Blue Remembered Earth (Poseidon's Children)

Well imagined, flawlessly executed, this is near history precedent for the rest of Reynolds epics. It knits together our own history with the evolution of a star drive. The characters and situations are well drawn and intriguing. I enjoyed it thoroughly .

Without spoiling the ending, the plot has the main characters jumping through hoops, dodging danger and criss-crossing the solar system to chase an improbably poorly-laid trail of clues. At any point, the trail could have been lost, and humanity's greatest discovery would have been lost. The protagonist could have simply left a message to be opened at a later date, avoided the whole pointless chase, and assured the message was received.
Total disappointment when the Great Secret was revealed

Alastair Reynolds is known for sweeping, epic, galaxy-wide (and occasionally even intergalactic) space opera. An additional twist comes from his professional background as a physicist: while the science is often wildly speculative, it manages to stay within the bounds of the barely possible better than most space opera. So no faster-than-light travel and no causality violations. Yet somehow he still manages to write up galaxy-wide ancient precursor civilizations, wars that span light-years and aeons, space battles that destroy entire solar systems, and the usual good, clean, space opera fun.

Blue Remembered Earth is painted on a smaller canvas. It is set only about a century and a half in our future, within the Solar System. The more familiar locations, scope, cultures, and characters of the relatively near future are a welcome change of direction.

Reynolds also breaks out of some staid science-fiction conventions. For one thing, in his future world, the dominant cultural, economic, and scientific power is Africa, and all but one of his main characters (Jitendra, of Indian origin) are Africans. Like Ursula K. LeGuin, he doesn't rub your face in it; it's just that much of the action happens in the shadow of Kilimanjar, it's noted that the characters speak Swahili, and the only time somebody's race comes up is if it departs from the norm--i.e., s/he's Chinese or white.

Also, elephants.

I'm pretty much completely clueless about African cultures, so I have no idea how well--if at all--Reynolds has managed to work in cultural particularities of his Kenyan-Tanzaniyan protagonists. I have a suspicion that a Kenyan or Tanzanian might have written it in more strongly: as it is, the only things that struck me as unusual--other than the décor--were the family ties of the Akinya siblings and cousins. They are a good deal stronger than usually portrayed for typically individualist sci-fi heroes.

Blue Remembered Earth is an optimistic book. That's also a very refreshing change from the ever-grimmer dystopias of many current sci-fi authors, and indeed the sticky end Reynolds envisions for his own Revelation Space universe. In his future, humanity has managed to survive the Anthropocene--the near-catastrophic results of climate change--and has entered a new golden age. War is a barbaric feature of the receding past, crime and disease have been eradicated so thoroughly that an attempted murder in Finland or a death from cancer in Australia make the news in Nairobi, and the ecology has been brought back into balance. Colonization of the Solar System is well under way, with the ones too adventurous to live in the Earth's Surveyed Zones emigrating to more anarchic colonies on the far side of the Moon, or Mars, or even further.

Utopias make for pretty boring stories, though, so naturally there's a fly in the ointment. The story is a straightforward treasure hunt across the Solar System, to uncover a deadly family secret with the potential to change humanity's future, or perhaps destroy it. Yes, suitably epic again, in true Reynolds fashion.

I thoroughly enjoyed Blue Remembered Earth, and am looking forward to further instalments in the Poseidon's Children cycle, which the book begins. There are enough loose ends to make sequels possible, but also like most of Reynolds's work, the novel stands very well on its own. As all good sci-fi, Blue Remembered Earth has a lot to say about the world we live in, by portraying a possible future one.

Besides which, who wouldn't love spaceships and astronauts and Martian colonies and iceteroid mining?

This is daring venture for one of my favourite authors. He's come back in time a little closer to our time. Nothing wrong with that and much of the bio- and technological advances Alastair sees are still inspiring and interesting to read about. And I like the twist, in which the African and Indian cultures are now economically in the lead. But the story itself is uncharacteristically slow-paced. The characters are well-developed, but it takes a very long time before you can start to relate to them. Nonetheless; you still have to read this book! It's only by comparison to its peers by the same author that you can be critical about it. So delve into the near-distant future and discover what Alastair holds in store for us this time.

I enjoyed reading Blue Remembered Earth. I think it is a solid Reynolds novel, but with a novel point of view. It works both as a standalone SciFi suspense novel and, presumably, a prequel to a more epic saga. The main characters, Geoffrey and Sunday, are both interesting and likable and following their journeys within the Solar System was good fun.

We have an author who seems to have little understanding of elephants, African culture, or dramatic narrative. So, here is a book that is a dramatic narrative containing African cultural references and elephants. The result is dang boring.

