In
a rather unique take on the "near future space travel" story, Africa
has become one of the predominant nations of Earth following a
global-warming related catastrophe When Eunice Akinya, one of the
great pioneers of interplanetary travel and founder of Akinya Space,
dies after decades of solitude, her grandchildren are left to discover
her true legacy- a secret that she's kept even from her family for their
entire lives.
In
a very short amount of time, I've come to develop some very specific
expectations of Alastair Reynolds: one-off stories that craft their own
worlds without sequels, a hard scientific basis to back up the fiction,
and a cast of realistic enough characters that they're neither entirely
likable nor entirely unlikable. (Apparently Reynolds does have his own
established universe, but I did mention a very short amount of time- the
time it took to read Terminal World, in fact.) Blue Remembered Earth lives up to all of these expectations nicely, while at the same time telling a completely different story from the one in Terminal World.
Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya are our main characters, sharing the stage
with Sunday's boyfriend Jitendra, as well as their cousins Hector and
Lucas, the latter pair spending most of the novel at odds with their
cousins.
Blue Remembered Earth
is set on a dystopian Earth, one that recognizes Eunice's
accomplishments for it but grew up without her being present.
Microcomputers have been implanted in every individual's brain (and
eyes, and who knows what else) which has led to an end of war, and
crime, and violence on Earth- with all of the good and the bad that this
entails. Hologram technology is unnecessary, as phone calls happen
right within the brains of both recipients, and a person can even take
over the form of a "proxy" - usually a robot designed to simulate human
motion to a reasonable extent- or a willing host, in order to complete a
task.
On a side note, I wrote the majority of this review prior to my Timecaster
review, and I’m finding it interesting how I refer to some of the
similar technology in such a different way. The reason for this is
because in Timecaster, it’s an ideal, a thought. None of it feels real,
because everything is taken to almost cartoony extremes. Alastair
Reynolds novels, on the other hand, are very hard Sci-Fi, and as a
result all of the technology feels more important, like real advances
rather than “Hey, in the future I bet...” concepts. Back to the review.
Lucas
and Hector, effectively the antagonists throughout much of the novel,
insofar as there is one, kick off the plot by sending Geoffrey on a
family errand to retrieve the contents of a safe box on the moon owned
by Eunice. Their goal is relatively straight-forward and pragmatic: to
ensure that the box holds no dirty little secrets that could tarnish the
family name. This kicks off an interplanetary scavenger hunt as
Geoffrey and Sunday attempt to find clues that Eunice has hidden
throughout the Solar system, all while keeping this information out of
the hands of Lucas and Hector, as much out of spite for their hated
cousins as for any other reasons. After all, Geoffrey and Sunday are
the liberal arts majors of the family- an elephant researcher and a
sculptor, respectively- and there is no love lost between them and the
business majors.
What
follows is a look at the world Geoffrey, Hector and Lucas live in, an
insight into how the family fragmented and how it can come back
together, and a startling truth that Eunice set into motion. And while Terminal World prepared me for the possibility of an open ending without a sequel, I'm glad to say that Blue Remembered Earth
is poised to kick off a trilogy. Whether that trilogy will follow the
characters that we know (whose story is essentially told), Eunice (whose
story is hidden in plain sight) or yet to come characters is up in the
air.
As with Terminal World, Blue Remembered Earth's
great strength is attention to detail and world-building, setting up an
entire future history without spoon-feeding us all of the details. We
don't get the opportunity to sit through Geoffrey's history class and
find out what exactly shaped the world into what it has become, but we
do have access to both Geoffrey and his sister's thoughts and memories
when they apply that history to what affects them in the present. While
none of these characters act entirely for the good of mankind, neither
do they act for entirely selfish reasons (this applies to the cousins as
well, by the way), resulting in the same kind of realistic characters
that we see in Terminal World.
Despite
the grey area nature of their priorities, the conflict between these
characters often seems to be anything but. The character we’re
generally led to root for, from day one, deceives the heads of his
family, hiding facts from them, before going on to accuse them of a
murder that they’re innocent of, physically assaulting them, and
stealing family property in order to run from the government and avoid
the consequences of that assault. All of this, because he never trusted
them, because they are business-like and unemotional. And you go along
with it, too, because, well, they’re overly business-like and
unemotional. You’re seeing the world through Doctor McCoy’s eyes, and
Spock becomes the villain because his human side doesn’t actually show
through.
If Terminal World piqued my curiosity of this author, Blue Remembered Earth
made me a fan, and from this point I intend to be an avid follower of
Reynolds' work. This is hard science fiction of the sort that I can
often only grit my teeth and imagine other Sci-Fi work to be, making it
that much easier to enjoy, and with attention to detail that can make
the relatively boring setting of "Earth in the future, with no violence"
as intimate and interesting a locale as any other. I look forward to
the next look at Poseidon's Children, and I encourage you to join me with this first entry.
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