Best Selling Books by Justina Robson

Book two of the Quantum Gravity series sees Lila Black drawn into the intoxicatingly dangerous demon realm. Capricious, in love with beauty, demons are best left to themselves. This is not easy when they can't resist tampering with humans. Justina Robson's new series is a joyful melding of science fiction and fantasy brought together in the figure of the dangerously lovely Lila Black, a 21-year-old secret agent who's had much of her body replaced with weapon-and-armor-heavy intelligent metal and who isn't sure where her mind ends and her installed AI begins. Lila's world is one where demons, elves, and elementals live alongside people. And somehow Lila and the other agents of the security agency have to provide security for all and stay alive themselves.

The Tzarkomen necromancers sacrificed a thousand women to create a Bride for the Kinslayer so he would spare them in the war. But the Kinslayer is dead and now the creation intended to ensure his eternal rule lies abandoned by its makers in the last place in the world that anyone would look for it. Which doesn’t prevent someone finding her by accident. Will the Bride return the gods to the world or will she bring the end of days? It all depends on the one who found her, Kula, a broken-hearted little girl with nothing left to lose.

Lila Black is off with the faeries . . . Ever since the Quantum Bomb of 2015 things have been different; the dimensions have fused and suddenly our world is accessible to elves, demons, ghosts and elementals—and their worlds are open to us. Things have been different for Special Agent Lila Black too: tortured and magic-scarred by elves, rebuilt by humans into a half-robot, part-AI, nuclear-fueled walking arsenal, and carrying the essence of a dead elfin necromancer in her chest, sometimes she has trouble figuring out who she is. And a mission to the world of the fae may not help her work it out. The fae are beautiful, glamorous, exotic, and talented. Their inventions make food taste better, make beer divine, and bring sparkle and mischief to the world–but that’s only the surface. And Lila is being sent in at the deep end, to the deepest, darkest levels of Faerie: on the primal level, nothing about the fae is glamorous at all. In a winter-locked, raw, and primitive world, Lila has to deal with the fae at their most basic levels, as tricksters and dealmakers–and the only deals worth making are bloody ones. If Lila’s quest is to succeed, and if she is ever to escape Faerie, the right question must be asked, the right sacrifice must be made, and the right quarry must be hunted down on the winter solstice. All of which is difficult, when the only aides Lila brought to Faerie are her friends . . . Justina Robson’s new series combines her trademark themes of identity and reality, magic and technology, break-neck plots, a mischievous sense of fun, and a seriously sexy new heroine.

The Quantum Bomb of 2015 changed everything. The fabric that kept the universe's different dimensions apart was torn and now, six years later, the people of earth exist in uneasy company with the inhabitants of, amongst others, the elven, elemental and demonic realms. Magic is real and can be even more dangerous than technology. Elves are exotic, erotic, dangerous and really bored with the constant Lord of the Rings references. Elementals are a law unto themselves and demons are best left well to themselves. Special agent Lila Black used to be pretty but now she's not so sure. Her body is now more than half restless carbon and metal alloy machinery. A machine she's barely in control of. It goes into combat mode, enough weapons for a small army springing from within itself, at the merest provocation. As for her heart . . . well ever since being drawn into a Game by the elven rockstar she's been assigned to protect, she's not even sure she can trust that anymore either.

Lila Black is now a shapeshifting machine plugged into the Signal—the total dataset of all events in the known universe and all potential events: Zal, the elf rock star with a demon soul, is now a shadowform animated and given material actualization by firelight; Teazle the demon has taken up the swords of Death and is on the way to becoming an angel. To say this puts some pressure on their three-way marriage is an understatement. Meanwhile the human world is seeing an inexplicable influx of the returning dead, and they’re not the only ones. Many old evils are returning to haunt the living following three harbingers of destruction created in the ancient past. What seems epic is revealed as personal to all concerned as events unfold and that which cannot be escaped must be faced. Heroic destinies unravel as greater powers reveal themselves the true masters of the game and survival may be the only winning hand. From the Trade Paperback edition.

