Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Quantum Gravity #4

Chasing the Dragon

Rate this book
Ever since the Quantum Bomb of 2015 things have been different; the dimensions have fused and suddenly our world is accessible to elves, demons, ghosts, and elementals—and their worlds are open to us. Things have been different for Special Agent Lila Black she’s been tortured and magic-scarred by elves; rebuilt by humans into a half-robot, part-AI, nuclear-fueled walking arsenal; married to a demon; and is in love with a recently-deceased elf. It was confusing enough before she was catapulted fifty years into her own future.

Returning to the life of a secret agent, Lila finds herself left all of her former boss’s old offices and whatever mysteries they contain, as the elf has disappeared some fifty years previously. Appointed head of the new android division, she can see all too clearly what’s in store for her if the growth of the alien technologies in her cyborg body continue unchecked.

But there are more immediate concerns. Like resurrecting her lover, Zal. And her husband, the demon Teazle, is embroiled in a fatal plot in Demonia, and her magic sword is making itself happy as a pen whose writing has the power to affect other worlds. The world is off its rocker and most everyone is terrified of faeries.

And all the while, she hears the voices of the machine—material projections of an immaterial form, The Signal. The Signal talks constantly—if only she knew what it meant.

Chasing the Dragon is bright, fast-moving, and accessible SF that mixes in fantasy and a cool cult-lit sensibility to create a series that will appeal to all fans of Laurrell K. Hamilton and Peter Hamilton alike.

406 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

22 people are currently reading
518 people want to read

About the author

Justina Robson

65 books287 followers
Justina is from Leeds, a city in Yorkshire in the north of England. She always wanted to write and always did. Other things sometimes got in the way and sometimes still do...but not too much.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
202 (22%)
4 stars
366 (40%)
3 stars
257 (28%)
2 stars
53 (5%)
1 star
15 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
Profile Image for Laura.has.too.many.books.
724 reviews6 followers
November 8, 2020
* You need to read the previous books, otherwise you won't understand anything that happens in this entry.

Lila Black return to her life as a secret agent, but thrown 50 years into the future it is not easy. Her lover Zal is missing and even though she's looking for him a lot of trouble is heading her way. And when her demonic husband Teazle also goes missing Lila is torn what to do. And when a new enemy makes a ploy for her magical sword/ pen and her magical armor-dress- thingy, Lila has to again travel trough dimensions to save her friends and find answers.

Pro's:
+ This story is epic. Tons of storylines, a lot of fantasy elements and there is always tension about the events going on in the book. Lila and Malachi are constantly traveling around and everything they do will be opposed by their enemies.
+ Lila is very different from the girl she was in the first book in the series and I think this book makes that extra clear. She is hurt, tired and done. You can feel it through most of the book, she has become a hard woman and at times it felt like she is becoming more machine than human.

Con's:
- This book is confusing and most of the time you're wondering what just happened. I was not able to read more than a chapter at the time, because then I would be confused again. There are so many characters and so many actions for these characters and it was just too overwhelming.

Damn, this took a long time to finish ( more than two months actually) and I can mostly attribute that to the amount of confusion this book caused me. I found it really hard to get through even to the events in the story are all really fun, more Teazle is always better. I will read the next book too, but I think not in the near future. Sci-Fi clearly is not really my thing and I'm not that motivated to read anything like it right now.
Profile Image for Kyllian.
13 reviews
December 5, 2021
I liked this book, but it is definitely not the best book in the series. It tries to set up a lot of stuff, probably for the finale in the next book. However, it does mean that this book lacks focus and doesn't seem to be working to a conclusion for a long time. This directionless storytelling does have some good moments of world building and character moments. I really like how Teazle is more fleshed out in this book, and I like the weird things that happens with the void and ghosts. I just wished this book had more focus.
Profile Image for Martyn F.
769 reviews2 followers
May 10, 2023
There are Lila, Teazle, Malachi and others we know. But if you don’t remember exactly what happened in the first three parts of this series, you have a severe disadvantage.

Then there are all these realms. Of which almost nothing is explained. And a story where a lot happens. But you have no clue why.

