Natural History by Justina Robson is a book on humanity, on human-forged post-humans, and on their contact with an alien agent that promises another quantum leap in the evolution (or not) of mankind, all against a background of a social structure that struggles with the definition of what it means to be human. Recommended reading, I think.
Voyager Lonestar Isol is on her way to Barnard’s star. Not in a spaceship – just her, a Forged Human, engineered and bred to be able to survive vacuum and travel at a fraction of light speed, with a mind to match – “a desire to travel and meet new people fused onto a psychopathic preference for no company at all”. She won’t make it, as she’s just hit a cloud of microscopic debris – the remains of an alien explosion, still containing fragments of alien biological material. Her Ti-Skeleton and her skin are punctured, the damage will be fatal. But. Besides the debris and biological material there is also a block of strange alien matter. Not sentient – but it shapes itself into an 11D drive, providing FTL transport in our 4D spectrum, and takes Isol to its home world – a world she now plans to take as a new home for the Forged. Things are never as easy as they seem – the material isn’t just a drive. It changes (contaminates?) everyone it touches – and many want to touch it, for the abilities it gives them.
Jan Lars Jensen is a Canadian writer, Shiva 3000 was his first published novel - a very promising debut, too. Since its publication in 2000 he has not published any further works of fiction (although one website mentions that he has apparently written another novel), but has instead released a book charting his experiences/battle with mental illness (Nervous System: or, Losing My Mind In Literature), which might well explain the lack off follow-up. And I hope that this situation will change in the years to come, as I'd love to hear more from this writer!
Shiva 3000 is playing in a future world (it never specifies exactly when, but the 3000 in the title provides a strong hint) and in a regressed, post-high civilization India, a lot of which we recognize, frequently in slightly warped form. After an introduction which tells the story of a group of Buddhist visitors (missionaries?) to India, and the first appearance of the Baboon Warrior (a national hero with the head of a Baboon) we meet Rakesh, our main protagonist. We find him in the town of Sholapur, which is just about to be destroyed by the Jagannath, a huge, war-machine like (mechanical) god mounted on a giant chariot, which was called in by Brahmins to restore moral order. There he meets Vasant, the former (?) Royal Chief Engineer, who has betrayed his Sovereign by sleeping with the First Wife (it's all a Kamasutran plot, he insists). Together, unwillingly (at least on the part of Vasant) they travel this India, guided by Rakesh's dharma (he believes that it's his holy duty to kill the Baboon Warrior) and Vasant's urge for revenge.
Lauren Beukes has a new 'short' story (it's not all that short) - Unathi Battles The Black Hairballs - out on SFX.
The story is a firework of ideas and concepts and cultural cross-linkages and styles (the approach is reminiscent of Tom Holt, but much more modern, and much more fun to read) - even the opening sequence starts as it means to go on, ie cross-cultural and full of allusions :
Unathi was singing karaoke when the creature attacked Tokyo. Or rather, she was about to sing karaoke. Was, in fact, about to be the very first person in Shibuya’s Big Echo to break in the newly uploaded Britney come-back hip-hop remix of the Spice Girls’ classic ‘Tell Me What You Want (What You Really Really Want)’.
So - very much recommended! The full story can be found here.
And I want more stories about Flight Sergeant Unathi Mathabane, her mecha, and her whale penis leather boots. Please?
Selling Out is the 2nd book inJustina Robson's Quantum Gravity series (running to a – final? - 5 books), and is a good step forwards, even if the near-future-scientific-explanation-for-magic stick still doesn't really gel (or fully satisfy) for me. Nevertheless, in terms of storytelling and characterization this is much better than its predecessor, Keeping It Real.
A word of warning – this is the 2nd book in a series, and depends on the first book. From here onwards there will be spoilers which might affects your enjoyment of earlier books in the series. You were warned...
The book kicks off where Keeping It Real left off, with the exception that we don't get the description of what Lila (part human, part machine, dead Elf in her chest) and Zal (Half Elf, half Demon, Rockstar on Earth aka Otopia) got up to for 3 days after her return. For which we are thankful.
Anyway, Lila does a minimum-time debriefing, re-plenishes drugs, weapons, and ammunition for her cyborg parts, and is off again, to Demonia this time; attached to Sorcha, Zal's Demon 'sister'. Her task, at least as far as she's told (hey, she works for Incom, the human secret service messing about with the new parallel universes) is to figure out how Zal could become half-Demon, given that Elf and Demons are considered rather incompatible on any level.
Natural History
Selling Out 
