Natural History

At first glance the book seems to be about the liberation of the "Forged". The Forged are bioconstructs of mainly human origin, but created for specific functions. As I got deeper into the book it raised a lot of questions about what it means to be human and what is ethical when doing bio-engineering. The end was very surprising and raised questions about the ultimate purpose of the life of individuals and civilizations. The story is enjoyable in itself, smoothly written and with the "tale for grown-ups"-quality that I associate with Justina Robson, but it is the philosophical implications that makes it a great book.

I found this book while browsing in a bookstore, and I'm very glad I stumbled upon it. I'm more of a fantasty fan, and not usually a fan of hard sci-fi, but I really enjoyed this book. Robson is very good at creating sympathetic characters with intriguing, complex backstories. There is also plenty of plot, action, and interaction between characters to keep things moving along at a good pace. I am very much looking forward to reading Ms. Robson's other books.

______________________________________________ Natural History is New Brit Space Opera, a la Banks & MacLeod, and Robson has clearly done her sfnal homework. I particularly liked her elegant use of current M-space theory (the 11 dimensions of branespace) as the physical background for her, um, Stuff.... Her setup, by contrast, is classical: The Forged, vat-born cyborg posthumans who do most of the heavy lifting in the 26th century, are getting tired of kowtowing to the Old Monkeys, the Unevolved guys who created them: us. As the book opens, Voyager Lonestar Isol has just made a disastrous First Contact with a mysterious alien artifact on her way to explore Barnard's Star.... Let us pause a moment, as you will be doing repeatedly as you read Natural History, to digest a bit of what Robson's doing here. "The Forged" -- what a wonderfully two-edged name. Character and artifact names are a Big Deal in her book: The Heavy Angels. Corvax, who was once a Roc. The Abacand® pocket-brains, sentient but not, well, street-smart. The chilly (but polite) Shuriken Death-angel.... Man, I love this kind of stuff. Especially when it doesn't take itself too seriously. She put exploding spaceships in, too. OK. My point is that Natural History is a book to be savored rather than gulped. Robson's put a lot of hard work, and hard thinking, into her backstory -- but she doesn't spoon-feed the reader (or, worse, drop in great expository lumps) and some readers won't like the extra skullwork they'll have to do to keep up. Well, too bad for them. Robson can write rings around 90% of all the novelists I've ever read, both inside & out of the SF genre. She's benefitting from UK bookdom's wise refusal to stuff SF into an airtight box, cut off from the winds of Greater Fiction.... Alright, I'm getting carried away here, but this lady can *write*. Trust me. This is certainly not a perfect novel, and I can (kinda sorta) see why it's taken her awhile to find a US publisher. She's writing for *adults*, and avoiding the cartoonish simplicity of, well, 90% of SF books currently in print. So she's not (sigh) likely to find a mass market -- but for those few brave souls who seek science fiction written with thought and substance, Natural History is for *you*, me buckos. You know who you are. What are you waiting for? Happy reading-- Pete Tillman

By reading the other 2 reviews you can tell what the book is about, so I wont go over that again, but I have to say that it was a great book. I read alot of sci-fi and seldom review them. My only wish is that I could have learned more about Isol, the first chapter in the book hooked me and I could not quit reading it and the idea of forged humans is something I can see in the future. If you like hard scifi, interesting characters, grand ideas, and good storytelling, pick up this book. I have told others about it and they have enjoyed it as well. I cant want to see what the author does next and I rate this as one of the top sci-fi reads for the year so far.

Voyager Lonestar Isol, as the name implies, fits in nowhere. She's a "forged," genetically modified to perform certain tasks--in her case space exploration. She's a sentient space ship. Peppered by cosmic debris while on a mission she recalls the words to Don McClean's 1971 pop hit, "American Pie," and figures that this will indeed be the day that she dies. It isn't. Saved by a lump of grey "stuff" that allows instant transportation, apparently (it will become the Maguffin), Isol returns to the earth system and incites various radical elements of the Forged, persuading them they can have a planet of their own. All they have to do is convince the unevolved (i.e., the unmodified Homo sapiens) to let them go. Enter the archeologist Zephyr Duquesne, who's enlisted by the earth's powers that be (called the Gaiasol), to check the planet out to ascertain there is no intelligent life there. Off go Isol and Zephyr, back to the planet Zia di Notte, as we follow not only that story but also those of various other characters, Forged and unevolved, all of whom have agendas of their own. Agendas sooner or later revealed. It's a kick. The author never loses her focus and creates a bravura finale that is both moving and logical.