Ever since the Quantum Bomb of 2015 things have been different; the dimensions have fused and suddenly our world is accessible to elves, demons, ghosts, and elementals—and their worlds are open to us. Things have been different for Special Agent Lila Black too: she’s been tortured and magic-scarred by elves; rebuilt by humans into a half-robot, part-AI, nuclear-fueled walking arsenal; married to a demon; and is in love with a recently-deceased elf. It was confusing enough before she was catapulted fifty years into her own future. Returning to the life of a secret agent, Lila finds herself left all of her former boss’s old offices and whatever mysteries they contain, as the elf has disappeared some fifty years previously. Appointed head of the new android division, she can see all too clearly what’s in store for her if the growth of the alien technologies in her cyborg body continue unchecked. But there are more immediate concerns. Like resurrecting her lover, Zal. And her husband, the demon Teazle, is embroiled in a fatal plot in Demonia, and her magic sword is making itself happy as a pen whose writing has the power to affect other worlds. The world is off its rocker and most everyone is terrified of faeries. And all the while, she hears the voices of the machine—material projections of an immaterial form, The Signal. The Signal talks constantly—if only she knew what it meant. Chasing the Dragon is bright, fast-moving, and accessible SF that mixes in fantasy and a cool cult-lit sensibility to create a series that will appeal to all fans of Laurrell K. Hamilton and Peter Hamilton alike.

From sorcerous bridges that link worlds to the simple traditions of country folk; from the mysterious natures of twins to the dangerous powers of obligation and contract. Laden with perils for both the adventurous and the unsuspecting, magic is ultimately a contradiction: endlessly powerful but never without consequence, and rigidly defined by rules of its own making. Award-winning Jonathan Strahan brings together some of the most exciting and popular writers working in fantasy today to dig into that contradiction, and present you with the strange, the daunting, the mathematical, the unpredictable, the deceptive and above all the fearsome world of magic. Includes stories by Garth Nix, K J Parker, Tony Ballantyne, James Bradley, Isobelle Carmody, Frances Hardinge, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ellen Klages, Justina Robson, Christopher Rowe, Robert Shearman, Karin Tidbeck, Genevieve Valentine and Kaaron Warren.

A daring and original new novel from one of sci fi’s most provocative voices, Natural History is a stunning work of bold ideas, unforgettable characters, and epic adventure as one woman seeks to explore what may be the greatest mystery of all. . . . “Idiosyncratic and unpredictable . . . a novelist of real vision.”—Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth Half-human, half-machine, Voyager Isol was as beautiful as a coiled scorpion–and just as dangerous. Her claim that she’d found a distant but habitable earthlike planet was welcome news to the rest of the Forged. But it could mean the end of what was left of the humanity who’d created and once enslaved them. It was on behalf of the “unevolved” humans that Professor Zephyr Duquesne, cultural archaeologist and historian of Earth’s lost worlds, was chosen by the Gaiasol military authority to uncover the truth about this second “earth.” And her voyage, traveling inside the body of Isol, will take her to the center of a storm exploding across a spectrum of space and time, dimension and consciousness. On an abandoned planet, in a wrinkle of time, Isol and Zephyr will find a gift and a curse: a power so vast that once unlocked, it will change the universe forever. With civil war looming, Zephyr’s perilous journey will lead her to a past where one civilization mysteriously vanished . . . and another may soon follow. “[Robson’s] strongest novel yet, reminiscent of Moorcock, Banks, M. John Harrison, and MacLeod . . . and should assure her position as being one of the most exciting genre writers at this present time.”—SFRevu

Where do you run when a world is out to get you? AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye—here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today. . . . Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself—incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka. But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide. “For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.”—New York Times Book Review

Silver Screen presents an enjoyably different, subversive slant on the science fiction themes of AI and cyberspace. Insecure and overweight heroine Anjuli O’Connell is one of a group of friends who have been hot-housed from an early age to perform in genius-level jobs. But Anjuli worries that her eidetic memory and her friendship with genuine smart boy Roy Croft has been her ticket to success, rather than any real intelligence of her own. She’s put to the test when Roy kills himself in an experiment to upload his mind into cyberspace, seeking that SF dream of bodiless immortality, which doesn’t work as expected. At the same time her boyfriend’s research has led to him harnessing himself to dubious biomechanoid technologies, which pull the user into mental symbiosis, creating hybrid consciousness – a new "I", continuous with the old, but different. "Where does life end and the machine begin?" Meanwhile Anjuli’s grasping multinational employer, OptiNet, the owner of global communications AI, 901, is locked into an increasingly bitter war with the Machine-Greens, who preach AI liberation. As the case for 901’s humanity, or otherwise, comes up before the Strasbourg Court, expert witness Anjuli is targeted by assassins and entangled in the hunt for an algorithm which is the key to machine consciousness, and which may even be the master-code of life itself. This story explores many interfaces between humans and their technologies, between the promises of science and the explanations of faith. It is written in a first-person style that mingles elements of detective story and confessional. Alongside its SF content, the book delves into the complexities of friendship, loyalty, love, and betrayal from an intimate human perspective. This is "grrrl-style" SF: as well as all the favorite "Airfix" features, the protagonists deconstruct personal relationships amidst macrocosmic and deeply philosophical goings-on. The writing is punchy, but with a literary sheen. It delivers complex concepts and a twisting plot with a deceptively light touch.

