In a future Europe where everyone is genetically designed to be perfect, Dante is a throwback kept in a government-run complex, kept around for his unusual senses of sight and hearing. But when a suspicious fire kills his fellow outcasts, he is targeted in a plan to finally rid the planet of misfits.
 
Stowing away on a trader ship, he winds up in a strange world of space pirates where his artistic talents are valued, and where he may find his place within the pattern of life.
 
Reviews:
"The best book yet by one of SF's hottest and hippest writers." —Robert J. Sawyer
 
Songs of Chaos has "color and verve and momentum and a serious point having to do with the undesirability of social stasis." —Analog Science Fiction and Fact
 
"SF fans looking for less emphasis upon high-tech gadgetry and more upon a future culture will be rewarded by this effort." —Booklist
 
Songs of Chaos is a "melange of intrigue, revolutionary politics, and fast-paced action. Lewitt keeps the story moving, leavens it with interesting detail and a sympathetic protagonist, and makes her social and psychological points incisively. Songs of Chaos is an excellent read with more to it than most sf action-adventure novels. It's a throwback to days when sf adventure novels had to be about something other than running around the cosmos with bad guys chasing you." —Locus
 
"The author has managed to take themes that everybody is using and still come up with a book that is fresh and different." —SF Commentary