There’s a good reason why Keeping it Real (by Justina Robson) works.
It starts on the front cover. Lila has a blend of sass, hardcore metal and intriguing curves. Damn, she’s the coolest cyborg ever, and it’s a very hard act to beat the Terminator. But when it comes to actually buying a book, I want at least 500 pages for my money. I want to get lost in an intriguing fantasy world for days. So at 279 pages I already have major resistance with Keeping It Real.
I turn it over. And the basic premise of the story gets me.
The Quantum Bomb of 2015 tears the fabric of reality, and the realms of demons and elves and humans become enmeshed. I smile, deep inside. Aah! Robson has made it possible … she’s created the world for all my favourite Warcraft characters, in the here-and-now. It’s not hard to believe, and she makes it all sound so sexy, in a strange blade-in-your-back leather-and-combat dark kind of way. I’m hooked.
It’s made me understand (again) how vital a great premise is. That first paragraph of the blurb keeps echoing in my mind – the premise has immediate potential for STORY, for many stories. I want to discover them. I want to be in the place you’ve created. And then there’s Lila, who stands there, as if she’s saying “Just try me. I’ll kick your sorry arse. What you looking at, anyway? Think you can handle THIS? Get real.”
Reading into the first few pages, it’s all there. I’m going to get cutting-edge technology and magic. Sci-fi and fantasy, which Robson straddles expertly. Her language is hip, new, authentic and even dirty when it needs to be. Respect! I’m a bit prissy when it comes to swearing, for as Dar explains, words have real power, and yet, her foul-mouthed characters are great. It makes them real.
Robson’s talent shines in Keeping it Real. I am a critical reader, and will throw a book across the room (whickle .. whiffle .. riffle .. thump) if the author cheats. There may be moment of illogic in Keeping It Real, but the point is, I didn’t see them at all, the story was compelling, engaging, and so much fun. I wanted it to succeed. I surrendered to your vision and let it wash over me.
Lila has a lot to answer for. I stole my wife’s motorbike today (firedit up, instead of just starting it as usual, and tore away). By the corner-junction I was doing 100 already. I eased her past the waiting car and ‘traced an arc of beautiful speed into the traffic’. I only realised what an idiot I’d been when the Mercedes squealed up behind me, hard on the brakes, almost sliding. Cr*p! I hadn’t seen her. I had to burn rubber to escape the impact.
What’s wrong with me? What am I doing?
For a moment, I had thought I was Lila.
How dumb is that?
Why would I want to be a girl, and one with half her body metal, at that?
Because she is so very cool. She lives with me, even after the book is done.
And the sex scenes are … uhum … hot. At first I couldn’t believe it. She can’t WRITE that, can she? She did! Er .. wow. It may sound silly when you see it from the author’s side of the page, being the constructor and manipulator of the prose, but Robson made her sex transcendental in an authentic way, and that’s spectacularly difficult to get right.
The pacing gets frantic towards the end, wonderfully layered and twisted and so much story happens right at the end: its so compact. When I close it at last, I am smiling.
Robson’s done it, she’s pulled it off! This will make a whip-cracking film. It’s a great romp that made me want to write again.
Fantasy needs more kick-ass chicks.