'Highly engaging and fascinating... this thought-provoking collection reminded me why I used to like science fiction so much... Eventually, one hopes, science fiction will regain its rightful place - as once again stranger than science.' - The Guardian, 20 Dec 09. 'All hit, no miss... thought-provoking at worst, and stunning at best... shows that science can inspire anyone and everyone.' – New Scientist, 5 Dec 09. 'Inspiring' – THE, 19 Nov 09. 'A diamond of compression.' – Financial Times, 20 Dec 09. When It Changed is an attempt to put authors and scientists back in touch with each other, to re-introduce research ideas with literary concerns, and to re-forge the alloy that once made SF great. Composed collaboratively – through a series of visits and conversations between leading authors and practicing scientists – it offers fictionalised glimpses into the far corners of current research fields, be they in nanotechnology, invertebrate physiology, particle physics, or software archaeology. From Planck's Length (the smallest indivisible distance) to Plankton (potential saviours of the Earth's ecosystem), from virtual encounters between Witgenstein and Turing, to future civilisations torn asunder by different readings of the Standard Model, together these stories represent a literary 'experiment' in the true sense of the word, and endeavour to isolate a whole new strain of the SF bug. * * Featuring Sara Maitland's 'Moss Witch' - Runner Up in the BBC National Short Story Prize 2009.* *

Programmable memories, fatherless reproduction, nano-tech implants, amphibian-powered scar treatment, full body modification, brain-scanning lie-detectors, inter-species reproduction, self-determining synthetic ‘green goo’… Which of these would you wager is pure science fiction, and which currently being developed in the lab? Such is the speed and excitement of today’s bio-medical research – sprinting from the starting gun that was the Human Genome Project – it’s sometimes hard to tell. In a unique collaboration, fourteen short story writers have been invited to explore the increasingly grey area between the fantastical and that which is already within our reach. Closely collaborating with scientists and ethicists working at the forefronts of their respective fields, each writer has been tasked with predicting some of the potential ‘ethical side-effects’ of this ground-breaking work. Not all progress, after all, is progressive. And dark forces are afoot that threaten to hi-jack what many declared would be ‘the century of biology’. 'Fascinating reading.' - Financial Times 'An exhilarating read.' - The Short Review Toby Litt's Bio-Punk story 'Call it ''The Bug'' Because I Have No Time to Think of a Better Title' short-listed for the 2013 Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award.

The map of everything you know ... everything you are ... everything you ever will be ... just got rewritten.

The multi-award winning Infinity Project undertakes its seventh and final voyage in the imagination of the finest science fiction authors alive… Infinity’s End Humanity has made the universe home. On the outskirts of the solar system, beyond the asteroid fields, deep in space, under the surface of planets, in the ruins of fallen civilisations, in the flush of new creation: life finds a way. From intelligent velociraptors to digital ghosts; from a crèche on an asteroid to an artist using a star system as a canvas, this is a future where Earth’s children have adapted to every nook and cranny of existence. This is life on the edge of the possible. Featuring astonishing tales from Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, Naomi Kritzer, Paul McAuley, Seanan McGuire, Linda Nagata, Hannu Rajaniemi, Justina Robson, Kelly Robson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Lavie Tidhar, Peter Watts, Fran Wilde and Nick Wolven.

Transformers: The Covenant of Primus delves into the depths of Transformers mythology to reveal the backstory that's previously only been hinted at. Encased in an interlocking Autobot emblem that when pulled open emits Transformer sounds, this tome is a gift to humans from Alpha Trion, one of the ancient Thirteen Primes--the first of the Transformers. Little is known about Alpha Trion, and the rest of the Thirteen Primes have been shrouded in mystery--until now. Transformers: The Covenant of Primus reveals the stories of these ancient heroes for the first time. It chronicles the saga of Optimus Prime and Megatron and covers the full history of the Transformers. Never-before-seen illustrations depict battles, portraits of the Thirteen Primes, and detailed scenes of the Transformers' world. Offering insight into their origins, the Golden Age of exploration, the great civil war between the Autobots and Decepticons, and much more, this book is the definitive in-world history of the Transformers. Product Features: Autobot shield case with three-part interlocking manual opening system and three classic Transformers audio effects Hardcover book with newly commissioned cover art, 20 newly commissioned illustrations, and many never-before-seen images from the Hasbro archive

