false 837062 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 837062 4 2528072 2005 Living Next Door to the God of Love total:44|5:6|4:18|3:10|2:7|1:3| 44 149 94 10 224518 3.53 656 118 45461127 1008236 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.45 38
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Thu Feb 05 09:39:40 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:39:40 -0800 2009 British writer Justina Robson first set forth many of the concepts explored here in the celebrated Natural History (2004). Critical response to Living Next Door tends to be a comparative sport: those that prefer her previous book find this new excursion into the future a little confusing, though al...

more...]]> 33873744 745423 3493011 0330418548 9780330418546 2 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3493011.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 2.75 4
There’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight: the sound of lovers in love. The rosy fug of it is so overpowering that I can’t hear the special kind of silence I’m listening for; the one that will tell me I’m about to die.

It’s long past midnight. From my premium vantage point on the top of the Syndicated DC Building I can see the whole of Manhattan before me, stretching north towards Central Park. Hoboken’s bricktown lies over the water to my left, the brownstone weight of Brooklyn to my right, a rain-washed splendour of light and concrete. Its electrified pizzazz fades very suddenly into the murky gaslights and pillared mansions of Gotham. Gotham, seeded by trees in permanent winter coats of ice, shrouded eternally in mist seeping from the ground, ruled by wolves.

Staten Island simply does not exist. The rotting piles of an enormous, abandoned shipyard stand in its place, every stanchion and plank half as big again, in its way, as any human structure. I can smell the pitch on their vast timbers. The copper has long since oxidized to green on the signs that tell of ferry journeys to the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Congo, the Styx. No ship has ever moored there. They say that ghosts come and go over the water from its silent terminals, so in this world at least one charm is missing.

If charms ever had such power I’d be chanting charms like a machine gun spits bullets.

Behind me the wind blows fitfully from Gotham’s worm-riddled Germanic spires. It smells of incense and twisted passions. I like to visit but I couldn’t live there, although some of my best friends do. It’s popular with everyone young enough to play with death.

Two witches pass high over me on the way to Fifth Avenue. I can hear them chattering excitedly about some new restaurant down there. The wind abates after they’ve gone, as if someone flicked the switch on a fan. I’m glad it’s stopped, it was making my flesh crawl.

I can’t see anybody I’m looking for but I can feel them moving through the hidden walls of this world, searching for me. They’re very close: one breath out of place and they’ll taste my shadow, come swirling around the edge of the hydrogen atoms and sink their neutrino teeth right into me. My flesh is still crawling. So, not the wind—maybe they’re actually under my skin.

I wish someone would hurry up and commit some felonies out here. Breaking and entry, robbery with violence, gang fights, pimps beating on their girls or boys—I’m not fussy, any of the standard moves would do. Anything to create a diversion.

A Batmobile cruises along Avenue of the Kryptonites. It’s one of the early models, all white-wall tyres and fins. There’s no rush for him: he’s obeying the traffic signals and his jets aren’t lit. I wonder where he’s going to that he couldn’t go as a Bruce Wayne. Maybe he’s off to that bar the witches wanted to get into, where the good guys and the bad guys drink together, roll their sleeves and complain about the price of Active Spandex.

I’ve drunk with them plenty of times. We all get pleasant jaw ache recounting how many years you can go on getting beat up day after day before you have to retire and go home to Earth to watch your rocket boots gather dust. Of course I was lying to fit in, but that’s not the point. Ennui is the fashion for heroes. Every fantasy loses its lustre in the end and nodding sagely about it is the consolation prize. Glory and approval are for neophytes, for whom every bar goes quiet and faces turn away. Old boys and girls are beyond that. They want something bigger, deeper without knowing what it is. They want to taste immortality and feel its cold fingers c]]> 2005 2 0 false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Sep 25 23:59:39 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 26 00:09:35 -0700 2008 more...]]> 16852670 124819 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 4 0 true Mon Sep 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 02 16:20:05 -0800 2008 Tue Sep 08 21:38:28 -0700 2009
This book is kaleidoscopic - it uses fragments from many points of view to build up the story. Sometimes it switches POV in the middle of a s...more...]]> 8026263 565673 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Sun Oct 21 11:00:54 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 21 11:00:54 -0700 2007 http://www.strangehorizons.com/reviews/2007/04/the_2007_philip.shtml[return][return]I had high hopes of this book. In its favour, Robson explores the questions of individual identity in a world where artificial intelligences are in charge of both the ordinary world and of various pocket universes w...more...]]> 11833813 11513 2520674 1405021160 9781405021166 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2520674.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.50 2
There’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight: the sound of lovers in love. The rosy fug of it is so overpowering that I can’t hear the special kind of silence I’m listening for; the one that will tell me I’m about to die.