I finished the book, but only by sheer willpower. I am done with this series.
4 reviews
February 10, 2019
Read this as a teenager came back to it and it still holds up

Stop wasting your precious time with this review and just go read the book already. Review needs more words you don't.
57 reviews1 follower
September 15, 2018
I want to give it 3.5. Her overall plot is messy but her action and pacing are fun. I love the main character despite her... Issues?
Profile Image for Karissa.
4,308 reviews214 followers
December 30, 2010
This is the fourth book in the Quantum Gravity series by Justina Robson. I know a fifth book "Down to the Bone" is planned for a 2010 release, I couldn't find any information on how many books overall are planned on this series. This book was a good addition to the series and started to tie together a lot of the loose ends that appeared in books 2 and 3.

A lot is happening in this book. It starts where the 3rd book left off; with Lila showing up on the beach 50 years after she went into fairy. In the mean time Teazle has taken over half of Demonia, Zal is still missing/dead, and Mal is leading up a branch of the agency. Ghosts are appearing with increasing frequency in Otopia. Lila is offered a position heading up the AI branch of the Agency. There is a lot to sort out, both personal and political. Lila is armed with an ever changing dress/armor that is more than it first seems to be and with an..uh...ink pen that has powers she could have never imagined.

This book was a good addition to the series. It brings together some of the plot elements that seemed somewhat random in the previous book. Finally we begin to understand how the Ghosts are all tied together with the Fates, Zal, and Lila...and how all of that is tied to the stability of the universe. The pace of the book is pretty good, although the action is not as non-stop as it was in book 2. Again if book 1 was about the elf world, book 2 about the demon world, and book 3 about fairy...then this book is mostly about the realm of the dead...although it does a good job of bringing all the realms together.

This is a complex story-line and there are still points at which I am not completely convinced that Robson knows what she wants to do with everything that is going on. The book switches viewpoint a lot...going between Teazle, Lila, Zal, Mal, and Tath. So, sometimes the story gets a bit fractured from all the viewpoint changes. Also the story gets a bit metaphysical with Lila in Thanatopia/Void and although Robson makes a good effort at describing it, sometimes it is a bit hard to picture exactly what is going on. The discussions between various characters (for example Tath and Mal) can get a little crazy and drawn out as they debate the cause of various metaphysical aspects of the parallel realms. I am also a bit confused on how in the previous book the worlds were on the edge of destruction and now here it is fifty years later and they are still on the edge of destruction...it's like nothing really happened so maybe destruction wasn't as imminent as it was portrayed in the last book....

The above being said there are some great character additions to this book. Temple Greer, the new head of the Agency, is an awesome character. He brings a lot of humor to the story and a wit that really lightens the whole plot. Lila's crazy dress/armor was also an awesome addition to the story and added a lot of fun.

I am impressed with the creativity in this book and with the depth of the worlds that Robson has created. The plot is getting increasingly complex; I am hoping that Robson has a reason for all these plot elements and that in the end they weave a wonderfully complex, yet complete story. The characterization is good; Lila starts to come into her own as she spends less time doubting herself and more time looking out for her interests. I also enjoyed Teazle's development as he exercises the new powers he gained in fairy.

You definitely need to read the previous books to follow what happens in this book. Robson does not dumb down her writing to remind readers of things that have previously happened. Things happen quickly and every word counts; so this book is a bit of a harder read than some. Still overall the complexity of the world intrigues me and I have grown attached to the very interesting characters Robson has created. This was a great addition to the series and I hope the next book has clear path forward.
Profile Image for colleen the convivial curmudgeon.
1,370 reviews308 followers
September 18, 2009
Not a bad book, but probably the weakest in the series. I just felt like not that much actually happened, nor did we really get any sort of profound character development. Even more annoyingly, some of the characters changed in odd and unexplained ways. (For instance, when did Malachi become so unbearingly overprotective? Or maybe I've just forgotten.)

I have two major complaints about the book:

1) It seemed really jumpy. While it did a decent job of helping me fill in my memory blanks of what happened in the series thus far, it was sort of all over the place. I would say this could be due to the perspective changes, but I don't think that's really it. Mostly it was because things would happen, or be said to have happened or be happening, and I kept thinking I'd skipped a page or something. It didn't seem to flow very naturally at all.

2) A lot of action seemed to happen "off-stage". Some of this we are filled in about via dialogue, but other stuff is just left completely unexplained. I imagine that this is going to be redressed in the next book, since it was left very unresolved.

I never really felt attached to the characters or the action like I have in past books, and there was really no tension.

Overall the book felt sort of rushed, haphazard, and very much like filler - just getting the gang back together in order to get to the next part of the story, as opposed to a viable piece of the story in and of itself.

