Blue Remembered Earth: by Alastair Reynolds Paperback – 25 Sept. 2014

I would not normally use a word like tapestry for a book. The detail down in this future is intricate and colourful like a fine woven tapestry. Can't remember when I enjoyed a book so much.

After the slight disappointment that was Terminal World, Reynolds proves that he still knows how to deliver top-quality science fiction.While writing Blue Remembered Earth, Reynolds mentioned that he wanted to aim for a more optimistic future than anything he'd written to date. BRE certainly fits that description, although aspects of the dark and twisted settings of his previous works can still be found here and there, in fact one of the major themes of this novel is the contrast between the semi-Utopian Earth and the less restrained but more dangerous colonies. It's also generally a lot "harder" SF than anything he's done so far, with much more rigorous scientific constraints than before- although again, this doesn't stop Reynolds from coming up with unique and interesting speculation about the future, something few authors do as well as he does.The plot for this novel is something of a "treasure hunt", kicked off by the death of Eunice Akinya, matriach of the Akinya household. Various factions within the Akinya house, and others, want to get at various secret Eunice has left behind. Geoffry, the protagonist, wants nothing to do with the family squabbles, but finds himself drawn into it early on, as does his sister Sunday, again an ostracised Akinya caught up in family politics. Once the plot starts going, it keeps the reader engaged the whole way through, and unlike some of Reynolds' previous work it doesn't drag in the middle. It then builds up to a satisfying conclusion that leaves plenty of scope open for future work. The characterisation is also improved and most of the characters are quite believable, with the exception of the two antagonists.If I had to identify anything wrong with this novel, I'd say that some aspects feel a little, well, forced. For instance, a recurring element of the novel is "the Mechanism", a vaguely-described surveillance system which seems to cover the entire developed world and supposedly makes any sort of crime impossible. As well as feeling slightly implausible, it obviously serves to hinder the plot, which often chafes at the restrictions the mechanism puts in place (the mechanism itself also appears to vary in effectiveness as the plot demands, and how it works is never really explained). Reynolds did mention in an interview that he was deliberately trying to eschew any dependence on crime or war to the plot, which does unfortunately constrain his options somewhat.That said, a very good novel, and back to the hard-sf speculative fiction that Reynolds still leads the field in.

I'm a massive fan of Alastair Reynolds and this book didn't fail to enthral me. His vision of the human race in the future and its place within our galaxy always captures my imagination. The speed of light can’t be broken so a more (realistic?) approach to stellar travel has to be considered. Different kindsof alien races don’t hang out in bars swapping tales of war and piracy. He doesn’t stretch the ‘fiction’ part of science fiction too much.We future humans have progressed none the less. Implants allow us to function better and live longer. In this novel there is an all seeing ‘nanny’ that sits around us ensuring we don’t do anything of a criminal nature, protecting us. But it doesn’t reach everywhere and sections of society choose to dodge its influence. We still only live within the boundaries of our own solar system, colonising and mining the resources of our closest neighbours. Technology has enabled us to look further though and it seems that someone has seen something far away that will change the human experience for ever. Will we be ready for that discovery?This is the story of Geoffrey, part of a big and powerful family. He just wants to be left alone to study his elephants but his cousins have other plans for him. They want him to find out what their recently departed grandmother was up to all those years on the Moon and Mars. They have a reputation to protect but they have no idea what it is she has discovered…

The notion of a near (ish)-future near-utopia is very rare these days; most sci-fi is unwilling or unable (understandably, perhaps) to see a way beyond the darkness -environmental, social, political - of the current times, and it takes a certain courage to speculate about a time as close as 150 years away where humanity lives in, apparently, relative comfort & security. Having posited that relative comfort and security, a writer then faces the problem of producing a viable plot when there is little room for direct antagonisms. In this leisurely Sci-Fi thriller, Reynolds does a good job of providing both.Ostensibly, it's a treasure hunt; a brother and sister, black sheep of immensely wealthy, family owned space company, follow a trail left by their immensely powerful grandmother, one which leads them to colonies on the Moon, on Mars, and back to Earth. What antagonism there is is supplied by a (slightly overdone) familial rivalry and a mildly fanatical trans-humanist cult; there are 2 deaths, barely more than accidents, and an almost complete absence of violence - the whole human space protected from criminality by neural implants & genetic testing that Reynolds is careful to avoid presenting as dystopian or overtly policed & could best be described as proto-Culture (in the Banks sense) social engineering.There are moments where the grandmother's rather torturous breadcrumb route stretches plausibility. The Mars episode, without wanting to give away too much, is reliant on a heavily flagged plot device that is certainly ex machina, if not exactly a god. What she actually found, too, and why (and how) she managed to hide it again stretches credulity, although spoilers forbid saying much more than that. Nevertheless, there's enough to keep the plot moving and give Reynolds room to show us his new worlds.It's this, the scenery, so to speak, that makes the book compelling, as much as the leisurely relatively conflict free piecing together of the puzzle itself. There's a certain amount of technological handwaving, and we only have an extremely privileged view of the world - the family itself is (we are told, repeatedly) massively rich - but what we do see is not totally implausible. There has been a century of re-adjustment to the realities of climate change, but out of it has grown a certain unity, and new ways of living. These ways of life and their supporting technologies seemed to me to be coherent and touched with a quiet optimism absent from most contemporary Sci-Fi. The broader themes - how humanity might adjust to global warming, how we might approach near-space colonisation, how genetic & neural profiling might alter society - are reflected in the details of this relatively cheerful future.The final reveal itself, however, suggests that this new found maturity will be tested, and I look forward to seeing if Reynolds can keep the balance between the mildness of the setting and the stresses implied by the discoveries that close the book.

