His other novels include Of the Fall, Eternal Light, Red.

Although Milena has created the fairies for her own ends, some of the Folk, as fey and dangerous as any in legend, have other ideas about her destiny. Dick Memorial Award, and fifth, Fairyland, won the 1995 Arthur C. Milena is an advocate of the dolls-artificial constructs that have replaced extinct companion animals. Milena isn't sure if she's mad or if she's the only sane person left in the world she only knows that she wants to escape to her own private Fairyland and live forever. In the next century, an underground chemist meets and becomes obsessed with Milena, a child genius who is the ultimate product of gene-splicing technology. At the cost of three hours of his life, he finds an unlikely ally in a scary, super-smart little girl called Milena, but his troubles really start when he helps Milena quicken intelligence in a Doll, turning it into the first of the fairies.

In London, Alex Sharkey is trying to make his mark as a designer of psychoactive viruses, whilst staying one step ahead of the police and the Triad gangs. Dick Award in 1988, and Kirkus Reviews raved. His writing career was taking off at the same time his debut novel Four Hundred Billion Stars won the Philip K. Its been reissued as one of Gollanczs eight Future Classics. McAuley was one of our earliest contributors, with a book review column in the very first issue of Black Gate magazine.

Europe is divided between the First World bourgeoisie, made rich by nanotechnology and the cheap versatile slave labour of genetically engineered Dolls and the Fourth World of refugees and homeless displaced by war and economic upheaval. Fairyland, McAuleys sixth SF novel, was first published in 1995.

Fairyland by Paul McAuley