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 shes 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.

Reviews

"Justina infuses this yarn with humour, intelligence and, a little surprisingly for such a fun book, depth." (SFF WORLD )

"There's a treat in store for you all, as the new Justina Robson is out. Lila Black is a spy, and a bodyguard, and every so often she breaks into the sheer joy of the toys she carries within her. It's good to see that almost naive geek:love you see among born techies translated into a character so beautifully. The only truly bad thing about this book is that it isn't stand-alone and now I've got to wait until she's finished writing the next one, wanting much, much more." (STARBURST )

"This is by far the most entertaining book Robson has written, a novel packed with memorable characters and ideas but that doubles as holiday reading escapism. No mean balancing act." (Jonathan Wright SFX )

"Keeping it Real provides a very enjoyable and diverting romp." (Sharon Gosling DREAMWATCH )

"Richly inventive. The work of a smart and sexy novelist having smart and sexy fun, and what's the problem with that?" (LOCUS )

"This combination of cyberpunk and the Byzantine twee ought not to work, but the icy intelligence Robson brings to her serious books applies in equal measure to her entertainments. There is also a passionate wistful romanticism which breaks your heart in places here." (Roz Kaveney TIME OUT)

"Half cyborg, half human, all attitude, Lila Black is the archetypal post-cyberpunk bodygurad/assasin, set down a amid characters ripped from mainstream fantasy and occupying a world created by a typically SF disaster. Keeping It Real is billed as Robson having fun. And fun it certainly is." (THE TIMES )

"Life is anything but real in this entertaining fusion of SF and fantasy spiced with sex, rockin' elves and drunk faeries, the first of a new series, from British author Robson (Mappa Mundi). In 2015, the quantum bomb at Texas's superconducting supercollider blew a hole in spacetime's fabric, revealing "a total of five other realities" unknown to the human inhabitants of Otopia (formerly Earth). One of these is Alfheim, a home to elves. By 2021, Alfheim extremists, who despise Otopian technologies (and Otopians), have targeted Zal, a rebel rocker elf and his band, the No Shows, for thriving in a human realm. Death threats prompt the Otopian security agency to assign Lila Black, a nuclear-powered cyborg still adapting to her AI abilities, to Zal as his undercover guard. After Zal is kidnapped, Black travels to Alfheim, where she meets an old foe and tangles with a wicked necromancer. Deft prose helps the reader accept what in lesser hands would be merely absurd." Publishers Weekly

Author Biography

Justina Robson ("a novelist of real vision" Zadie Smith) is the author of four acclaimed SF novels. She was born in Leeds where she still lives with her husband and son