Blue Remembered Earth

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

Length: 21 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Critically acclaimed author Alastair Reynolds holds a well-deserved place “among the leaders of the hard-science space opera renaissance." (Publishers Weekly). In Blue Remembered Earth, Geoffrey Akinya wants nothing more than to study the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But when his space-explorer grandmother dies, secrets come to light and Geoffrey is dispatched to the Moon to protect the family name - and prevent an impending catastrophe.

©2012 Alastair Reynolds (P)2012 Recorded Books

Great worldbuilding sets an ample stage for series

A great piece of Hard SF that keeps 'inside the lines' of the usual Space Opera tech tropes: no FTL or post-scarcity, transhuman society here, just perfectly plausible science your high school Physics teacher would approve. The magic comes in the human element of a family unraveling a long-held secret from the recently deceased family matriarch. Nowhere are our allies closer or enemies as ruthless as in our own families, and Reynolds' protagonists find themselves squaring off with their own cousins as rivals for her legacy. Everyone's motivations are perfectly justified, and the reasonableness of it all perhaps contributes to the underwhelming notion of stakes in the story's conflicts. "Blue Remembered Earth" reminded me in many ways of Kim Stanley Robinson's "2312" more than Reynold's other work; the entire scope of the setting is within the solar system, where human settlements are pioneering along. The time scales are measured in decades and single lifetimes, and not the cosmic epochs and multi-system societies of Reynold's "Revelation Space" series. Another unique aspect of the book was the twist of placing global dominance not in Euro- or American-centric cultures, or even a Chinese one, but instead in a post-climate change Africa, where a new renaissance has taken place. Swahili is the new English. Pervasive internet access and surveillance grant telepresence in 'proxy' robotic bodies, as well as a nearly crime-free society. Some readers may be surprised that only 3 times in the book, and all of those in the final third of the story, is there any violent action. The story follows a rather civil quest along several stops that illustrate humanity's interplanetary spread. It is at its strongest when the environments are the most exotic; Mars' 'Evolvarium' or the undersea city of the Panspermian Initiative. The worldbuilding in Reynold's near future is quite imaginative, with many original ideas. However, I did find the action and suspense sequences weaker than expected. I understand the forthcoming books of the trilogy will follow the future history begun here for another 10,000 years, and I look forward to seeing what Reynolds does with the larger canvas.

A small note I'd like to make regarding this audio edition of the book is that Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's narration was fantastic- he managed the accents quite naturally, and convincingly provided many character voices- both male & female. The cover art, however, is atrocious, and quite below Audible standards. The artwork displayed during playback in the iOS app is (if this is even possible) actually much worse than the minimalist globe-on-black-background shown here. For those like myself, who draw a lot of atmospheric inspiration from book covers, you may want to leave the app in the background or power the screen off.

Pretty fantastic

Very interesting character development, great voice acting, and nice and long. If you buy your space opera by the pound (of by the hour, in this medium) then you won't be disappointed. Over all, would strongly recommend.

Reynolds at Home

Not as far out as Reynold's usual--both in space and centuries--a most enjoyable tale of early space exploration with great characters and fun visits to nearby planets.

surprised by something new and different

If you could sum up Blue Remembered Earth in three words, what would they be?

Intellengent, well written

What other book might you compare Blue Remembered Earth to and why?

this book has a different look to the future of mankind. I think I could compare it to some of A C Clark's concepts altought the writing style is better and modern.

What about Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s performance did you like?

Great accents, complimented the book...

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I was pleasantly surprised that this book set in Africa, it was good to read a book with an international setting.

Any additional comments?

great book

Nah...

This is a perfectly decent and interesting story, not great, but not bad. It has the potential to be a perfectly entertaining audiobook. The problem with "Blue Remembered Earth" is the awful production. It takes about half the book before the audio quality progressively improves, sufficient to hear every word the narrator is saying. My hearing isn't that great, but all of the devices I used to hear this book have each offered more than enough clarity to follow the narrative in every one of my 100+ previous Audible selections. It was an ordeal to follow this one. Then, toward the end, when I could finally understand most of what I was hearing, there were about a half dozen drop-outs. Several times, I missed part of a sentence or maybe part of a paragraph because the audio just disappeared for a couple of seconds. It's a shame, because it is a good SciFi book.
The narrator, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, was excellent, a polished and versatile voice who always seemed to hit the right emotional chord, and gave each character an appropriate sound. I look forward to hearing him in a better recording.

Fabulous ramble around the solar system.

Would you listen to Blue Remembered Earth again? Why?

Yes. I was really drawn into the story and very engaged in what would happen next.

Geoffrey and Sunday are scions of a wealthy and powerful family that has made its fortune in space mining, rockets, and so forth. Sunday lives in on the moon and Geoffrey in the family home in Africa, where he does research on elephants. They are pulled into what seems to be a treasure hunt laid for them by their recently deceased grandmother, who was an early space age pioneer. And what a treasure hunt! We get to see Mars, various parts of the moon, underwater cities, asteroid belt mining, and various other wonders. Reynolds really crafts a fabulous world for us to explore. The technology that the users interact with seems gracefully and seamlessly folded into the story - enough hints are dropped for us to figure out what is going on, but characters do not pause the narrative to say "and now i am using this piece of technology, which does XYZ, isn't it really cool" as can happen in some sci fi stories.

I came into this story a bit disappointed that it would not take place in the Revelation Space universe, and that it occurs only about 200 years after our present time. Since I love Reynolds far future visions, like his glitter band in the Prefect, I wasn't sure that this story would be worth listening to. Surely there would be no glitter band or anything as wild here. I shouldn't have worried, the technology here was just a fabulous. In addition, Reynolds has made huge leaps in his characterization; the people here are better brought to life than in many of his previous worlds.

Who was your favorite character and why?

My favorite character was a minor one, Soya. She was pretty cool.

Any additional comments?

Great listen!

great book!

well written, brilliantly conceived, terrific narration. loved the approach taken to near-future connectivity. downloading the sequel asap!

Different, but good

This is quite different in style and tone from the usual work of Alastair Reynolds, but the story was good. The narrator delivered the story well, and did a good job of bringing the characters to life.

A more accessible Alastair Reynolds novel

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend this to a reader that enjoyed RevelationSpace or Chasm City' or the Prefect. Blue Remembered Earth is much more similar in toneto those novels than, let's say, House of Suns.Let's

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

The ending was a let down. The ending was relatively weak and unsatisfying which is why I only gave the story 3 stars.

Have you listened to any of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

He is A very nice narrator.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No, this was solid Alastair Reynolds - nice combination of hard science and speculative fiction.

Excellent

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Great read and masterful audio performance. Pretty well balanced with enough action along the way.

Any additional comments?

Definitely looking forward to any sequels.