Chasing The Dragon [Paperback]

CHASING THE DRAGON, the fourth installment in Justina Robson's "Quantum Gravity" series, opens with our cyborgified heroine Lila Black wandering the beaches of Otopia -- that is, Earth -- distracted and silent, in a tattered dress. It's fifty years after the main events of the previous book, GOING UNDER, but only a few months have passed for Lila since she parted from the mostly-dead Zal, nearly killed by the late and unlamented faery Jack the Giantkiller. It's not clear why Lila and her demon husband Teazle got kicked forward in time at the end of GOING UNDER, but a lot has changed on Otopia and elsewhere, and not for the better.

Having lost her parents, her sister, her sister-in-law Sorcha, her husband Zal, and others, not to mention being displaced from her time, Lila is depressed, suicidal, homicidal, and most of all desperately seeking Zal. She sends Teazle off on a mission that involves him slaughtering half of the ruling demons in Demonia, and gets recruited by the seriously weird new Agency head Temple Greer (a dead ringer for James Lester in the TV show "Primeval") ... to hunt down and kill Teazle. Meanwhile, Zal is being held in some kind of strange limbo, Teazle gets caught in a serious trap, and Ghost hunter Calliope Jones washes up, along with a whole lot of ghost ships, along Otopia's shores. Somebody, somewhere, is doing something intensely dangerous and foolish, and it is up to Lila and her friends to figure out who, what, where, why, and how to stop him/her/it.

As in the earlier books, Lila spends the first half of the book or so in Otopia as the scene gets set, and then ventures off into a new realm -- in this case, the boundary between the ghost lands and the Void, the place from where the first dragon -- or whatever she was -- came forth to create the universe. I have to say that, even though this place gives Robson space to contemplate a warped version of contemporary cosmology, it isn't all that interesting. The goose that's being chased also turns out to be an odd and not very compelling bird, and the resolution of the chase -- the cataclysmic climax that we've come to expect from the three earlier books -- is a serious let-down.

On the plus side, CHASING THE DRAGON continues the development of a cast of interesting characters and continues to deepen our understanding a of a complex set of parallel worlds. It is sprinkled with humor, including not only Lila's sardonic takes on events, but Temple Greer's facetious remarks and the behavior of Lila's faery armor-with-a-mind-of-its-own, which sometimes kits her out as a southern belle, and at other times tends towards the even more bizarre. On the minus side, the book lacks a clear focus. The identity of the "villain" -- and even the existence of such a person -- doesn't come until very late, and we learn much less about dragons than you might expect from the title. Some of the side plots, like about the rogue "androids", lead nowhere, and others are too lengthy. In other words, CHASING THE DRAGON isn't likely to meet the high expectations of fans, but also isn't likely to be a huge disappointment.

I just finished reading this book and I'm pleasantly surprised at the optimistic tone and happy ending. By the time I had gotten to the third book in the quantum gravity series, I was getting tired and worn out by the mainly cynical tone of the stories and the tragic occurrences in the protagonist's life. I was about ready to get rid of the three books I had and give up on the series, but when I flipped through this book in the bookstore, I discovered that it seemed more optimistic than the others. So I decided to give this series another shot. I'm glad I did, because it appears to be a major turning point in the series where things start going right in the characters' lives.
Another thing I liked about this novel is the revelations about the nature of several characters' natures and the transcendent powers that "chose," them.
However, the reason I gave this book four stars is because the author wasn't as good in depicting the alien environments as in previous books. And also, about the first half of the book was slow with all of the action taking place in our world, and nothing much happens except for the main character moping around alot. This moping around seems to be the general case with her for most of the series. However, by the second half of this novel, Lila begins to get out of it and even laughs in happiness by the end.

you will like this author, but start with the first book because it IS a series. This is adult fun- I do NOT mean sexual, I just mean that it is intellectually playful for adults- it combines fairies and science fiction and grumpy administrators and clumsy heroines and a lot of adventures that work because they are so clever. Okay, it isn't Lord of the Rings, but not much is, so enjoy!!!!!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 9 reviews  4.0 out of 5 stars