Three Marys is also set in Biblical Palestine. The Gospel of Corax describes the life of an alternate theosophical Jesus. If Lions Could Speak is a short story collection. Park has another due late this year, Ghost Doing the Orange Dance (originally published in F&SF in February last year).
No Traveller Returns is a novella from PS Publishing.
But at the 2005 Worldcon I found a copy of the UK edition, which I bought so Paul Park could sign for me. As I recall, the only first edition I could initially find was the US one, so I bought it. The UK edition predates the US one by two years. The trilogy is set on a world which, like Aldiss’ Helliconia, has seasons which are generations long. There is a SFBC omnibus edition of the first two books, The Sugar Festival, which I’ve not seen. The Starbridge Chronicles: Soldiers of Paradise, Sugar Rain and The Cult of Loving Kindness. My edition is the signed and numbered edition. It’s a shame that one of the UK’s best sf writer’s only collection has to be published on the other side of the planet. Justina’s only collection to date, Heliotrope, was published by Australian small press Ticonderoga to celebrate her appearance as GoH at the Australian National SF Convention in Perth this year. I plan to read all five some time this summer as a reading project. The Quantum Gravity, or Lila Black, quintet – Keeping It Real, Selling Out, Down to the Bone, Going Under and Chasing the Dragon. It did make the shortlist for the BSFA Award, however as did Living Next Door to the God of Love. Though I’d have said Natural History was a better novel than Silver Screen or Mappa Mundi, it wasn’t shortlisted for the Clarke. Natural History and its loose sequel Living Next Door to the God of Love. Both were shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award, which is a pretty damn impressive achievement. But I bought the books, read them – and they’re not YA, they’re actually one of the best fantasy series of this century. When the Princess of Roumania quartet was announced, I was a little disappointed that he had turned to fantasy, and what appeared to be YA fantasy at that. I subsequently tracked down copies of his debut trilogy, The Starbridge Chronicles, and then his small press novels. Paul Park became one of my favourite authors after I read Coelestis – which remains a favourite sf novel to this day (see here). I continued to buy Justina’s novels because I know she’s an excellent writer and she rarely disappoints. I’d already seen some of its chapters, so I knew it was good. Back in the 1990s I was in a BSFA Orbiter with Justina Robson, so when her first novel was published I bought it.
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