| View Larger Image | Natural History | Paperbackby Justina Robson (Author)
| List Price: | $13.00 | | Price: | $10.14 | | You Save: | $2.86 (22%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Spectra | | Edition: | 1st Printingst Edition | | Page Count: | 336 Pages | | Publication Date: | December 28, 2005 | | Sales Rank: | 341,125st |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
A daring and original new novel from one of sci fi’s most provocative voices, Natural History is a stunning work of bold ideas, unforgettable characters, and epic adventure as one woman seeks to explore what may be the greatest mystery of all....IMAGINE A WORLD... Half-human, half-machine, Voyager Isol was as beautiful as a coiled scorpion–and just as dangerous. Her claim that she’d found a distant but habitable earthlike planet was welcome news to the rest of the Forged. But it could mean the end of what was left of the humanity who’d created and once enslaved them.IMAGINE A FATE...It was on behalf of the “unevolved” humans that Professor Zephyr Duquesne, cultural archaeologist and historian of Earth’s lost worlds, was chosen by the Gaiasol military authority to uncover the truth about this second “earth.” And her voyage, traveling inside the body of Isol, will take her to the center of a storm exploding across a spectrum of space and time, dimension and consciousness. IMAGINE THE IMPOSSIBLE...On an abandoned planet, in a wrinkle of time, Isol and Zephyr will find a gift and a curse: a power so vast that once unlocked, it will change the universe forever. With civil war looming, Zephyr’s perilous journey will lead her to a past where one civilization mysteriously vanished...and another may soon follow. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 13 reviews)
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Not Free SF Reader by Blue Tyson  4 Stars
November 16, 2008
Evolving to not the Good Stuff.
Human society in the future has people with the usual sets of limbs, as well as cyborg hybrids that can live or travel in environments the average meatbody cannot.
The beginning finds one of these 'Forged' in trouble in space, literally running across an alien artifact that turns out to be a lot more than just a bit of space junk.
Lots of disruption and decisions to be made on what to do with such advanced alien technology, or perhaps what can you do to stop 'Stuff' being done to you.
Quite interesting, and I continue to enjoy Robson's style.
3.5 out of 5
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I don't know what I expected by constantread (NM)  3 Stars
September 16, 2008
whatever I expected, I didn't get it. One thing I wanted desparately was to know more about Isol; the other was to understand Zephyr more fully. Neither happened. I have become so accustomed to character-driven science fiction that hard science fiction leaves me wanting. I learned more about the peripheral characters than I did about the main characters and that left me wanting more.
Let me say that Robson is a very good writer. Even in my disappointment, she kept me reading--not a page turner, mind you, but an interesting read.
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A Thought Provoking Tale by H. Litsne (Gothenburg, Sweden)  5 Stars
July 27, 2008
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.
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A flight-of-fancy sci-fi by Y. Alekseyev (New York) 4 Stars
January 08, 2007
Let me start off by saying that I very much enjoyed this book.
I do, however, wish it was longer. Not because I like long books for their own sake, but because Robson could have done so much more with the material she had. As another reviewer said, the effect of "Stuff" on a society is an interesting study in its own right, but unfortunately Robson's book basically ends just as when we find what "Stuff" is.
The society itself, composed of the Forged (beings with a human consciousness, but created for a certain purpose and therefore in a peculiar, sometimes bizzare, form), and the Unevolved (aka "monkeys"), is an equally intriguing vision. Here, we are given a bit more to chew on, but still I found myself wanting more. The Forged, you see, are humans, with a difference that is very important for philosophical reasons: their Form and indeed their very existence is owed to a certain Function which they were designed to perform. So while ordinary human beings are usually struggling to find their purpose/Function, the Forged are trying to liberate themselves from theirs. Some of them are convinced that they are slaves to the Unevolved for as long as they remain bound to their Form and Function. Others aren't so sure.
To me that seems like a great invitation to pose a question: does having a purpose have anything at all to do with being free, and if so, what? Robson barely touches this complex and deep subject, which is understantable as it might have made the already rich novel simply too rich for public consumption. But I wish she had at least tried: she certainly had the tools for the job right there at her disposal.
The "flight-of-fancy" in the title comes mainly from the only other weakness of this novel: its scientific foundations. The Forged often defy engineering principles (not least by being too grotesquely gigantic for the Earth-standard gravity: there are good reasons why birds did not evolve to be the size of a 747, why insects do not grow to human size and never did, and whale-sized creatures do not walk or even crawl the land), propulsion systems operate via unexplained principles, and the proposed implications of M-theory are rather far fetched. That's ok though: this is, after all, science-fiction. In this particular case, however, I would put a lot more emphasis on "fiction" than "science."
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Solid space opera by Thomas O. Hagan (Burbank, CA) 4 Stars
August 29, 2006
Other reviews cover the basic story, so let me just say I picked this up for summer vacation reading after seeing the favorable NY Times review. This is book was engrossing and imaginative story-telling, very well done.
It is a bit much for light summer reading as it is by no means fluffy reading; it is very thought provoking as to what humans and not-quite-human-any-more beings may face. It was so convincing to me that something like this will resemble the centuries-off future that it's become very hard to view popular TV sci-fi (such as Star Trek, which I confess to love) without wondering why there aren't any radically altered sentients. Still, I finished it across two weeks of time off, by no means reading full time.
The discovery of Stuff and the radical impact it has on society is a fascinating study in itself, even for someone (as I am) old enough to remember when no one thought of owning his own personal computer and phones were hard wired devices with dials.
I'm keeping my eye on this author, and buying her new book.
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