Books

Natural History

In the far future, humanity has engineered itself into new forms capable of spaceflight, the terraforming of planets, and the exploration of the deepest oceans. But when an insterstellar voyager meets a piece of alien technology in a head-on collision, the results go to show that the synthesis of the human race and its own technology is not the first nor the most advanced of its kind in the galaxy.
Natural History was placed second in the 2004 John W Campbell award and was shortlisted for the Best Novel of 2003 in the British Science Fiction Association Awards It .will be published in the USA by Bantam Dell in January 2005.

Reviews

Villagers &Torches The Agony Column for May by Rick Kleffel.: "I'd like to see the New Yorker publishing work by Justina Robson, say, whose latest novel 'Natural History' has all the earmarks of great science fiction and fine literature"

SF Revu: "Natural History is her 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. Never an easy read, her characters are closely portrayed and wonderfully believable yet she never takes an easy route. She is able to defy the expectations of the reader and to carefully dissect the standard assumptions of the reader. Lyrical and full of a sense of wonder, this is a highlight of this year."

Alien Onlone: "Robson’s two previous books have been fascinating, but I feel she has really hit her stride here. It’s space opera for adults, with all the imponderables, shades of grey and equivocal responses that implies. There are personal, political and alien imperatives at work, not all of which are obvious, while the story, ideas and characters meld in a much stronger way than in her two previous books. Throughout, from the Forged characters to the humans - and the ill-designed Forged, the failures who fetch and carry for humanity - there is a sense of description rather than creation in her writing which is worthy of the highest praise."

The Guardian - Books M John Harrison: "Silver Screen and Mappa Mundi showed intelligence, grace and a lively but humane imagination. Robson's considerable sense of humour lay in ambush, backed up by a postfeminist tendency to look the problem straight in the eye. Combined with a clean, powerful narrative drive and a cosmological sensibility, this clarity of vision now demonstrates itself as her major asset, making her one of the very best of the new British hard SF writers. But it proves her identity too, moving her on, like the Forged themselves, into a space of her own choosing"

New York Times Book Review: "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."