"Never Laura" by Ewgeniya Lyras

An extraordinarily creative and original cyberpunk novel set in a dystopian world of artificial intelligence, human enhancement and hallucinogenic drugs.

Following the loss of both her parents during a suicide pandemic and her subsequent rape by a priest, trust-funded Laura spends her time in nightclubs drinking, taking drugs and having sex, usually with women. Then she takes a 'soul flight' and wakes up with bionic bits. This is a world in which IT implants are as common as piercings, allowing people to achieve all sorts of things, from making phone calls to controlling their surface appearance. This is a world in which many jobs are controlled by robots or by cyborgs. This is a world of hallucination and consequent epistemological and ontological fluidity, in which neuroscientists are working to free one's soul from one's body.

There were moments when I was reminded of Dhalgren, the classic of speculative fiction by Samuel R Delaney, of the work of Angela Carter and especially of the novels of William Burroughs such as The Wild Boys, Naked Lunch, and The Soft Machine. 

But it's a work of two halves. In the first seventeen chapters, leading to just past the 50% mark, the reader is immersed in a nightmarish world in which reality is hardly ever what it seems. The second half jumps back to before the beginning, using a far more conventional narrative form to provide the back story, to contextualise and explain the first part, and to lead us to a resolution. This is an interesting design, reminding me of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, an attempt to offer alternative perspectives on the same story, something I myself am attempting with my next novel. I'm not sure that it worked.

Equally, there were some wonderfully original phrases (see the selected quotes) but there were moments when these came perilously close to tipping over into rococo absurdity: “Battered strings of my dim energy floated between planets like rotten debris of algae in the ocean.” (Ch 17)

Nevertheless, this fascinating book offers the sort of experimental fiction that is all too rare today.   

Selected quotes:

• “Black night primed the canvas of the city and neon lights painted the portrait of its drunken soul.” (Ch 1)
• “Coming back to a sober brain is never a sweet experience.” (Ch 5)
• “His expression greased with satisfaction.” (Ch 9)
• “People convolved into sculptures of orgies, digging out unforeseen desires from the wrinkles of each others’ minds.” (Ch 10)
• “An awkward, bony guy, too smart to be talkative.” (Ch 14) My wife, who is far from laconic, was not impressed when I quoted this to her.
• “The drug-sodden air flogged the anxiety from Rick's bones.” (Ch 15)
• “Their three silhouettes shared every border, every curve and cavity.” (Ch 15)
• “It's OK to embrace pleasure. It's OK to have desires. Otherwise what’s the purpose of flesh?” (Ch 15)
• “My soul was a magical sucker on the tentacle of a giant cosmic octopus.” (Ch 15)
• “The white light of her supernova accompanied her final breath, and the blinding outburst swallowed the last bits of her before shooting the bullets of her energy through my celestial body, pervading me with her life.” (Ch 17)
• “My groin was moaning like a cat in spring.” (Ch 18) !!!

September 2025; 309 pages

Published by Hay Press in 2023

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God