Robot wars  The Stone Gods, by Jeanette Winterson (Penguin,
pounds 7.99)  For all its refrigerated icecaps, replanted
forests and synthesised food, Orbus is dying. Billie Crusoe, a
nostalgic misfit, is given the chance to leave its obsessions
with sex and celebrity behind, and head for the Blue Planet, a
newly discovered world that could offer humanity a fresh start.
Meanwhile, across space and time, the mysterious civilisation of
Easter Island is in its death throes and a rebellious scientist
tutors a robot in a world barely recovering from "3War".
Winterson's ambitious novel has some wonderful incidents -
including a thrilling race up a cliff for an egg symbolising
power and a pitched battle between riot police and petrol-
bombing exiles - yet must spend much time explaining the woeful
lot of the various worlds. The result is a breathless, scattered
narrative, sustained less by broad satire and more by
Winterson's potent anger at our destruction of what we should
hold closest. It is at its best when it pause