Selling Out (Quantum Gravity Book 2) by Justina Robson
01/04/2008 . Source: Paul Skevington 
pub: Gollancz. 284 page enlarged paperback. Price: £10.99 (UK only). ISBN: 978-0-575-07865-9. Buy Selling Out in the USA - or Buy Selling Out in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
'Selling Out' is the second book in Justina Robson's 'Quantum Gravity' series and thus it is burdened by less of the introductory scene-setting that it is necessary to include in the opening novel of a long-running sequence.
Indeed, 'Selling Out' begins but a short while after the concluding events of 'Keeping It Real' as we find the protagonist, Lila Black, being debriefed by the Otopian Security Agency. Lila is a cyborg and has been ever since a mission to another world went sour, resulting in the loss of her limbs. The Otopian Security Agency offered to rebuild her in exchange for an extremely long-term employment contract.
This is not the most complicated element of her existence. In 2015, a quantum bomb exploded, opening up entranceways to several different dimensions, which now permanently connect with our own. These dimensions are populated by demons, elves, fairies, elementals and the dead, although not much is known about the latter as they aren't particularly chatty. Previously, Lila was tasked to bodyguard an Elven pop-star named Zal, whom she subsequently fell in love with.
Following her duty and her heart, she entered Zal's home dimension where her body became the perpetual residence for the spirit of a dead Elven necromancer and where she also overturned the schemes of the powerful ruler of the land, having been forced to make some hard choices on the way. Now she is required to enter Demonia in order to discover exactly how Zal acquired his unique, half-demonic physiology.
Robson takes the opportunity to expand her world in a book that abandons the faster pacing of 'Keeping It Real' in favour of a structure that feels like a train in the earliest stages of acceleration, just before the final burst of speed that will result in it achieving its terminal velocity. It's just as well, as there is a hell of a lot to see out of the windows.
Lila continues to be an endearingly neurotic character and after everything that has happened to her, this is not all that surprising. From the moment she enters Demonia's high society, her every triumph seems to be countered by her own rabidly bad luck. This entire section of the book is wonderfully crafted to ensure that the reader feels as uncomfortable in this environment as Lila does herself. It is this sense of the unfamiliar that Robson brings powerfully to the work, so much so that even the fundamentally altered environs of Otopia feel safe in comparison to these wild zones of uncertainty.
As well as Demonia, we will also be visiting Zoomenon, the world of the elements, where Zal will strike up a comically close relationship with a lump of earth. We will also accompany Lila's colleague, Malachi, as he enters I-space, the nebulous country that lies in between the cracks of the now conjoined dimensions.
Robson seem to be edging towards a vision of fantasy more inspired by magic-realist authors such as Charles De Lint and Neil Gaiman, rather than the traditional fantasy of Tolkien, et al. This is most exemplified in the scene wherein Lila visits the raven-headed demon Madame De Loup, who speaks of the pathways into and out of hell and who sees the future quite clearly, to Lila's frustration.
Despite its obvious and increasing depth, this is still a series that revels in the sheer coolness of Lila's world and has an appropriate sense of fun to go with it. From the demon Teazle's jocular approach to courting Lila to the Imp that attaches itself to Lila in the form of an ear-ring (always room for one more) and then persists in dishing out unwanted advice and sarcastic jibes at every opportunity, there is no want for levity here.
The action we've come to expect is present, too, as Lila battles with demons and assassins and still manages to be the life of the party, even when she's wearing someone's kidneys as a necklace. Tellingly, though, the conclusion is more concerned with an emotional payoff for the reader, followed by a concluding chapter that is almost a mission statement for the books to come.
I certainly look forward to discovering if this particular cyborg has the right equipment to make it to the end.
Paul Skevington |
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