Living Next Door to the God of Love [Paperback]

Justina Robson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 2006

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

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

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. (Mar. 28)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

British writer Justina Robson first set forth many of the concepts explored here in the celebrated Natural History (2004). Critical response to Living Next Door tends to be a comparative sport: those that prefer her previous book find this new excursion into the future a little confusing, though all compliment Robson's writing. The slight majority in support of the new book sees the plot as complex, not confusing, and the love story not only believable but essential to Robson's deeper thematic concerns. While not as universally acclaimed as earlier books Mappa Mundi and Silver Screen (both recently reissued in the U.S.), Living Next Door is the work of a writer of "richness and complexity" (StrangeHorizons.com).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Spectra; First Printing edition (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553587420
• ISBN-13: 978-0553587425
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,901,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Justina Robson is the author of Keeping It Real, Selling Out, Going Under, and Chasing the Dragon (Books 1-4 of the Quantum Gravity series). Her first novel, Silver Screen, published in August 1999 in the UK and in 2005 by Pyr, was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the BSFA Award, and is currently nominated for the Philip K. Dick award. Her second novel, Mappa Mundi, together with Silver Screen, won the Amazon.co.uk Writer's Bursary 2000 and was also short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2001. A third novel, Natural History, a far future novel, placed second in the 2004 John W. Campbell Award and was short-listed for the Best Novel of 2003 in the British Science Fiction Association Awards and the Philip K. Dick Award. A fourth novel, Living Next Door to the God of Love, was a finalist for the BSFA Award. Visit Justina Robson's website at www.justinarobson.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Give me constraints, not wonders, May 10, 2006

By 

Michael Schuerig (Bonn, Deutschland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Living Next Door to the God of Love (Paperback)

The title is great, unfortunately, as it happens, the title is the best thing about this novel. The plot meanders along and touches upon one sub-story after another. There's ample supply of sex and violence. Then, suddenly, everything is over--it must be as there are no more pages in the book. Otherwise, I wouldn't have noticed.

One of the minor problems is that Robson appears to be determined to tell too many stories at once and doesn't get around to do any of them justice. A deadly problem is that these stories are mostly bad fantasy clich?s.

What kills the whole thing for me is lack of understandability. Why are the characters acting in the way they do? What are their motivations? What are their ranges of possible behavior? What are the laws of nature in the narrative universe they inhabit? To the reader these are mostly unfathomable. Don't even try to speculate about what one or another of the characters does next. No chance. As there are no constraints on what can and cannot happen you have to wait until the author comes around and tells you. The effect is not very exciting. Bare facts and wonders are boring.

If anything, read Robson's Natural History before this book. Then, at least you get a glimpse of what Stuff and Engines are about. Alas, it doesn't help much.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars very hard to read, May 9, 2006

By 

Aaron Briggs (Groton, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Living Next Door to the God of Love (Paperback)

I agree with the publishers weekly review. I am usually not one to write reviews, but this book compelled me to, because of it's odd nature.
It starts off well, simialar to any "post-human" / "avant garde" sci-fi. Then it just goes on and on without being clear to with what is actually going on. I got about 2/3 of the way through this book before i actually had to put it down and say, this is "well written", but not good. Nothing is explained, i was still unclear about many details in the universe, and i could barely follow what was happening. Very dissapointed.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars confusing and overly violent, December 8, 2007

By 

Constant Reader (Gloucester MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living Next Door to the God of Love (Paperback)

Like many other reviewers, I felt that this book ultimately didn't reward the effort required to figure it out; although it started out in an intriguing way, the plot meanders more and more as the book passes the halfway point, and it becomes ever more difficult to identify with the characters. Also worth mentioning are two quite graphic rape scenes, neither of which seems vital to the plot in any way, and which represent a departure for Robson, who has avoided explicit sexual violence in her books to this point.