I first read this book as a junior-high student and have returned to it every year or two since then. I discover something new each time. The prose is stripped to the wire - practically poetry. Deliciously minimalist, its bare-bones surface hides a wealth of ideas about society, technology and the nature of human personality. William Gibson poses hard questions about the fate of individuals in a technocratic future. Michael Swanwick poses even harder questions about the fate of _individuality_ itself. A love story, an action flick and a sociological treatise rolled into one, "Vacuum Flowers" is the author's finest achievement save perhaps "The Iron Dragon's Daughter."