In the year 2053, moldies are evolved robots - artificial life forms made of soft plastic and gene-tweaked molds and algae. No new race since Adam's creation has been so anatomically inventive...or so universally despised.In a sleazy, low-rent future where philtre programs are the hippest high, sex with moldies is strictly taboo - a societal sin that is of no concern to Randy Karl Tucker, a Kentucky boy who has strayed light years from the Heritagist religion's stern teachings about the evils of artificial life.But an encounter behind closed doors between Randy and Monique - a moldie bookkeeper and a maid for the Clearlight Terrace Court Motel in Santa Cruz - begins a sordid adventure of cosmos-shaking magnitude. Monique's sudden and inexplicable abduction from the face of the earth - coupled with unsettling revelations about Randy's own dubious origins - is dragging the degenerate flesher and those around him into a mystery with roots in a messy, conspiratorial past...as it pulls an unsuspecting humanity ever-closer to a stunning encounter with intergalactic intelligence. Read Less