This book never gets off the ground! Which for a "space opera" is pretty bad. The main characters lack zing, our lead hero schlepps around with little enthusiasm, the mystery at the center of the plot never seems to take off, and the result is a slow, drecky climb into a story. At page 150 I was suffering very badly.

Based on an unrecognizable political landscape, with no love of technologies, and very little understanding of how people talk or interact, this is the most cardboard space opera I have ever read, and I cannot recommend it!

This book could easily be 50 or 100 pages shorter. Most of the action consists of moving from place to place following clues. The basic idea of a person not being able to send a simple messge is kind of hard to believe.

Blue Remembered Earth - Alastair Reynolds - [0773 - 2018-05-26]

The science-fiction novel "Blue Remembered Earth"(2012) by Alastair Reynolds is also knows as book 1 in the trilogy Poseidon's Children. The other two novels in the trilogy are "On the Steel Breeze" (2013) and "Poseidon's Wake" (2015). I have read all three novels and consider them to be riveting and fascinating - one of the best series I have ever read - better that Mr. Reynolds Revelation Space books which I have also read in it's entirety.

I am deliberately not going to attempt to summarize the plot. Not only is it very convoluted but I could not do justice to it. I will say it's a multigenerational space adventure that involves aliens and elephants and takes place over several hundred years.

Assuming you will enjoy "Blue Remembered Earth" it is my opinion that you should not read it unless you intend to read the other two books. Taken together this is one story split into three parts. Having said that the three book series feature Mr. Reynolds accustomed format of very long meticulous stories, multiple characters, numerous futuristic concepts with sketchy explanations and extended detailed character interactions. The three book clock in at over 1500 pages of small font single spaced printed pages. Nonetheless if you desire to immerse yourself in an extended sojourn to an astonishing hard science reality these book may just be the ticket for you my friend.

I have been an Alastair Reynolds fan ever since Revelation Space. The guy can write some scifi. The worlds he builds are complex and stunning and hoo boy, hold on for the ride.

Except this time.

I’m not quite sure what’s off about this book. It is vintage Reynolds, with amazing tech―like “augs,” which is a cell phone/internet connection built into your head having solar-system-wide reach; and genetic alterations so you can live in the sea as a whale if you want, etc, etc―complex relationships and a cast of characters to rival a Russian novel, but it seems…strained. A reach, if that’s a criticism that can actually be applied to a scifi novel.

The story concerns the Akinya family of Kenya, whose matriarch, Eunice, almost single-handedly initiated solar-system-wide flight and asteroid mining operations some hundreds of years before. Eunice has left clues to some kind of riddle, sending her grandson, Geoffrey, a guy who has mind-melded with a herd of elephants, off on a solar-system-wide scavenger hunt. There’s lots of bouncing between the moon and Mars and the asteroid belt and under the sea, and alliances with crazy quasi-ecoterrorists (whose complaints and goals remain murky) as Geoffrey and his sister, Sunday, use a virtual Eunice that Sunday created to give them guidance along the way and I guess the big question I’ve got is…why? Why the scavenger hunt? Why not just flat out tell her grandkids what the deal is? Would certainly save a lot of wear and tear on various ships and people.

But then it wouldn’t be as much fun, would it?

No, it wouldn’t. And Reynolds is obviously having a lot of fun throwing far out tech and social constructs willy and nilly here and there, and you will have lots of fun reading it. But you’re going to eventually reach the conclusion that most of this was unnecessary.

Unless Eunice is a sadist.

First of all, the store incorrectly lists this as a "Children's Book". It definitely is not.

I won't go into the synopsis since many other reviewers have already done that. I'll just say while I generally like multi-book stories, space operas if you will, I have serious doubts if I'll bother continuing on with the the 2nd book in this trilogy. It is so, so slow moving with a bizarre premise, that Africa will be the superpower on Earth. Why? No particular reason given other than everywhere else has apparently fallen into third world status. But the upshot is that this is basically a treasure hunt story that takes forever to develop and once it does where (gasp!) aliens have have left advanced technology instructions, it's over. Hardly original.

I was even more disturbed of the supposedly Utopian world the author paints where privacy of any kind, even thought, is non-existent and where a large percentage of Earth's population has chosen to be surgically altered into forms that are no longer human. Kind of nightmarish actually, in a 1984-ish kind of way.

So count me as disappointed and bored overall. I like SF with original ideas and concepts and a fast moving story. None of those are present here.

Review: Blue Remembered Earth
After the lackluster Terminal World and Slow Bullets, I picked up Blue Remembered Earth with trepidation. Fortunately, this novel is miles better than either of his previous works, and leads me to believe that I will continue to enjoy (and seek out) more Alastair Reynolds books in the future.