All in all I was disappointed in a book that I'd been anticipating. That said, with all those complaints, it was still more generally enjoyable than a lot of the rest of what I've been reading lately... so it gets bonus points for that.
Profile Image for WillowBe.
431 reviews8 followers
December 3, 2009
I love Zal and Lila, but you don't so far, I don't get any of that in the book.The reverberations of loss keep this book lonely and melancholy. I MISS TATH and LILA together! Like her second conscience, the observer self made truly observer. Yeah, I am sick, but I thought they were so sexy together. But I like the fact that Lila has two husbands, and the husbands are also married to each other. I like this. I think it works. Of course, it means twice the headaches...

I have finished reading this now and am happy about the resolution. I am thinking there is one more book to come and then the series will end. It has been strange and poetically wonderful. I try to think of how I would explain this series to others and I really don't think I could. i think it would be better to explain the themes than what actuallly takes place or the charactars. So much melancholy. It is not a romp despite the blurbs on the cover- explorations of Love, Loss, Cruelty, Selfishness, Joy, Hope, Redemption and muddling through day to day- Ms. Robson is deadly serious. Look at the way her charactars are broken again, and again, but she always allows them to be remade, perhaps sadder but wiser- always stronger- than before. And on a purely girly note- I LOVE ZAL: I just know I would be one of his Woken!
11 reviews
December 31, 2015
Chasing the Dragon kicks up the frenetic pace that has continued to build throughout the series, but the feeling is like someone trying to race across a rickety rope bridge before the entire thing collapses.

Perhaps this is intentional, attempting to instill in the reader a better sense of Lila's mental stability as she races from one mad set of actions to another, trying to ignore the gaping holes in her life and her semi-acknowledged unwillingness to confront her feelings about them.

Otherwise, the effect is starting to look a little sloppy, as the narrative jumps and skips in places, with some events apparently just happening at random, unexplained and unexamined.

In regard to theme, there didn't seem to be much - other than if you're both lucky and happen to have supernatural friends and super-powered accoutrement, then one can get by with slap-dash, off-the-cuff solutions to problems with a minimum of discomfort, thought, or sacrifice involved. Particularly after the previous installment, where serious sacrifices were being made - sacrifices made all the more horrifying and dear because they weren't Lila's, but her friends' sacrifices on her behalf - Chasing the Dragon, and Lila, came off as pretty shallow.

Not the best book in the series so far, but we'll see how the next turns out.

http://www.valejorian.net/sffreviews/...
Profile Image for Literary George (For Your Literary Pleasure Blog).
163 reviews20 followers
March 9, 2014
Originally reviewed at For Your Literary Pleasure
Because my comments for the last three books in the series are similar I'm cheating and making them have one review - sue me. In all honesty, this series could have been shorter. There were many scenes that dragged on despite having one of the more intricate plots I've read in a Sci-Fi/Fantasy book. My drive to finish the series was pushed by my inability let characters go with no resolution - I NEEDED to know what happened to Lila, Zal and Teazle. I was disappointed Teazle always got the short end of the stick and we never truly explored his dynamic with Zal and Lila. He was my favourite character, especially after Zal had his accident because Zal never quite returned to the quirky guy I adored. The final book was paced faster than any of the others and despite reading ALL of the books over 3 days I still managed to lose track of what was going on. I ended up reading the last chapters of the last book multiple times just to get the plot threads straight... Argh. My overall conclusion is that while I enjoyed the series overall it was a challenge that wasn't always entertaining.

xxx Literary George
Follow me on Facebook
Profile Image for Rollie Reid.
112 reviews2 followers
July 29, 2014
This is the fourth book in a series that combines magic and tech.

Chasing the Dragon is just as confusing and frenetic as the first 3. We again follow Lila Black as she deals with the aftermath of her short visit to Faery. The first and most devastating consequence is that she returned (after a short visit, remember?) to find that it is 50 years later than she left (think back to all those stories about someone who spends one night with the faeries and what happens outside the hill). Lila's is dead and the world is drastically changed.

We saw some of this at the end of book 3, but it is explored more here. Of course, there is plenty of genetic pace here add well and lots of mysteries to sort out.

I found the ending confusing, but it did have an interesting ironic twist. I feel that the author did not do enough preparation for her twist ending. A good twist ending is a complete surprise that leaves you saying , "of course." Well, this one left me saying, "and where did we hear about her before?"