It’s long past midnight. From my premium vantage point on the top of the Syndicated DC Building I can see the whole of Manhattan before me, stretching north towards Central Park. Hoboken’s bricktown lies over the water to my left, the brownstone weight of Brooklyn to my right, a rain-washed splendour of light and concrete. Its electrified pizzazz fades very suddenly into the murky gaslights and pillared mansions of Gotham. Gotham, seeded by trees in permanent winter coats of ice, shrouded eternally in mist seeping from the ground, ruled by wolves.

Staten Island simply does not exist. The rotting piles of an enormous, abandoned shipyard stand in its place, every stanchion and plank half as big again, in its way, as any human structure. I can smell the pitch on their vast timbers. The copper has long since oxidized to green on the signs that tell of ferry journeys to the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Congo, the Styx. No ship has ever moored there. They say that ghosts come and go over the water from its silent terminals, so in this world at least one charm is missing.

If charms ever had such power I’d be chanting charms like a machine gun spits bullets.

Behind me the wind blows fitfully from Gotham’s worm-riddled Germanic spires. It smells of incense and twisted passions. I like to visit but I couldn’t live there, although some of my best friends do. It’s popular with everyone young enough to play with death.

Two witches pass high over me on the way to Fifth Avenue. I can hear them chattering excitedly about some new restaurant down there. The wind abates after they’ve gone, as if someone flicked the switch on a fan. I’m glad it’s stopped, it was making my flesh crawl.

I can’t see anybody I’m looking for but I can feel them moving through the hidden walls of this world, searching for me. They’re very close: one breath out of place and they’ll taste my shadow, come swirling around the edge of the hydrogen atoms and sink their neutrino teeth right into me. My flesh is still crawling. So, not the wind—maybe they’re actually under my skin.

I wish someone would hurry up and commit some felonies out here. Breaking and entry, robbery with violence, gang fights, pimps beating on their girls or boys—I’m not fussy, any of the standard moves would do. Anything to create a diversion.

A Batmobile cruises along Avenue of the Kryptonites. It’s one of the early models, all white-wall tyres and fins. There’s no rush for him: he’s obeying the traffic signals and his jets aren’t lit. I wonder where he’s going to that he couldn’t go as a Bruce Wayne. Maybe he’s off to that bar the witches wanted to get into, where the good guys and the bad guys drink together, roll their sleeves and complain about the price of Active Spandex.

I’ve drunk with them plenty of times. We all get pleasant jaw ache recounting how many years you can go on getting beat up day after day before you have to retire and go home to Earth to watch your rocket boots gather dust. Of course I was lying to fit in, but that’s not the point. Ennui is the fashion for heroes. Every fantasy loses its lustre in the end and nodding sagely about it is the consolation prize. Glory and approval are for neophytes, for whom every bar goes quiet and faces turn away. Old boys and girls are beyond that. They want something bigger, deeper without knowing what it is. They want to taste immortality and feel its cold fingers c]]> 2005 4 0 false Sun Jan 06 19:03:05 -0800 2008 Mon Aug 24 07:49:11 -0700 2009 Unity is a fact, it's spreading, consciously and unconsciously. Jalaeka is a consciousness that has hived it...more...]]> 35265481 1356115 3493011 0330418548 9780330418546 2 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3493011.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
There’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight: the sound of lovers in love. The rosy fug of it is so overpowering that I can’t hear the special kind of silence I’m listening for; the one that will tell me I’m about to die.