I'm completing this in English because the book is in English.This lived up to Reynold's normal quality of writing and genuinely did evoke something of the classic SF. It's the first in a trology (which can be a little frustrating) and I found the characters well-formed and interesting. The story was well-structured. Sometimes I feel that Reynold's can be a little over-inventive but I didn't feel that at all with this book. If you enjoy hard SF, then I think you are likely to enjoy this.

As is so often the case in Reynolds' books, the political and social layers in Blue Remembered Earth are many and complex, and creatively imagined. This is a part of what makes Reynolds' one of my favourite sci-fi authors. His characters are also refreshingly diverse in a world where stories so often are told from the perspective of white men.Reynolds' characters are rarely very complex and deep, and this is for the most part true for this book as well, but the story is still engaging and imaginative. There are a few plot elements that were not properly concluded and feel like somewhat hastily tied up loose ends, but none of it is of major importance to the story. The story itself takes us to the Moon, Mars and the Kuiper Belt, and I always enjoy how Reynolds balances obeying the laws of physics, as far as we understand them, while giving himself freedom to be creative where our understanding ends.I started writing this review on the subway, and as I walked down the street afterwards I walked past a woman selling carved elephants that reminded me very much of the gift given to one of the main characters of the book. I just had to buy one. Interesting coincidence.

This is how space opera should be: Following mover/shaker families through the years and millennia, world-shattering being belittled as 'local'...I actually read the second book (On the Steel Breeze) first, which is absolutely no problem story-wise - this one still had me firmly in it's grasp. Perfect.The plot revolves around the Akinya family and what gave rise to the pilgrimage of book 2 - reviewing the insights and revelations, i begin to wonder whether it might not even have been beneficial to have read the books in this order, as a lot of exposition felt quite good and might have spoiled the experience in the second book.

Reynolds does a wonderful job in this book as the past and present stories were skillfully interwoven to create an exciting and compelling read. I look forward to reading more books by this author.

(Publicado originalmente en [])Durante la lectura conjunta en twitter alguien preguntaba si Blue Remembered Earth es la típica novela de Alastair Reynolds. La respuesta es, lamentablemente, no. La respuesta larga es un poco más compleja.Aunque en Blue Remembered Earth aparecen muchos de los temas habituales en las obras de Reynolds (viajes espaciales, modificaciones genéticas, implantes cerebrales, inteligencias artificiales...) casi ninguno de ellos es tratado con la profundidad a la que nos tiene acostumbrados el galés. En lugar de ser elementos que hacen avanzar la trama y que inspiran a la reflexión aquí se limitan a formar parte de un decorado que ni siquiera resulta tan vistoso como, por ejemplo, en la serie de Espacio Revelación. Hay excepciones, como la maravillosa visita a la ciudad sumergida de Tiamaat pero, por desgracia, son las menos.La historia no es mucho mejor que la ambientación. En ella acompañamos a Geoffrey y su hermana Sunday mientras siguen una serie de pistas dejadas por su abuela Eunice Akinya, pionera de la exploración espacial y fundadora de un imperio interplanetario. Esta búsqueda nos llevará a explorar todo el Sistema Solar de mediados del siglo XXII, de África a La Luna, desde Marte hasta el cinturón de asteroides.La que podría haber sido una trama tremendamente entretenida se ve lastrada, en mi opinión, por algunos fallos importantes. La historia no se decide a despegar del todo (pun intended) hasta bien mediado el libro. Allá por el 40% (leer en ebook hace casi imposible dar las referencias en páginas contantes y sonantes) parece que las cosas empiezan a encajar y el lector comienza a vislumbrar qué se puede esperar de la novela. Hasta ese momento, sin embargo, ha tenido que leer muchas escenas que, sin ser resultar aburridas, tienen poca o nula relevancia para el desarrollo posterior de los acontecimientos.Pero el principal defecto de Blue Remembered Earth es su casi total falta de tensión. Sorprendentemente, Reynolds es incapaz en esta ocasión de crear un misterio que atrape al lector, algo perfectamente conseguido en muchas de sus obras anteriores (Pushing Ice y Diamond Dogs son dos de los ejemplos más notables en este aspecto). Además, la acción se sitúa en una sociedad utópica en la que, gracias a la vigilancia casi constante y universal, los actos violentos son prácticamente imposibles. Esta falta de consecuencias, al igual que sucedía en Tocando fondo de Cory Doctorow, hace que muchos de los enfrentamientos entre los personajes sean bastante insulsos.En el lado positivo, se nota una clara evolución en la prosa de Reynolds. Pese a ser un libro de considerable longitud, la lectura resulta ágil y amena. De hecho, el tercio central es francamente entrenido y funciona muy bien como narración de aventuras espaciales. El final, aunque bastante previsible, es correcto y hace que la novela pueda leerse de forma independiente aunque deja situadas las piezas (a la vez que descarta algunos elementos que ya se preveían sobrantes) para la siguiente entrega de la trilogía de Poseidon's Children.Así que Blue Remembered Earth, sin ser una mala novela, no es un muestra típica de la obra de Alastair Reynolds. Quizá el libro suyo que más se le parezca sea Terminal World por aquello de Reynolds parecía tomarse menos en serio la construcción y coherencia del mundo, pero Terminal World es una novela bastante más divertida, equilibrada e intrigante que este Blue Remembered Earth.