The Child Garden

Paperback | 1 April 1999

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London has flooded. Britain is tropical. And people photosynthesize. In a semi-tropical London, surrounded by paddyfields, the people photosynthesize. The Consensus, a vast DNA unit, controls the country. Children are raised in Child Gardens and educated by virus. Viruses control their behaviour; nonconformism is treated by the Consensus. Information, culture, law and politics are now biological functions. This is the story of Lucy, the immortal tumor, Joseph the Postman, whose mind is an information storehouse for others, and Milena, an incredible musician who has a secret, lost even to herself. She is resistant to viruses. It makes her aliented in an enclosing world. It will make her one of the most extraordinary women of her age. The secret is lost in memory. It is hidden somewhere -- in the Child Garden.

Industry Reviews

Fascinating future-world sf (and hard-cover debut) from the World Fantasy and Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of The Warrior Who Carried Life and The Unconquered Country. Czech-born Milena Shibush is an anomaly in the future London she inhabits. Though hunger has been eliminated (people can photosynthesize) and cancer cured, one side-effect of the latter is the halving of human life. Children are speed-educated by "infecting" them with RNA viruses. Only Milena is resistant and must learn for herself. She falls in love with Rolfa, a "Polar Bear" (a human, genetically engineered to work in Antarctic conditions). Rolfa too is a misfit; a musical genius, she sets Dante's Divine Comedy to music, then vanishes. Milena devotes herself to the production of Rolfa's work, via holograms from space. Her obsession becomes the tour-vehicle through an astonishing world. With her project completed, Milena actually gets cancer and so becomes the means to reintroduce longevity (and, one hopes, true childhood) to humanity. A richly absorbing tale - with a marvellous premise expertly carried out and very well written. (Kirkus Reviews)

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