MagicNet

On an unusually mild Sunday evening in March, assistant professor of English, Schuyler "Skye" King, picks up his telephone...and hears a friend being brutally murdered by a demon somewhere across town. But while the victim, Grant, may be dead, he is far from gone - turning up the following day on previously mailed software to usher a cynical and unsuspecting Skye into MagicNet. The brainchild of a brilliant renegade hacker/warlock named Lloyd Merlin Jones, MagicNet is an astonishing meld of the technological and the supernatural - a computer-generated linkage of compatible magicks to create a dimension of wonders beyond the mundane. But the Net is taking on a terrifying and uncontrollable life of its own - which is where Skye King comes in. For though barely computer-literate, only he can cross the borders of reality into a nightmare...to crash a system that threatens to devour his world. So in the company of an attractive and enigmatic witch, and with Grant nestled in a laptop, Skye sets out for the coast to confront the evil Merlin in his Los Angeles lair. But the LA that awaits them is a realm hitherto unimaginable to anyone not under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs - a bizarre landscape dotted with impossible structures and vehicles, a dangerous breeding ground of pagan gods, griffins, monsters and assorted software wildlife. And despite ever-present perils both red and virtually real - not to mention a serious questioning of his own sanity - Skye must be resolute in his mission: which is no less than the complete reprogramming of the entire universe.