I have just finished the first three Quantum Gravity books and I have pre-ordered the fourth. Justina Robson is a marvel. In 40 years of reading SF, very few authors have delighted me or kept me guessing about what was going to happen next as Robson.

Robson hasn't so much blended SF and fantasy tropes as she's smashed them together in a supercollider. She has filled her story with myth, legend, deep metaphysical exploration, gestalt psychology, scientific speculation and sweet sexuality without slowing down the roller coaster ride.

Crazypants surprise.


Or crazy armour, surprise, perhaps. Anyway, after starting similarly to the other books, this book soon turned up the pace into crazed nonstop missions and madness.

You wouldn't think it likely that this would top Demonia, but it does.

Lila finds out some more about what the hell has been actually done to her.

With the imp, the elf, and Malachi, as well as the usual chest necromancer a quest deep into faerie territory is undergone, and it gets weirder and deadlier as they go.

Keys and confrontations and revelations in a very cool end, indeed.

This book is an excellent continuation of a fantastic series. It answers many questions left from the previous book, while leaving you hanging for yet another sequel. Ending up deep within ancient Fairy, left to solve an ancient quest, many of our favorite characters come face to face with pasts they had long ago left behind. Yet another nonstop, heart pumping, action and drama filled episode in the life of Lila Black, unwilling superheroine extraordinaire.

Males are a pain in her metallic butt so special agent Lila Black thinks, but women even ones with robotic gizmos inside her body needs these blackguards though she is not sure why at the moment. Still Lila wonders if two spouses is one, two or three too many as she and her mates Zal the elf-lord and Teazle the demon argue with her; while inside her chest resides whatever is mentally left of the deceased elven necromancer Tath also bickering with her.

Dispatching the assassins as a side activity, Lila and her horde travel to the land of the fae on what she assumes is a simple mission though anything involving fairies is by definition convoluted. She soon finds herself digging deep past the best beer in the world into the ooze of the realm where only hideous blood thirsty charlatans reside. To complete her mission and escape alive, she must navigate the ruses and pranks of those who abet her by trying to kill her and her retinue.

Although the heroine's whining about males causing her hemorrhoids (does prove artificially intelligent beings understand men) is overly extended, fans of the third Quantum Gravity saga (see KEEPING IT REAL and SELLING OUT) will enjoy Lila's latest escapades. The story line picks up about a third of the way in when the lead protagonist begins her quest into a realm no one escapes from. Readers will relish the twisted mission as the fairy glamor realm gives way to a dark despairing repulsiveness.

Harriet Klausner