Quantum Gravity Series

Book 1: Keeping It Real
Book 2: Selling Out
Book 3: Going Under

Gollancz (2007)
ISBN: 9780575078659
$32.95
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Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack, May 2008


This novel is number two in the Quantum Gravity series. That fact points to a significant difficulty with this novel – it isn't very forgiving if you haven't read volume one. I haven't, and although there are good things to be said about this novel, it seems you'll be seriously disadvantaged if you embark on it without reading volume one. Throughout, Robson assumes that you have read the previous novel.

In 2015 a Quantum Bomb fused the dimensions, and now our world is accessible to a host of beings previously considered mythical – elves, demons, and ghosts, to start with. The world has been thrown into chaos. The political and physical dangers facing the world are enormous; and so the government has created Special Agent Lila Black. Rather like the Bionic Woman, she's been rebuilt and “improved” after nearly being killed.

Robson tells us very little, directly or indirectly, about what happened in volume one. It's clear enough that someone took advantage of the earnest little diplomat's secretary (Lila), sent her into a secret mission she wasn't prepared for, and nearly got her killed. Instead, she was rebuilt and her life was stolen in a different way; now the government thinks it owns her because they spent so much money on her various parts. In Selling Out, they send her to Hell – literally. She's sent to a Hell dimension to spy on the demons. And once again it seems she hasn't been told everything about her mission.

Not having read volume one, I found large chunks of this novel close to incomprehensible. It's often hard to tell who people are, what their relationship to Lila or others is, and what they're doing. It appears, for example, that certain magical and social rituals have been explained in the previous volume, and Robson doesn't repeat those explanations here. If that's hard, working out people's motivations, the overall story arc, and sub-plots, is exceptionally challenging.

It's hard to enjoy a novel you don't understand, even when it's fairly clear that you'd understand it if you'd just read the previous novel. If I'm correct in all the things that I assumed were explained in the first in the series, then this is probably a better novel than it seemed on this reading.

What did come through was the zippy approach Robson has taken to the novel. She's mixed together a lot of familiar elements to create a world that's original and interesting. Robson doesn't spend too much time on describing her world, but a fair amount is revealed through events in the novel. The world seems coherent and internally consistent; more importantly, it's interesting.

Unfortunately, the characterisation was weak, and I'm not certain if it is an inherent weakness in the writing or whether it's another thing that is partly attributable to the fact this is volume two of a series. Lila in particular seemed a fairly sketchy character. I suspect that Robson was trying to portray her confusion and uncertainty about who she's become after the events of volume one. The result for me was a weak and wishy-washy character who never quite came to life. There were scenarios here which were hugely interesting and original and should have given Robson the chance to show off the wit that appears in flashes in Selling Out, but Lila didn't come to life and take advantage of those opportunities.

Most, if not all, of the characters showed signs that they had been conceived as interesting and unique characters, but never quite came to life. For some of them – such as Lila's boyfriend, the half-elf Zal - it seems clear that I was missing big chunks of background given in the previous volume. It wasn't until the last few pages of the novel – when the set-up for future novels becomes obvious – that the repartee between some of the major players made them seem real to me.

Robson often shows a wry wit, and I would have liked to see this given freer play in the novel. Where it appears, the novel develops extra spark and zing, and briefly reads like the zippy adventure novel it could be. For me, it didn't appear often enough. The rhythms of the language used in the novel similarly point towards a sparky, zippy approach, but this tone wasn't sustained consistently. That's in part because there are some dark moments in the novel, and levity would not have suited those parts. On the whole, though, Robson could have employed her wit more frequently than she did.

As a standalone novel, this simply didn't work very well. Too much of the characterisation and plot is dependent on what (appears to have) happened in the first volume in the series. A reader who hasn't read that novel will find this difficult to follow and often shallow. I suspect, though, that those who've read the first novel will find this a far better experience than I did. The writing is good, the world is original, the situation has promise, and the characters also have promise. Certainly the final pages of Selling Out tease with a potentially very strong set-up for future novels using these characters. If you're interested, though, you should find volume one of the series first.