Still a good read.
Profile Image for Cathy.
2,014 reviews51 followers
July 2, 2011
A bit longer and wordier than it needed to be, but it was fun. It didn't end on much of a cliffhanger, but left the gang in a nice place emotionally in some easy, which is a nice change from the last book. But can the relationships be repaired after all that they've been through? And the chaos still seems to be spreading, so what's the next big disaster, since this one turned out to be much kess far-reaching in it's origins, if not in it's potential implications, than it seemed? I guess I'll find out in September!
Profile Image for Yolanda Sfetsos.
Author 78 books237 followers
January 2, 2011
Chasing the Dragon has the now familiar level of action and interesting plot that the other two books I've read in this series had, but there was something different about this book. It didn't have the same sense of intensity that the others had, and I don't know why. And even though it was well written, I found myself skimming forward in a few areas. Once again, it was mainly in the POV of others.

Having said that, I still can't help but wonder where else Lila's headed.
40 reviews1 follower
April 15, 2010
Ok, now I've read all four of the Quantun Gravity Bomb books, and I'm still somewhate confused about what has really taken place. Between Faery, Demons, Elves, human, ghosts, vampiric forms, angels, gods (or Gods?) nothing is clearcut, which, I Think! is the intent. So if you are ready for some deep thought, then this is a series for you.
Profile Image for Jacqui.
53 reviews
April 11, 2011
Frantic pace from beginning to end, I lost my way a couple of times but it was all good. I hope that the next book pulls it together, I found this book to be the hardest to read. The previous books in this series, I have been unable to put down, not so this one. I found it hard going at times but persevered ad am glad I did.
Profile Image for Blue Eyed Vixen.
88 reviews54 followers
August 14, 2010
Fabulous conclusion to the Quantam series.
Justinsa Robson ties it all in together in the fantabulous style that I am accustomed to from her....I was so not disappointed.
Will definitely come back and read again.
Profile Image for Danielle.
465 reviews43 followers
May 28, 2010
This series is always fast-paced fun. This one was a little more incomprehensible than the others, in that it felt like it was missing a few pieces of the action, but it wasn't a great detraction. I really enjoy following this series, and hope the author is working on another one right now!
Profile Image for Jo.
867 reviews35 followers
July 15, 2022
Is it weird that I remembered nothing of this book from my first read, but I have no desire to reduce the number of stars I gave it. I wish that I had had time to binge read it in a couple of days, though....
Profile Image for Claire.
108 reviews2 followers
May 31, 2012
This is the forth book in the series (of 5 I assume as there are 5 worlds in this Universe I think). Unfortunately I've forgotten some of the plot details so I was confused. Also this book instead of being cyber-punk in fairy-land like the others was just weird fairy-land.
Profile Image for Larry Kenney.
204 reviews9 followers
February 19, 2012
Another enjoyable entry in the series, although I didn't enjoy it as much as earlier versions. My main interest in these has been the exploring of the different realms and their cultures, and there wasn't much of this in this book. On to the last!
Profile Image for Francis Franklin.
Author 13 books57 followers
September 30, 2012
I don't think I'll finish this, unless I decide to read the whole series one day. I didn't realise I was picking up Book #4 in a series.

That said, I was astonished by the imagination of the author, and it will certainly stick in my mind for a long time.
Profile Image for Jen Lamoureux.
72 reviews2 followers
January 2, 2015
This was the best of the series so far. Robson is building an amazing, rich universe. It took me a while to get through because the pacing through the first two-thirds was quite slow, but I feel it paid off in the end. Looking forward to the next one!
Profile Image for M. D. Parkhurst.
39 reviews51 followers
September 25, 2014
After following Lila's changes, both to her and by her, I felt this book was a bit of a let down. It felt rushed and still had several unanswered questions. Yet, I hope to read more about these worlds, Sarasilien and Malachi's history, and all the other wonderful characters.
43 reviews2 followers
September 29, 2009
Ugh... She has such a great story with this line of books, but her writing gets worse with every book.

I'm not picky about my English, but her grammar and other errors makes it very hard to read.
Profile Image for Barb in Maryland.
2,097 reviews175 followers
dnf
September 20, 2016
Don't know why I borrowed this from the library, as I hadn't managed to finish book 3. I flipped through it and decided that my previous gut feelings were right. Sorry Justina, but you've lost me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.