Blue Remembered Earth is set in a near future. Nantechnology is common, as are space elevator trips, a moon base, and asteroid mining. The novel depicts Geoffrey and Sunday Akinya, two scions of an African matriarch (Eunice) who single-handedly built a lucrative empire based on space-exploration and exploitation. When the aforementioned matriarch dies, Geoffrey is called on by the other members of the family to investigate a safe-deposit box left on the moon by Eunice.

One thing leads to another, and Geoffrey and Sunday end up in the deep oceans (dealing with the United Aquatic Nations), on Phobos and Mars, as well as a climatic visit to the Kuiper belt. As far as a wild romp through the solar system it's a lot of fun, but the plot device is thin, and extremely tenuous. The world building is entertaining, but not vivid, and of course, Reynolds has no plausible explanation as to why the African continent rose to be an economic super-power other than "I thought it was their turn."

The science is mostly impeccable, and I enjoyed the depiction of man's near future self-created utopia. Lesser writers would have made it something to rebel against, but Reynolds goes out of his way to actually show how it eliminates many of the problems that plague humanity today.

Now, it's not up to par to his previous work such as Revelation Space or House of Suns, but it's still a boldly optimistic view of humanity's near future, something that's rare these days. Recommended.

Being a great fan of Alastair Reynolds I was both excited by, and nervous of, his latest series, most of my trepidation being due to concerns that he may have sold-out and start churning out pot-boilers courtesy of a big book deal and a whopping advance. Thankfully, I was wrong. While the story may be a little slow to get going, Reynolds introduces his characters with care & attention to detail so that when the planet hopping treasure-hunt style adventure gets underway the reader is fully immersed in the characters and their near-future environment. What Reynolds really excels at is thinking of really cool stuff, integrating it into his imagined universe and then given them really cool names; the aug, the Mechanism, the Evolvarium (really liked that idea), artilects, the Ocular... the list of original and plausible ideas just goes on.

The plot centres around the events following the funeral of the matriarchal space pioneer of the powerful & rich Akinya dynasty and the series of clues to location on the moon, Phobos and Mars which lead in turn to a revelation on the edge of our solar system which could either presage a new dawn in the human space diaspora or, if misused, their potential destruction. Along the way there are intra family feuds, proof of extra galactic intelligent life, a typically Reynolds-esque extension of the panspermia hypothesis and much more all incorporated into a mature, carefully paced & magnificently written novel.

As you can probably tell, I really liked it. It was perhaps a little slow at the start with all of the elephant messing about but it was never dull; just lots of Reynolds' masterly wordcraft and imagination. A cracking start to an exhilarating new series from a master of the space opera genre.

I really liked this book. Finished it last night. It is much better than other crap that has come out lately, like Leviathan Wakes. I have been reading science fiction since I was ten and... well, I have had a lot of five stars. Let me tell you why this deserves five stars, and why it does not.
I tried to write this well and it is just not going to happen tonight. Basically, as the book progressed, he has really cool things happen that tied the past (actually the years from today to 2162) into each other and it was fascinating as it was a believable future.
I didnt like it because 1 - he focused way too much on the neural imput technology, and while maybe it wasn't unrealistic, it was depressing when I see everyone constantly on their phone to think of it in our brains... x2000; 2 - he acted like a ten year old and had dumb tangents occur that added nothing to the main storyline except showcase some of the capabilities of his future tech. I do not read scifi because I think computers are neat, or big robot battles are soooo cool... I like it because it adds dimension to a story. He has this part where one of the main characters battles robotos that move so slow you cannot see them move with the naked eye, so people take drugs to slow down their mind until the robots move really fast! DUMB! Gimmie a break, speed the things up... he has a couple other areas like that and it just seemed really pointless and dumb. Like a kid blowing up ant hills with firecrackers. So... the mystery and suspense at the end pushed it up to a four from a three, but it is not revelation space or house of suns.However, i am excited to read the sequel!

Tanzania, 2161. The matriarch of the Akinya family, Eunice, a famous pioneer of space travel and exploration, has died at the age of 130. The family convenes for the funeral, but grandson Geoffrey would prefer to be carrying on his research into elephant cognition. When an anomaly is discovered amongst Eunice's possessions, Geoffrey is asked to investigate, the beginning of a journey that will take him from Earth to the Moon to Mars...and further still.

Alastair Reynolds's new novel is the first in a new sequence, Poseidon's Children, which will span 11,000 years of human history. As such, the three books in the sequence will presumably be stand-alones, divided by immense gulfs in history, but with added context given to the reader by reading all three in order. Reynolds and his publisher have backed away from the 'trilogy' moniker (and the 'Book One of Poseidon's Children' tagline present on some early drafts of the cover has been removed) to de-emphasise the idea this is a serialised story that people will have to wait years to be concluded.