This groundbreaking new novel from one of the genre's most respected authors is a thrilling mix of science, magic and politics. In Harmony, only model citizens are welcome. A perfect society must be maintained. The defective must be eradicated. For orphans like Nico and Twostar, this means a life that's brutal, regulated and short. But Nico and Twostar are survivors, and when they're offered a way out of the slums, they take it. Unfortunately, no one told Nico the deal included being sentenced to death for the murder of one of Harmony's most notorious gang leaders. Or that to gain his freedom, first he must lose his mind.

Justina Robson (acclaimed author of NATURAL HISTORY, LIVING NEXT DOOR TO THE GOD OF LOVE and the Quantum Gravity series) is back with a cutting-edge novel of science, adventure and ideas. On a world where science and magic are hard to tell apart, a stranger arrives in a remote town with news of political turmoil to come. And a young woman learns that she must free herself from the role she has accepted. Always vivid, always full of stunning ideas and imagery, Justina Robson is the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD-winning author of some of our most exciting, yet philosophical SF. A new novel from her is a major event in the SF calendar.

Founder and original editor Storm Constantine has revisited every issue of the ground-breaking magazine Visionary Tongue to select the very best stories and poems to appear in its pages across a twelve year period, more than thirty in all, including early stories from some of the UK genre scene's biggest names. Introduction: Giving Voice to the Visionary Tongue - Storm Constantine A Photocopier and a Giant Stapler - Louise Coquio The Sin Taker - Katherine Roberts Pumpkin Man - David Rain Tides - Tanya Brown The Gift of Flight - Eden Crain In That Unquiet Earth - Chris Amies Mad Love - Ray Girvan A Traveller Meets One of the Minotaur's Younger Brothers - Justina Robson The Bull Leapers - Justina Robson A Tale from the End of the World - Fiona McGavin See You Later - Suzanne Gyseman Ptolemy's Recording - Jamie Spracklen Finding Mary - Tim Lebbon The Arena - Lachesis January The King of Hearts & the Jack of Frowns - Jason Gould Succubus - Chris Green Dancing Day - Liz Williams Storm - Sian Kingstone Deities - Austin McCarron The House by the Lake - Lisa Pallin Awakening - Isabel Taylor The Satanic Sex Machines of Dr Zhinn - William Eve An Angel's Effigy - Dylan Kinnett Sympathy for the Devil - Paul Whyte Forgotten Sounds - Simon Williams Luncheon with the Last of a Kind - Colin James FEa - Janine Jones The Magus of Inner London - Austin McCarron Collector of Broken Things - Lauren Halkon Toe in Water, Hand in Flame - Brian Maycock What You Came For - Jaine Fenn The Heroic Acts of Strangers - Ian Whates Chess - David Graham Casamundi - Douglas Thompson The Lady of the Fog - J. H. Fleming Mother Mary - A. N. Calaway Appendix 1: Lex Visionaria - Jamie Spracklen Appendix 2: The Female Fool - Donna Scott About the Contributors

What do Robots dream of? Four leading science fiction authors explore this question in four stand-alone novellas. ROBOT DREAMS Are humans to be trusted with the important things: the structure of society, governing their own lives, meting out justice, etc, or would an AI be better suited to the job? Despite the best of intentions, could such intervention ever work? After all, we humans are flawed, limited by our vision and by the dictates of the society that helped shape us, and an AI is limited by its programming, which is carried out by humans... At the end of the day, are any of us - human or AI - truly free?

Lila Black a parfois du mal à savoir qui elle est. Il faut dire que sa vie n'est pas simple : transformée en cyborg et possédée par un elfe nécromant, elle est envoyée en mission en Faerie. Voilà qui ne l'aidera pas, car les habitants ne sont pas réputés pour leur santé mentale. Cette dimension ressemble pourtant au paradis : les faes sont beaux et talentueux et leurs inventions sont pleines de glamour et d'espièglerie. Mais Lila pressent que ce monde n'a en fait rien de " féerique ". Elle n'a pas tort : il se révèle profondément sauvage et terriblement dangereux. Et si Lila veut avoir une chance d'en sortir en un seul morceau, elle devra faire les bons choix. Une tâche qui s'annonce ardue dans cet univers de poudre aux yeux.