Living Next Door to the God of Love

February 6, 2006
If William Gibson and Norman Spinrad had dropped acid together, this fourth SF novel by British author Robson (Natural History
) is the book they might have written. It's a bizarre exploration of theories about human nature, set in a post-Singularity future where AIs are in charge of both real and virtual worlds, genetic manipulation is so common that "unevolved" people are disdained, and anyone can use magic as long as they don't mind occasionally being possessed by Theo, the personification of knowledge, as he hunts for his twin, Jalaeka, the personification of the ineffable. Unfortunately, the tale's visionary qualities are drowned out by the overabundance of undefined vocabulary, queasily fluctuating scenery and dizzying perspective swaps among half a dozen protagonists. Some chapters are less than a page, and almost all are written in the first person, adding narrative confusion despite Robson's credible efforts to distinguish the characters' voices. The experimental nature that makes the novel worth starting sadly ends up rendering it hard to finish.

March 1, 2006
Francine is a runaway to Sankhara, a "high interaction universe." Arriving penniless and without any means of support, she resourcefully survives for a while under the auspices of the Love Foundation and eventually finds work with a scientist who is cataloging the many facets of the Stuffverse; that is, the world of the novel, in which anything that can be imagined is possible. Unity, the godlike entity that manipulates the stuff of the universe and can even create people, is hunting a splinter of itself. The destruction Unity leaves in its wake and the people who have been absorbed by it attract the attention of SolarGov. Jalaeka, who is the splinter, flees the threat of being consumed by Unity, and Francine finds in him a boyfriend who has been a god of love, among other things. Robson's sweet, crazy story presents a conflict that has been brewing for ages between a crypto-deity that consumes to comprehend and the individuals, human and otherwise, who don't want to be comprehended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)