I always look forward to a new Alastair Reynolds novel but the wait for his latest, ‘Blue Remembered Earth’, seems to have been longer than normal. That perceived delay was exacerbated by the fact that my pre-order arrived on schedule but that was still several days AFTER the book started appearing in Waterstone’s shops. (Whoops, sorry, slipped an apostrophe in there – can’t help myself).
Briefly the plot of the book centres round a “treasure hunt” involving the two main characters Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya. Sunday and Geoffrey have rejected their roles in the great corporate family business, astro engineering. But the death of their grandmother Eunice, the matriarch of the family, pitches them into a solar system wide search for what could be a great family secret – with the more business orientated family members in hot pursuit. Oh, and it features one of the most zealous Social Work services in SF – ever!
BRE has been portrayed as something of a departure from his previous work in that the drama in the book is more about man vs nature than any conflict with villains as such. But, whilst the bulk of the conflict arises from different goals rather than malign intent, there’s still one character, peripheral to the main thrust of the narrative perhaps, but someone whose actions nevertheless are undoubtedly malign. Is it fair to say that they are wearing a black hat? I think so.
Structurally the book is a much more of a thriller/mystery than I’d expected but that is undoubtedly something which Reynolds does exceptionally well. The plot leaps unpredictably from one element to the next such that you’re never quite sure what’s coming next.
So, for me, the biggest departure isn’t so much the type of book it is but rather its setting. Whilst all of his previous novels have been far future, BRE is set in the middle of the next century. As a consequence, Reynolds has to create a world that has strong connections to our own but which appears at least as advanced to us now as we would look to someone from Victorian times. It’s not an easy trick to pull off but one he accomplishes with some aplomb.
The most significant element of his 22nd century world is the Mechanism. The Mechanism is a slightly scary neural safety valve which neutralises any violent impulse any individual on Earth might have – by first disabling the would-be assailant then, more terrifying than any neural stun, setting the aforementioned Social Work Service on the perp. Not surprisingly the Earth of the 22nd century is a society with virtually no crime nor violence. But at what price?
But it’s the smaller details of his world(s) that emphasise Reynolds’s imagination – the slo-mo Robot Wars, the blowpipes and then of course there’s the elephants. And any fan of the author’s more grotesque creations will surely revel in Holroyd when he appears.
BRE may not be a complete break with his past work, but it still marks the author’s continuing expansion of his craft. And most importantly (as usual) it’s a hugely enjoyable SF novel.
Buy ‘Blue Remembered Earth’ in your local bookshop or online.
You can read the first 3 chapters from the novel here. And then watch the video!
My first new LP of 2012 is ‘Let’s Go Eat The Factory’ by the reformed (classic line-up) Guided By Voices.
I’m more familiar with latter period GBV so those parentheses have less resonance for me than for longer term fans. And having heard the lead single ‘Doughnut For The Snowman’ a couple of times before Christmas, my hopes weren’t that high for the record.
My first couple of listens of the whole LP didn’t raise my expectations much either. Rather they suggested that this is little more than a low-fi version of the latter day, more polished GBV records, recorded as it was in various basements. However subsequent listens revealed a far more surprising, and much stronger, record than I’d at first thought.
Sure, there’s plenty of classic GBV garage rock in here, in the shape of opening track ‘Laundry and Lasers’ with its electronic pulse or the melodic ‘The Unsinkable Fats Domino’. But more than any other GBV record that I’ve heard this is a varied listen.
There’s strings on ‘Hang Mr Kite’, the micro piano ballad ‘Spiderfighter’ , and even a couple of dissonant tracks such as ‘The Room Taking Shape’. Meanwhile there’s a trumpet on ‘Imperial Racehorsing’ and ‘The Big Hat and Toy Show’ could be a psychedelic Julian Cope b-side.
Most bizarre of all perhaps is the low-fi Arcade Fire does Auld Lang Syne of ‘Old Bones’ but actually looking at it in these terms it maybe makes more sense than I’m suggesting.
