I ordered the complete trilogy because I am a huge fan of Foster's writing. I was not disappointed. Set in the near-ish future, and beginning in a city I know intimately, he postulates a future at once fascinating and wholly plausible. The world is warmer and wetter, cities respond as they always have, they adapt. People too, have begun to do what they need to do, but especially they have begun to modify their bodies, often in extreme ways. It's easy and depending on your expected standards, even cheap to radically amend yourself. Feathers of a tropical bird replacing your hair? Trade a hand for a gun? Gills? Reducing the mass of your body to a sliver, or bulking up to a gargantuan bulletproof behemoth? All things are possible...even animals become enhanced beyond your most fevered imagination.Mega-corporations hold dominance, and are ruthless in protecting information and making profit at any cost. Our protagonists are at odds with these corporations as a once admired physician and a common street criminal try to unravel why technically impossible nano-materials are being surreptitiously inserted in teen's brains while they undergo routine body modifications, and why they evaporate when exposed.Finding out how and why is the main event, but the stops along the way and the incredible people populating and punctuating the story are the real joy. Alan Dean Foster used to be an excellent writer, he is at a masterful level now. If you don't know his work, this is a great place to start!