The Girl with a Symphony in Her Fingers by Michael Coney

The Girl with a Symphony in Her Fingers is an odd and angry book.  It has also been published under the title The Jaws that Bite, the Claws that Catch.

The story is set in a future where a large part of the west coast of North America has been destroyed in an event called the Western Seaboard Slide, leaving behind a fragment of land known as The Peninsula.  Traditional pets, such as cats and dogs, are noticeably absent on The Peninsula; instead, people use domesticated fish that can walk on land and breathe air with the aid of a mini-respirator for pets.  

Most disturbingly of all, a draconian penal system offers certain classes of prisoners the opportunity to enter into bondage: in return for a partial remission of their sentence, they agree to be organ and limb donors for their individual sponsors, should the need arise.  It is a voluntary arrangement, and there is good chance that the need for donation will never arise.  It is a gamble many are willing to take.

The plot centres on an eternal triangle between Joe Sagar, a freeman who runs an alien animal pelt business, Carioca Jones, a wealthy has-been movie star, and Joanne Shaw, Carioca's bondswoman.  A sizeable cast of subsidiary characters add complexity to the tale.  Carioca does something  completely legal but particularly abominable, and a chain of events of Shakespearean proportions is set in motion.

The main flaw of the book is that the male protagonist is unlikeable. Carioca is intentionally unlikeable, and both contrast with the gentle and stoic Joanne.  There seems to be a lot of repetition in the tale, but each episode actually lays down the conditions for the satisfying denouement on the final page.  Thematically, the book deals with the ethics of using prisoners as a cheap source of labour, and of a tacitly coercive legal organ and limb donation scheme.

Despite some whimsical sci-fi decorations, the tale is hard-going in some places and seemingly pointless in others; however, if you can get through this (and over the male protagonist), the finale makes it all worthwhile.