Whole Wide World

In the wake of a virulent "information war," England has become a police state with surveillance cameras on every street corner, linked by an evolving artificial intelligence. The government controls all access to the Internet. Privacy is a fantasy. Porn is illegal. But a young British woman manages to transmit her sexual escapades over the World Wide Web--and the acts culminate in the live broadcast of her own murder. But even as another woman is slain in the same manner, the war veteran-policeman Dixon finds himself being pressured off the case by powerful sources ranging from his superior officers to the dead woman's uncle, the powerful CEO who created the artificial intelligence that sees all and, perhaps, knows all.

Paul McAuley has received the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. --Cynthia Ward