"In the twenty-fifth century, humankind has spread throughout the galaxy, monitored by the watchful eye
of the U.N. While divisions in race, religion, and class still exist, advances in technology have redefined life
itself. Assuming one can afford the expensive procedure, a person's consciousness can now be stored in a cortical
stack at the base of the brain and easily downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"), making death nothing
more than a minor blip on a screen." Ex-U.N. envoy Takeshi Kovacs has been killed before, but his last death
was particularly painful. Dispatched one hundred eighty light-years from home, resleeved into a body in Bay City
(formerly San Francisco, now with a rusted, dilapidated Golden Gate Bridge), Kovacs is thrown into the dark heart
of a shady, far-reaching conspiracy that is vicious even by the standards of a society that treats "existence"
as something to be bought and sold. For Kovacs, the shell that blew a hole in his chest was only the beginning.