Gollancz (2008)
ISBN: 9780575078673
$32.99
Buy this Book
Reviewed by Lorraine Cormack Oct 2009


This novel is the third in the Quantum Gravity series. When I read and reviewed the second in the series Selling Out without benefit of having read the first, I found parts of the plot extremely difficult to follow, and the characters sometimes difficult to engage with. Although I still haven’t read volume one, I found those problems less pronounced in this volume. That’s partly because I now had the benefit of the information built up in volume two; and partly because a larger part of this novel seemed self-contained.

This was a good book, and an enjoyable one, and in fact most of my reservations about it may well be traced back to the fact I haven’t read volume one. As before, Robson doesn’t go in for a lot of recapping about what’s happened in earlier novels. It’s an approach I generally applaud, but it does increase the challenges if you’re new to the series.

In this novel Special Agent Lila Black is largely pursuing her own agenda, rather than that of her employers. I understand that in the first novel, she was seriously injured, and rebuilt with technology that made her half-robot. In Going Under it becomes increasingly clear that there was more than a little magic involved in her rebuilding. That’s not entirely surprising, as since the Quantum Bomb of 2015 there’s been a lot of leakage between worlds. The inhabitants of Earth are now only too aware that magic, and elves, and demons, and a lot of other creatures are very real indeed.

As the novel opens, Lila is in Daemonia, the world of the daemons. She’s essentially hiding from things she doesn’t want to face; she’s made a marriage to a demon, and is busily dealing with the resulting deluge of duels and assassination attempts. Killing her opponents is a nice distraction from everything that’s wrong with her life. That includes her complex relationships with her two husbands, the increasing suspicion that her employers have been less than honest with her, and the approaches from a variety of people who want to use her in quite a wide variety of ways. This somewhat fraught refuge doesn’t last very long, and Lila finds herself on a mission to Otopia, world of the fae. It’s dangerous – naturally – and involves a lot of trickery and double dealing – naturally. But if Lila succeeds, she’ll do more than help save the world: she’ll learn more about herself and what she is, literally and figuratively.

Robson writes strong action scenes, and in this novel there are quite a lot of them. She conveys both the movement and the chaos of a fight effectively, and will sweep you up in what the characters are doing. In fact, these strong action scenes sustained me a couple of times when I wasn’t entirely clear about a character’s feelings or the background (due to not reading volume one) – the scene was strong enough for me to lose myself in it and worry about the details later.

The characterisation, too, is a strength, although harder for me to fully appreciate given I lack the basic knowledge of the characters and how they (particularly Lila and Zal) fell into this situation. Nevertheless, Robson takes you into her characters’ emotional states and gets you to empathise with them strongly. In my case, I didn’t always understand exactly why Lila felt that way or how it had become an issue, again because of starting with volume two, but Robson still conveyed a strong emotional state. The characters are complex and generally very real, although I still don’t connect fully with some characters whose background seems to have been developed largely in volume one. If you haven’t read volume two, either, you’ll definitely have that problem with a couple of characters in this novel.

The novel is strongly based in science fiction rather than fantasy. Yes, there are elves, and demons, and magic, and holes between worlds. But the novel is rigorously logical, and despite the many fantastical elements it frequently returns to technology. Robson has melded the two genres very effectively, because she cares more about her story and her characters than genre lines. However, for me it really did have a strong science fiction feel, although I’m sure it will appeal to many readers who usually confine themselves to fantasy.

This novel clearly works best as part of a series. Although a reasonably large part of the plot is comprehensible even if you haven’t read earlier novels, you’ll find you get more out of it if you have read them (and if you haven’t, then like me you’ll probably find yourself puzzled or confused at various points). Robson is building a story that develops from novel to novel; events here are influenced or directed in part by events in earlier books. Her characters are developing and changing within each novel and from novel to novel, and it can be hard to fully empathise with them if you’ve missed a critical event or two. If you haven’t read earlier volumes, this is still an entertaining and well-written book. It isn’t a finalization to the story, though; there is clearly at least one more book to follow. Having read two of the three volumes so far published, I’m inclined to recommend the series as a whole, but I don’t really feel they fully work as standalone novels.