Mia Ziemann is 93, but looks thirty thanks to advances in medical technology and living life very carefully. The world has survived a prolonged bout of plague and disease, and a significant portion of the global economy is devoted to keeping people alive and healthy for as long as possible, an interval that is growing all the time. After a radical new treatment gives her the appearance of a twenty year old, Mia experiences side effects which appear to give her the mind of a twenty year old, too, and in a sort of fugue state, she ditches the paraphernalia that is carefully monitoring her every move and takes off for Europe. There she encounters a typically Sterlingian cast of drop-outs, thieves, artists, intellectuals, bohemians and radicals. These are the young in a world dominated by the old and the rich. Stifled and coddled by a society made utterly safe but with no way to compete with or replace the dominant gerontocracy, the young foment and plan and strive to make their own stamp on the world.

This is a thoughtful, mature, ultimately moving novel about creating art and rebellion in a society where everything seems wrapped in cotton wool, where the only thing to rebel against is the indifference of those in power and where the people may not be human anymore, and therefore no longer capable of creating art. It's stuffed with big ideas and, unlike a lot of the books that came out of the cyberpunk movement, seems as relevant today as when it was first published.