That guy in that book...

[andygates]

There's nothing worse than one of these, except for "my bicycle is making a noise", but this itch has been tickling the inside of my skull for months now. 

There's a novel.  I think it's hard SF -- I'd have read it back as a kid in the 80s, along with my steady diet of Clarke and Asimov (travelling library, you rocked!).  Anyway, this novel has an antagonist who is a bit of a Kingpin character, and he's a card-carrying archetypal Huge Black Guy.  Over the course of the story it turns out that every one of his physical traits is ... shall we say chemically enhanced: his physique, his voice, even his skin colour (he is both biggest and blackest, all part of his mystique) is all injectable, and as the SHTF (in space? LEO? Rama?) and he's denied it, he comes apart like an orchid out of the hothouse.  

Damned if I can remember the story or the character, but it's been nagging at me.  Any ideas, O nerds of the Internet?

Comments

[n-decisive.livejournal.com]

My first impression was that it was a Michael Moorcock book. If not, I'll think on it a bit more, and, if it's okay with you, ask a few of my friends who have more encyclopedic memories for sci-fi books than I do.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

By all means :) I don't think it was Moorcock, though, I wasn't a Moorcock fan as a kid. Too much whimsy, not enough rockets!