The last track turns out to be the longest. In fact ‘We Won’t Apologize for the Human Race’ reaches epic proportion in breaking the four minute barrier. And like a lot of the record, it’s really rather good.
With this variety of songs and the fact that more than half of the very short songs are under 2 minutes long (in fact two don’t even reach the 60 second mark) , there’s a danger that this could all have ended up sounding bitty. Very bitty. But the effect instead is the reverse as the variety somehow holds the whole enterprise together.
What repeated listens prove is that, rooted in amongst all the assorted jumble of the 21 tracks, there’s a hell of a lot of good songwriting.
Ach, where’s all my time gone? December’s glut of posts now seems like a broken promise to the world in general.
So another brief filler post tonight, the second in succession.
Until I read this month’s Mojo, I had no idea that New Order had reformed last year, albeit minus Peter Hook. But the feature did send me back to the New Order LPs and I fished out the one that I hadn’t listened to for the longest time – ‘Brotherhood’.
Now it’s probably not a popular thing to say but ‘Brotherhood’ may be my favourite New Order LP.
To be honest, for whatever reason, I’ve always regarded New Order as a singles band. Sure, I like the LPs I own, but for some reason I just don’t quite think they ever made a truly classic album unlike contemporaries like the Bunnymen. But I’ve always thought quite fondly of ‘Brotherhood’ which completes the trilogy started by ‘Power, Corruption and Lies’ and ‘Low-life’. But song for song I do think that ‘Brotherhood’ matches and bests the other two.
I think my first introduction to the record was the band’s appearance on the Tube which featured (non-LP) single ‘State of the Nation’ (always one of my favourite mid period singles) and the much more rocky ‘Broken Promise’ from the record. And it’s that video which is going to provide the background to this post, albeit that ‘Broken Promise’ doesn’t even reach the fade it undoubtedly suffered at the end of the show.
Despite it being my favourite New Order record, ‘Brotherhood’ also turned out to be the last album I bought. I didn’t particularly take to any of the singles from its follow-up ‘Technique’ and what I heard of ‘Republic’ sounded just too polished for my tastes. Probably my biggie but, well, a boy’s only got so much time.
There was a mini REM night on the BBC the other night. Quite why the 2 programmes (R.E.M. At The BBC and REM on Later) were tucked away after midnight is something of a mystery when you consider the lesser talents who have had full blown themed nights. But as ever with these things they were recorded to be watched at my leisure.
Featuring a mixture of live performances and mimes, the BBC show leant heavily on the post Bill Berry era with the only live electric performance from before ‘Up’ being one from OGWT in 1984 with a simply suberb acapella ‘Moon River’ leading straight into ‘Pretty Persuasion’. There were good (later) live versions of ‘The One I Love’ and particularly ‘Perfect Circle’ but the likes of ‘All The Way To Reno’ and ‘Daysleeper’ are unlikely to be regarded as amongst the best songs in the band’s repertoire.
But funnily enough two of the mimed performances were amongst the highlights. Up top is the band’s TOTP debut for ‘Orange Crush’ and this is really a performance piece with Stipe alternatively “singing” from behind his megaphone then waving it around in an alarmingly Morrisey-like fashion.
What I really wanted to use thugh was the performance of ‘Crush With Eyeliner’ again mimed on TOTP but it doesn’t seem to be on Youtube. There’s a large number of dancers on stage with the band, some on pedestals, which creates a good energy. But the video is quite noticeable for the bottom fetish of the director.
One shot from the rear of one of the female dancers sets the video off down a peculiar route with much of the rest of the performance filmed from behind the posteriors of the individuals in bear suits. Of course the fact that Top of the Pops was emblazoned on these ursine rears was undoubtedly a factor but honestly it gets beyond a joke.
Hilariusly towards the end of the video, Stipe leaps onto a pedestal and touches his toes, but suddenly the director seems to be sick of rear ends, managing a shot instead of Stipe’s head between his legs – in quite tight focus! Wonder why?
I’d hoped that someone may have ripped this even since the weekend, but it’s not obvious to me at the moment.