It’s long past midnight. From my premium vantage point on the top of the Syndicated DC Building I can see the whole of Manhattan before me, stretching north towards Central Park. Hoboken’s bricktown lies over the water to my left, the brownstone weight of Brooklyn to my right, a rain-washed splendour of light and concrete. Its electrified pizzazz fades very suddenly into the murky gaslights and pillared mansions of Gotham. Gotham, seeded by trees in permanent winter coats of ice, shrouded eternally in mist seeping from the ground, ruled by wolves.

Staten Island simply does not exist. The rotting piles of an enormous, abandoned shipyard stand in its place, every stanchion and plank half as big again, in its way, as any human structure. I can smell the pitch on their vast timbers. The copper has long since oxidized to green on the signs that tell of ferry journeys to the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Congo, the Styx. No ship has ever moored there. They say that ghosts come and go over the water from its silent terminals, so in this world at least one charm is missing.

If charms ever had such power I’d be chanting charms like a machine gun spits bullets.

Behind me the wind blows fitfully from Gotham’s worm-riddled Germanic spires. It smells of incense and twisted passions. I like to visit but I couldn’t live there, although some of my best friends do. It’s popular with everyone young enough to play with death.

Two witches pass high over me on the way to Fifth Avenue. I can hear them chattering excitedly about some new restaurant down there. The wind abates after they’ve gone, as if someone flicked the switch on a fan. I’m glad it’s stopped, it was making my flesh crawl.

I can’t see anybody I’m looking for but I can feel them moving through the hidden walls of this world, searching for me. They’re very close: one breath out of place and they’ll taste my shadow, come swirling around the edge of the hydrogen atoms and sink their neutrino teeth right into me. My flesh is still crawling. So, not the wind—maybe they’re actually under my skin.

I wish someone would hurry up and commit some felonies out here. Breaking and entry, robbery with violence, gang fights, pimps beating on their girls or boys—I’m not fussy, any of the standard moves would do. Anything to create a diversion.

A Batmobile cruises along Avenue of the Kryptonites. It’s one of the early models, all white-wall tyres and fins. There’s no rush for him: he’s obeying the traffic signals and his jets aren’t lit. I wonder where he’s going to that he couldn’t go as a Bruce Wayne. Maybe he’s off to that bar the witches wanted to get into, where the good guys and the bad guys drink together, roll their sleeves and complain about the price of Active Spandex.

I’ve drunk with them plenty of times. We all get pleasant jaw ache recounting how many years you can go on getting beat up day after day before you have to retire and go home to Earth to watch your rocket boots gather dust. Of course I was lying to fit in, but that’s not the point. Ennui is the fashion for heroes. Every fantasy loses its lustre in the end and nodding sagely about it is the consolation prize. Glory and approval are for neophytes, for whom every bar goes quiet and faces turn away. Old boys and girls are beyond that. They want something bigger, deeper without knowing what it is. They want to taste immortality and feel its cold fingers c]]> 2005 3 0 false Wed Nov 05 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Oct 14 06:28:54 -0700 2008 Tue Jan 20 09:45:24 -0800 2009 more...]]> 20533785 1098113 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Sat Apr 19 13:06:54 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 19 13:07:03 -0700 2008 34224060 1424559 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 1 0 false Thu Oct 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 30 14:57:27 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 16 11:25:04 -0700 2008 11710098 740619 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 2 0 false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jan 05 09:53:48 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 10:03:50 -0800 2008 65178292 2567337 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 4 0 false Mon Jul 27 15:35:44 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 15:36:04 -0700 2009 80894270 3039821 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 3 0 false Sun Dec 13 16:36:27 -0800 2009 Sun Dec 13 19:06:09 -0800 2009 80200305 3019135 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Mon Dec 07 13:34:20 -0800 2009 Mon Dec 07 13:34:20 -0800 2009 79977694 2919331 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Sat Dec 05 10:24:00 -0800 2009 Sat Dec 05 10:24:00 -0800 2009 78196062 2950790 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 4 0 false Wed Nov 18 09:13:47 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 09:13:47 -0800 2009 74995391 1842160 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Mon Oct 19 01:13:01 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 01:13:01 -0700 2009 74648543 1884474 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 3 0 false Thu Nov 05 15:39:24 -0800 2009 Thu Oct 15 13:47:56 -0700 2009 Thu Oct 15 13:48:25 -0700 2009 74608195 292411 2520674 1405021160 9781405021166 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2520674.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
There’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight: the sound of lovers in love. The rosy fug of it is so overpowering that I can’t hear the special kind of silence I’m listening for; the one that will tell me I’m about to die.

