The Child Garden

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)