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

Loses one star for the terrible, annoying music

the music is only played at chapter beginnings but it's a total mood killer straight out of late 90s elementary school laser discs.
Story takes a while to take off but is very good, I'm excited for the next books!

A surprising and staisfying departure for Reynolds

Reynolds' latest is somewhat of a departure from his more sweeping and awe-inspiring conceptions of the future. This tale is situated in the later half of the 22nd century with earth having been ravaged by global warming resulting in geopolitical dislocations. The West has been marginalized due to environmental disruptions. Africa has assumed a world leadership position and one specific African family has replicated the Rockefeller/Ford/Walmart model of dominating the rising economic drivers of their age; in their case energy and space industries are paramount. The family's rise to prominence has been the result of a matriarch (Eunice) who was renown for her space exploits like Lindbergh or Earhart.

The tale begins with the passing of Eunice and our main character, Geoffrey who is an otherwise dedicated, but inconsequential elephant researcher with no interest in the family business, is commandeered to handle a delicate matter of tying up loose ends left by her. What ensues is an adventure saga of following clues and puzzles left by Eunice that only her family could decipher. Along the way, the mystery that was Eunice grows deeper. The sci-fi so prominent in previous Reynolds novels, is present, but is almost secondary to the plot and serves to advance the story, rather than vice versa: advanced AI, gene engineered humans (but still in the early phase with some problems evident), settlement of the solar system, human/animal mind interface, and continual population surveillance with action control. As usual, Reynolds' thorough descriptions provide for an extremely realistic and believable depiction of the future. Perhaps the only ding to the tale is that the final plot twist was too predictable and expected.

The narration is excellent with a full range of male and female voices as well as the beyond human constructs.

Politically Correct

I've read most of what Allistair Reynolds has published...some more than once.
I've rated him as one of the best hard core SF writers ever. His major characters are often "different". Heroes and villains are as likely to be female as male with various
degrees of sex, color, species differences and artifacts often added on. Even as truly different as some of his main characters were, I have never before gotten the impression that he was forcing them into being politically correct stereotypes. That is the impression I get in this novel.
The good guys, male and female, (almost too good to be true, in some cases) are African and black sounding, or clearly homosexual with contemporary nilistic outlooks while the bad guys are made to sound like mostly white, male Afrikaners and and are comletely contemptible, evil, money grubbers. The heroic types seem motivated only by a one dimensional need to do "good" (as defined by contemporary standards like ...save the elephants...for instance).
Of course, in their quest to do these good deeds, the author does not bind them to
to any special respect for preexisting norms and rules that get in their way, except those imposed by the villains. Both sides are also very rich, which seems to be, in a almost
contradictory fashion, a perfectly acceptable reason to allow them to do what they please.
As I've said, I can enjoy heroes and villains, any sex, any color, any background...if
the writer can make me believe that they are real "human beings" even if that
isn't exactly what they are. Reynold's has done that very thing with pigs, among a number of other not so human creatures, in some of his other works. Their human attributes...good and bad and neither...seemed not only richly complex but to be natural parts of their nature.
The problem with this novel for me is that the characters in these pages are caricatures of politically correct stereotypes. That makes it impossible to care about
what they seem to care about. And what they care about, of course, drives the whole story. John Lee does a good job with the narration, as usual.
Overall, this is not a Reynold's novel I would consider reading a second time.

Really slow & boring starter, difficult narration

On the story...typical Reynolds on the slow story start, reinforced with super dry droning on of conversations between supposedly smart adults but with social skills and behavior of 3rd grade elementary students. In the end, the interesting story line does exist and the 3-book series is worth adding to your collection. This book specifically is like a never ending scavenger hunt.
My biggest issue with this book was the difficulty understanding the narrator. The characters are African so the narrator takes great pains to ensure he sounds like what you would imagine a native would sound like attempting to speak english. Hundreds of words just lost to pure gibberish and yodeling / yoda / kung fu master dialects. Multiple times I stopped this book to go double check to ensure the remaining 2 books were by a different narrator. Had they been the same, i would have cancelled and demanded a refund.
Even by the end of the book, after I had trained myself to understand the narrator a little easier, the book is still overly difficult to understand for zero reason. While I have a list of "favorite" narrators, this book is responsible for the creation of a list of narrators I will black-list forever.

It Takes Awhile To Get Going

Any additional comments?

This is an unusual book. I've never read or listened to anything quite like it. Alastair Reynolds has to be my favorite writer Sci-fi still in the business. I loved his earlier works like Chasm City and Pushing Ice. This is entirely different, but still eventually in the Reynolds style. But with this book I had to keep at it. Honestly, I was about to give up a few hours into it. If it hadn't have been Reynolds I would have. I would have missed out. Once this book finally gets going it is a good one! I don't know that it's great, and I still prefer his earlier, Revelation Space series, but this book rewards nicely for sticking around.

Pretty Damn Amazing

& I didn't think I'd like it. LOL. I'd recently listened to all the Revelation Space & associated books. I had Reynolds in a very confined "box" in my head. I read some of the reviews & am glad of it, as they warned me that this series was not only NOT in that world series, but not really even comparable in reference to the subject matter & storyline. I was kind of prepared. I was used to John Lee's narration, as well, so I listened to the sample to see if I could live with a new narrator on top of a whole different concept from my nearly favorite author. Almost didn't do it. I dislike musical interludes in my audio books, immensely.
I dug through my wish list for a while, but kept going back to this. All I can now say is "wow..."
I feel like I know these people. I CARE about this family & all its choices & responsibilities, joys & sorrows. The writing is, as usual, superb. Since there is less world building involved, the characters seem to come to life in a way that it seems easier to identify with them than in a pure, hard sci-fi story. Yes, there's a lot of "techno babble" that actually sort of glazes my eyes, but it's well integrated into a fabulous human story. It is relative.

Overall a Good Read

Would you listen to Blue Remembered Earth again? Why?

Story started off a little slow and I had trouble getting into it. However, after a while it really picked up and I started to relate to the characters. I am glad I kept going after the first chapter or so and gave the book a chance. I will be purchasing the rest of the series.

Would you be willing to try another book from Alastair Reynolds? Why or why not?

He is one of the authors I look for. Primarily I like the size of his books or at least that is how I found him. Of course, if he was not a good writer the size would not matter in the long run. I will continue to purchase his books.

Real Science Fiction

I really enjoyed this book! It is not a fantasy, and it is not horror. It is what I call 'real' Sci-Fi. It is well written, the plot is good, the performance is good, and it is a good length (I do not like books less than 15 to 20 hours long). An all around good read.

One blooper: At one point in the book, the airlock is blown open. This is fast as it might well be. But then the book talks about how long it takes to 'pump' air back in. You do not need to pump into a vacuum! It sucks! :) and the time it takes to refill it is only dependant on the pressure of the source, the size of the air pipes, and the size of the airlock! I found that humorous.

Loved it!

The African context brings richness and depth to an awesome family and space odyssey! The music was great too

Just Excellent !!

Loved the story, loved the narration and the performance. Well done! I really appreciate that Mr Reynolds made it African-centric—they’re the main characters and not sidekicks. It was just so refreshing and different, it felt like a relief. Many thanks, Alastair Reynolds; the telling of the story will mean a lot to a lot of people who don’t get to see themselves portrayed like this in most good stories.