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The Child Garden (Paperback)

by Geoff Ryman (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 500 pages
  • Publisher: Voyager; New Ed edition (4 May 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0006510884
  • ISBN-13: 978-0006510888
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 956,355 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #15 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > R > Ryman, Geoff

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Product Description

Product Description

In a semi-tropical London, surrounded by paddy-fields, the people feed off the sun, like plants, the young are raised in Child Gardens and educated by viruses, And the Consensus oversees the country, 'treating' non-conformism. Information, culture, law and politics are biological functions. But Milena is different: she is resistant to viruses and an incredible musician, one of the most extraordinary women of her age. This is her story and that of her friends, like Lucy the immortal tumour and Joseph the Postman whose mind is an information storehouse for others, and Rolfa, genetically engineered as a Polar Bear, whose beautiful singing voice first awakens Milena to the power of music. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


About the Author

Geoff Ryman was born in Canada in 1952 but moved to America when he was eleven. He moved to London in 1973. He began writing science fiction in 1976. His other novels include Was and 253. He currently lives and works in London and Oxfordshire. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Easily the best book I have ever read, 30 Oct 2001
By A Customer
The Child Garden is one of the few books I have read that has really moved me, and one of even fewer that I would instantly cite as the best book I have read in my life (and I've read quite a few!). The future it describes could be a dystopian commentary of our own society, but instead it's a story about people, who are ultimately the most important components of any society. It's a future where people are still flawed and petty, and life is not easy of perfect, and that there are always some people who will stand out and make their mark on history. Milena is one such person, a heroine who grows up during the course of the book, and painted so well by Ryman that your perception of her changes as she does. For any London dweller the description the city with a coral reef and rice paddies, sub tropical temperatures and the night lit by oil lamps is one that will strike into the heart and awake the imagination. You cannot help but be touched by its depth, and a little haunted by the future that we could all inherit. Read it, you won't be sorry.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing and thought provoking, 5 Jun 1999
By A Customer
In a future version of London (which still carries many curious echoes of our own age) global warming has produced a subtropical climate. Plant DNA introduced into human beings gives them the ability to photosynthesise (and an unnatural purple cast to their skins). People are educated by virus so that they literally catch learning (and propaganda) like a disease and the whole of society is governed by the Consensus - a kind of collective vegetable mind made up of democratic 'Readings' of peoples thoughts. Child Gardens are orphanages but they are symbolic of the whole society because life expectancy has been dramatically reduced so that in a sense everyone is a relative child. The death of childhood seems to be one of the underlying themes of the novel. Milena is an actress (amongst many other things) who has escaped her 'Reading' and is immune to the viruses. The book is the story of her life as she struggles with love (of an unusual kind) becomes the most significant artist of her day and finally has to confront the Consensus.

But enough of the plot. It's the colloquial dialogue and the matter of fact (almost banal) pieces of the novel which give it so much power. They offset the strange and grotesque elements until it all seems perfectly reasonable. Its kind of like East Enders wandering into a stage set from one of the better Dr. Who episodes and then just rolling up their sleeves and getting on with the same old soap opera (but the ending is far from banal). This novel could only have been written by a British author and for this British reader at least it is refreshing now and again to read science fiction that isn't centred on America.

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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Raw emotion, 7 Jul 2006
By Mr. J. J. Hawkins "scratlin" (Bristol, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Child Garden (S.F. Masterworks) (Paperback)
What an incredible book this is! The premise outlined in the blurb is promising (children grown in gardens in a tropical london educated via viruses). Seems gloriously messed up and it is easy to happily resign yourself to an exploration of these themes and their ramifications...

Instead you will read of the emotional and physical journey of one of the most remarkable heroines in modern literature. It is through her that we are guided around this very odd world. There are some fantastic shifts in narrative pace and style. Apologies for ruining anything for you but there is a breathtakingly beautiful 50 page chapter which leaves you in such a tangle of emotions that you realise you are totally embroiled in the world of the book and the peaks and troughs of Milena. It is a blistering moment of clarity when all those little questions, that sci-fi books like to throw up, are given some kind of disjointed but final closure. The most fantastic thing about that chapter - indeed, the reason I am writing this review, is that the end leaves you only halfway through a book which you will remember forever. I have been searching for something new this heartfelt in sci-fi for a while and I have found it. Geoff Ryman is one to watch.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A grim prognostication with a glimmer of hope
This was my first Geoff Ryman read, and a wholly fascinating one. Ryman takes us into a future of ecological and psychological disaster, in which the one redeemimg feature is the... Read more
Published 16 days ago by Ashvajit

5.0 out of 5 stars The secret of a good book
Fantastic book!! I just wish I could have a chat with Geoff Ryman and clarify a few little questions in my mind -did it make perfect sense to everybody else when they read it as I... Read more
Published on 19 Oct 2004 by sam_fry

1.0 out of 5 stars Forget it!
If you have read the elegant and clever book 253 and are expecting more of the same, you'll be disappointed. Read more
Published on 28 April 2003

5.0 out of 5 stars A love story in reverse
It is years scince I read "Child Garden"- I think it was 9 years ago or thereabouts. I've re-read this masterpiece 3 times scince then. Read more
Published on 3 Aug 2001 by Jess (jez@vesicapisces.fsnet.c...

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Epic, imaginative and woefully tragic.
Milena, milena is amazing, she lets yu into her world and then tortures you for a while, hurting herself and not even noticing. Read more
Published on 14 May 2000

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