Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds

I have been reading Alastair Reynolds for many years, mostly with his Revelation Space series. He writes space opera that operates on grand scales but with incredibly powerful characterizations. Thematically he's interested in humanity by exploring edge conditions, either with characters at the edge of humanity themselves or dealing with aliens and alien works. Post-humans and alien interactions are common in his fiction.

Blue Remembered Earth is the first novel in his new series, Poseidon's Children. It's a solar system medium-future story, sometimes referred to as "small" space opera. This sub-genre has been seeing a renaissance lately with some good authors writing substantial stuff including the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, The Quantum Thief and The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi, 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson and Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. Less well reviewed, but still quite enjoyable have been Only Superhuman by Chris L. Bennett and Up Against It by M. J. Locke and all published in the last couple of years.

I'm a Reynolds fan, but I'm not the sort to rush out and read his books the week they are published. I kind of have to be pushed. The problem is that all of his stuff is brilliantly imagined and written, but it's unrelentingly grim. Grim, grim, grim. Some of it, I'm thinking Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days, I would describe as straddling the science fiction and horror genres, and I'm not a fan of horror at all.

The push to read this one came in the form of the Hugo award nomination season as I've heard this book referred to in the same sentence as the excellent 2312. I thought that book was a dead certainty for not only being nominated but winning it, so a book that gets a comparison to it seems worthwhile. After reading it, I don't think Blue Remembered Earth is anywhere near as interesting a book as 2312 and I doubt that it will make it onto the short list, if only because I think 2012 was a really strong year for novels.

The story follows a biologist named Geoffrey Akinya who is a sort of black sheep of an important family who own Akinya Space, one of the dominant corporations in the solar system of 2161. Despite his best efforts he becomes involved in investigating the legacy of the just-deceased matriarch of the family. From there the plot takes a back-seat to a tour of interesting locales through the solar system. And it's not grim. Reynolds actually makes this world seem like an attractive place to live. A world which has Mandatory Enhancement (neural nano-tech installed as a child that ensures that you don't deviate too far from the norm developmentally) and the Mechanism (real-time monitoring of your mental state that literally disables you if attempt to commit a crime). Geoffrey's arc through the book is interesting and his path at the end of the book makes sense to me.

There's plenty of room to continue the story in later books. In fact, I think that a valid criticism of the book is that the whole thing is just setup for the next book. It's also really long and frustratingly so as a major arc in the second part of the book just seems to fizzle to nothing.

Currently Reading: Sealed with a Curse by Cecy Robson (After long books I like to read something quick and light as a palate cleanser; I won't be reviewing it).