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Feisty young Joanna works for an agency that takes on difficult, sometimes life-threatening assignments. In the opening pages of this sci-fi thriller, she gleefully kills numerous guards with bullets flying and blood spurting to rescue a man caught in a mysterious lab where grey-faced aliens are performing strange experiments. Soon afterward, her boss is contacted by Pollyanna, who asks for Joanna by name. Joanna knows Pollyanna as the lover of her brother John whom she has not seen for a long time. The violent, drug-infused, sex-charged entanglements that result will involve further killing, the wiles of a witch bent on destruction with John as her intended victim, and, for Joanna, a chance for something akin to sainthood—if she is willing to cooperate with the grey beings who are, she learns, plotting to eliminate male sexual dominance by making the planet’s inhabitants physically and emotionally androgynous.
Hansen’s novel is squarely in the cyberpunk genre, with an eerily shadowed future predicated on the sway of aggression. There are few tender moments (though those few stand out), showing us that Joanna, the book’s first-person adventuress, is secretly kindhearted while dealing with enemies and constantly changing circumstances that will keep her, and the reader, on edge. Her frequent inner musings reveal her wild, womanly fantasies alongside a steely ability to focus on dangerous assignments. The author’s fantasy world is not accidentally given cinematic touches, since Hansen, both artist and actor, plans to transform his story into a screenplay. He includes photos of his dynamic dames, Pollyanna and Joanna, with menacing faces and wielding weaponry. Fans of dystopian fantasy will doubtless be drawn to Hansen’s tale with its strong and courageous heroine, bizarre plot twists, barrage of profanity, and sexual innuendo across all gender permutations as well as some deadly tech gadgetry and a healthy dose of slangy, sardonic humor.