Product Description: In a Shanghai of the future, John Percival Hackworth is a nanotech engineer on the rise when he steals a copy of A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer for his daughter Fiona. The primer is actually a super computer built with nanotechnology that was designed to educate Lord Finkle-McGraw's daughter and to teach her how to think for herself in the stifling neo-Victorian society...read more

The story of an engineer who creates a device to raise a girl capable of thinking for herself reveals what happens when a young girl of the poor underclass obtains the device.

Set in 21st-century Shanghai, this novel of the cyber-future follows Nell, a street urchin, after she stumbles on a very powerful interactive device that has the power to decode and reprogram her entire life.

From the author of Snow Crash, the story of an engineer who creates a device to raise a girl capable of thinking for herself reveals what happens when a young girl of the poor underclass obtains the device.