Keeping it real

Keeping it real (Quantum gravity book 1) ** (av 5 möjliga) Justina Robson

It’s the not-so-distant future, the year 2015. Something has happened – no one seems to know exactly what, perhaps a nuclear accident – a few years ago which split the very fabric of existence. Now, apart from our world, there is the Demon world, the Elementar world and the Elven world. Of course, the people inhabiting these worlds claim to have been there all along, and even to have a history coexisting with ours.
Lila Black is a young female agent whose last mission to the elven realm went horribly awry. Now she is a blend of machine and woman (kind of like Robocop only, of course, sexy) and the Elven realm is all but closed to humans or demons.
One elf, however, has taken a liking to mortals and more than that, to Rock n’ roll. Yes, it’s an elven rocker. What kind of strange brain figured that one out? I mean punk, yes. Synthers, sure. Goths? No problem. But rockers? Imagine Legolas in skin tight black leather, astride a motorcycle and wailing away at the microphone...alright, I think I have to go and take a cold shower now...
Anyway, said woman/machine gets a job as a bodyguard to said elven rocker, but as it soon turns out, the ones trying to kill him are elves, indeed the very elves responsible for Lilas condition in the first place. But why kill one of their own? Could it have something to do with his strange claim to family ties in the demon realm? And if all that isn’t enough, someone’s put a geas on our two ‘heroes’, one that requires one of them to give in to and admit utter love for the other. Who will give in first?
If reading about demon-elves having pretty graphic sex with machine-women who has the soul of a gay (? hard to tell with elves really...) elven ranger possessing her machine parts is your thrill, then indulge yourself. For the rest of us, this is just weird. And the story is poorly written, with tons of authors convenience solutions and magically sprung romantic glades, incomprehensible magic, and odd mechanical gadgets.
And the very idea. Cyber punk? That is so ’90, dudes.

Book quote: Please, no lembas jokes. I’ve heard them all.