It’s long past midnight. From my premium vantage point on the top of the Syndicated DC Building I can see the whole of Manhattan before me, stretching north towards Central Park. Hoboken’s bricktown lies over the water to my left, the brownstone weight of Brooklyn to my right, a rain-washed splendour of light and concrete. Its electrified pizzazz fades very suddenly into the murky gaslights and pillared mansions of Gotham. Gotham, seeded by trees in permanent winter coats of ice, shrouded eternally in mist seeping from the ground, ruled by wolves.

Staten Island simply does not exist. The rotting piles of an enormous, abandoned shipyard stand in its place, every stanchion and plank half as big again, in its way, as any human structure. I can smell the pitch on their vast timbers. The copper has long since oxidized to green on the signs that tell of ferry journeys to the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Congo, the Styx. No ship has ever moored there. They say that ghosts come and go over the water from its silent terminals, so in this world at least one charm is missing.

If charms ever had such power I’d be chanting charms like a machine gun spits bullets.

Behind me the wind blows fitfully from Gotham’s worm-riddled Germanic spires. It smells of incense and twisted passions. I like to visit but I couldn’t live there, although some of my best friends do. It’s popular with everyone young enough to play with death.

Two witches pass high over me on the way to Fifth Avenue. I can hear them chattering excitedly about some new restaurant down there. The wind abates after they’ve gone, as if someone flicked the switch on a fan. I’m glad it’s stopped, it was making my flesh crawl.

I can’t see anybody I’m looking for but I can feel them moving through the hidden walls of this world, searching for me. They’re very close: one breath out of place and they’ll taste my shadow, come swirling around the edge of the hydrogen atoms and sink their neutrino teeth right into me. My flesh is still crawling. So, not the wind—maybe they’re actually under my skin.

I wish someone would hurry up and commit some felonies out here. Breaking and entry, robbery with violence, gang fights, pimps beating on their girls or boys—I’m not fussy, any of the standard moves would do. Anything to create a diversion.

A Batmobile cruises along Avenue of the Kryptonites. It’s one of the early models, all white-wall tyres and fins. There’s no rush for him: he’s obeying the traffic signals and his jets aren’t lit. I wonder where he’s going to that he couldn’t go as a Bruce Wayne. Maybe he’s off to that bar the witches wanted to get into, where the good guys and the bad guys drink together, roll their sleeves and complain about the price of Active Spandex.

I’ve drunk with them plenty of times. We all get pleasant jaw ache recounting how many years you can go on getting beat up day after day before you have to retire and go home to Earth to watch your rocket boots gather dust. Of course I was lying to fit in, but that’s not the point. Ennui is the fashion for heroes. Every fantasy loses its lustre in the end and nodding sagely about it is the consolation prize. Glory and approval are for neophytes, for whom every bar goes quiet and faces turn away. Old boys and girls are beyond that. They want something bigger, deeper without knowing what it is. They want to taste immortality and feel its cold fingers c]]> 2005 0 0 false Thu Oct 15 07:07:22 -0700 2009 Tue Dec 15 16:55:33 -0800 2009 72644745 2507733 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Sun Sep 27 07:45:42 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 27 07:45:42 -0700 2009 72320199 2722570 2520674 1405021160 9781405021166 1 http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-111x148.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2520674.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
There’s a kind of hush all over the world tonight: the sound of lovers in love. The rosy fug of it is so overpowering that I can’t hear the special kind of silence I’m listening for; the one that will tell me I’m about to die.

