What does it mean to be human when you're part of the machine?

Synners are synthesizers - not machines, but people. They take images from the brains of performers, and turn them into a form which can be packaged, sold and consumed. They don't use the net, they are the net.
Everything is automated. Everything is synthetic.
But when the technology starts to fail, the terrifying question remains: what is a human?

Winner of the 1992 Arthur C. Clarke Award, Synners was Pat Cadigan's early stories, and cemented her place in the core of the cyberpunk movement, and has even inspired academic works. Lauded for her complex characters and plots, and seen as a stalwart of feminist SF, Cadigan has gone on to win another Clarke and a Hugo for subsequent works.