y-autistic nobody cares if he lives or dies. All the 'real' men are kept in castellations.

These are basically fortresses as men are so rare they are precious and needed to continue the human race. Women have all the power and seem to have become just like men. For Maddie, who is in charge of the experiment, it is her last chance to qualify for some decent high-level sperm enabling her to have a real baby to go with her clone daughter Bonus.

Meniscus acquires a reluctant cellmate, nicknamed Starry Eyes, sent to catch his infections. Instead of them both dying, something changes as the balance of power within the experiment shifts away from the women and towards the men. As Starry Eyes breaks down the barriers between the women offering them sex or sperm in exchange for escape, Meniscus learns he can begin to manipulate himself and starts to win the battle against the bugs.

The fight for male and female domination is about to take another twist.

All in all this is an intriguing and neatly paced narrative that will leave you guessing. It is far more thoughtful and interesting that the gaudy rock-chick cover would have you believe. Its cover blurb of 'a science fiction novel of sex, shopping and terrorbugs' is a start but not an end to it. The tale moves along at a good pace as each chapter swaps between the two stories. Trying to join up the dots is not that simple.

The two narratives are subtly connected but re-reading may well offer 'Oh-yes, that's it' moments. Sullivan's use of dialogue, external and internal is good and she vividly brings her two environments to life with spot on descriptive passages. Her use of street language is consistent and you may wish to avoid this book if you object to the occasional graphic sex scene and use of swear words.

'Maul' is a graphic interpretation of the struggle to survive in a 'mixed up world'. It moves between an almost recognisable shopping centre through a dark cataclysmic breakdown of order and back towards almost but not quite familiar territory. Along the way there are some funny moments, shocking moments and an awful lot of broken glass. It seems to get a little too deep in certain places but its heart and approach is in the right place.

The only thing that worries me is that Sun will make the gun rusty (see page 1).

Sue Davies