It’s long past midnight. From my premium vantage point on the top of the Syndicated DC Building I can see the whole of Manhattan before me, stretching north towards Central Park. Hoboken’s bricktown lies over the water to my left, the brownstone weight of Brooklyn to my right, a rain-washed splendour of light and concrete. Its electrified pizzazz fades very suddenly into the murky gaslights and pillared mansions of Gotham. Gotham, seeded by trees in permanent winter coats of ice, shrouded eternally in mist seeping from the ground, ruled by wolves.

Staten Island simply does not exist. The rotting piles of an enormous, abandoned shipyard stand in its place, every stanchion and plank half as big again, in its way, as any human structure. I can smell the pitch on their vast timbers. The copper has long since oxidized to green on the signs that tell of ferry journeys to the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Congo, the Styx. No ship has ever moored there. They say that ghosts come and go over the water from its silent terminals, so in this world at least one charm is missing.

If charms ever had such power I’d be chanting charms like a machine gun spits bullets.

Behind me the wind blows fitfully from Gotham’s worm-riddled Germanic spires. It smells of incense and twisted passions. I like to visit but I couldn’t live there, although some of my best friends do. It’s popular with everyone young enough to play with death.

Two witches pass high over me on the way to Fifth Avenue. I can hear them chattering excitedly about some new restaurant down there. The wind abates after they’ve gone, as if someone flicked the switch on a fan. I’m glad it’s stopped, it was making my flesh crawl.

I can’t see anybody I’m looking for but I can feel them moving through the hidden walls of this world, searching for me. They’re very close: one breath out of place and they’ll taste my shadow, come swirling around the edge of the hydrogen atoms and sink their neutrino teeth right into me. My flesh is still crawling. So, not the wind—maybe they’re actually under my skin.

I wish someone would hurry up and commit some felonies out here. Breaking and entry, robbery with violence, gang fights, pimps beating on their girls or boys—I’m not fussy, any of the standard moves would do. Anything to create a diversion.

A Batmobile cruises along Avenue of the Kryptonites. It’s one of the early models, all white-wall tyres and fins. There’s no rush for him: he’s obeying the traffic signals and his jets aren’t lit. I wonder where he’s going to that he couldn’t go as a Bruce Wayne. Maybe he’s off to that bar the witches wanted to get into, where the good guys and the bad guys drink together, roll their sleeves and complain about the price of Active Spandex.

I’ve drunk with them plenty of times. We all get pleasant jaw ache recounting how many years you can go on getting beat up day after day before you have to retire and go home to Earth to watch your rocket boots gather dust. Of course I was lying to fit in, but that’s not the point. Ennui is the fashion for heroes. Every fantasy loses its lustre in the end and nodding sagely about it is the consolation prize. Glory and approval are for neophytes, for whom every bar goes quiet and faces turn away. Old boys and girls are beyond that. They want something bigger, deeper without knowing what it is. They want to taste immortality and feel its cold fingers c]]> 2005 0 0 false Thu Sep 24 04:32:19 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 04:32:28 -0700 2009 70904276 2638760 837062 0553587420 9780553587425 7 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730m/837062.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1178781730s/837062.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/837062.Living_Next_Door_to_the_God_of_Love 3.39 44
AIs, Forged beings, superheroes, angels, and worlds that change in the blink of an eye–here is a richly imagined tale of ordinary redemption in an extraordinary world from one of the most provocative writers working today.…

Francine is a young runaway looking to find a definition of love she can trust. In Sankhara, she finds a palace where rooms are made of bone, flowers, and the hearts of heroes. She finds a scientist mapping the territory of the human mind. She finds a boyfriend. And she finds Eros itself–incarnated in the androgynously irresistible form of Jalaeka.

But not everyone is in love with the god of love. Unity, for one, wants to assimilate Jalaeka along with every other soul in the universe. And contrary to what everyone always believes, love alone can’t save the day. It will take something both more and less powerful than the human heart to save the worlds upon worlds at risk when gods collide.

“For Robson, world-building is a literary device like any other, useful for exposing buried fears and desires to the light of day, no matter how strange the sun.” –New York Times Book Review]]> 2005 0 0 false Fri Sep 11 18:18:19 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 21 22:56:56 -0700 2009 8 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=837062