Reynolds is noted for having a somewhat grim vision of the future in his previous books, so Blue Remembered Earth is notable for its more optimistic tone. The human race has become richer and more technologically advanced than ever before, with Africa now driving the world economy and formerly war-torn, poverty-stricken states are now prosperous and driven. The price of this new era of peace and development is the Surveilled World, a state of near-total coverage of the planet by AIs which intervene if any crimes are detected. As a result almost no crimes or murders have been committed in decades (although Reynolds, a noted fan of crime thrillers, can't help dropping one puzzling and apparently impossible murder in as a subplot). This near-total surveillance state is not so prevalent on other planets and moons, however, due to time-lag issues.

The book is essentially a treasure hunt, with Geoffrey and his sister Sunday following the trail of clues left behind by their grandmother which ultimately leads to the Big Reveal. The trail, and the resulting plot, are somewhat convoluted and, it has to be said, unconvincing. Nevertheless, the story is entertaining with a constant stream of inventive ideas: an area on Mars controlled by rogue machines; an AI simulacrum of Eunice who provides advice and becomes more and more like the real Eunice as they uncover more information; attempts to help improve the quality of life for zoo elephants by merging them holographically with a real herd in the African wilderness; and a system-wide telescope being used to scan for signs of life on other worlds. The characters, particularly Geoffrey and Sunday (our main POV characters) are well-developed as we learn their respective reasons for turning against the family's strict business-oriented hierarchy, but even their antagonistic siblings (who initially appear to be villainous) are fleshed-out satisfyingly by the end of the book.

As the most low-tech of Reynolds's books to date, Blue Remembered Earth is perhaps his most conservative in terms of ideas and scale and scope. This isn't a bad thing and he seems to enjoy working under greater technological constraints than previously, but occasionally he seems to chafe against the restrictions (the robots on Mars and the large-scale mining of the Oort Cloud both seem somewhat more advanced than the tech elsewhere). He also doesn't fully explore the freedom implications of having a state of total surveillance, other than in a cursory surface manner.

Still, Blue Remembered Earth (****) is highly readable, brimming with ideas and refreshingly optimistic. Recommended. The novel is available now in the UK and on 5 June 2012 in the USA.

Alastair Reynolds's latest novel "Blue Remembered Earth" is part mystery & space adventure in the science fiction realm. When Geoffrey Akinya's grandmother Eunice dies he is sent away from his research into elephant cognition back to the Moon to deal with the family business. What he finds in a safe deposit box sends members of he & members of his family on a quest to find out exactly who she was & what she really left behind. Reynolds's story is very well written & as each successive character & plot twist are brought into play the story grows in complexity as things arc from the Moon to Phobos to Mars to the Kuiper Belt. We as readers are kept guessing as to just how far technology has advanced & also with the successive advances in the story are pretty much left guessing as to where exactly this ends up. Overall a very well written opening chapter in what should be a very good trilogy.

Blue Remembered Earth is the best written work by Reynolds by SOME distance. It is beautifully written and edited, and reading it is a pleasure in itself. Compared to the style of his earlier work; somewhat opaque and tough reads, this is a gem. I would say that the reading experience was actually better, quicker and more satisfying than Redemption Ark and the like.

That is not to say the story is better, it isn't ... but it IS very different in style and a book that you can finish fairly quickly.... a story that is (as you might expect) superbly crafted even if it doesnt have the peaks of excitement that some other Reynolds books have, and the imaginative ideas once again flow easily from Reynolds' pen; the use of golems, and the evolvarium are particularly well fleshed out, consistent and believeable.

Where BRE falls down is the aforementioned lack of "peaks" and "troughs" in excitement. It is fairly linear in progression, with no real "set pieces" to stir the emotions, no tension or threat to the main characters ... and the ending, whilst "satisfying" (something not all Reynolds endings are)was not exactly an adrenalin rush, just a sort of "well here is a bit of exposition" to finish everything off tidily.

So a mixed bag for me ... by far the best and most enjoyable Reynolds "read" but a story that was fairly simple, straightforward and not particularly exciting. On balance, however, I REALLY enjoyed the few days I spent on this book

Blue Remembered Earth is the best written work by Reynolds by SOME distance. It is beautifully written and edited, and reading it is a pleasure in itself. Compared to the style of his earlier work; somewhat opaque and tough reads, this is a gem. I would say that the reading experience was actually better, quicker and more satisfying than Redemption Ark and the like.

That is not to say the story is better, it isn't ... but it IS very different in style and a book that you can finish fairly quickly.... a story that is (as you might expect) superbly crafted even if it doesnt have the peaks of excitement that some other Reynolds books have, and the imaginative ideas once again flow easily from Reynolds' pen; the use of golems, and the evolvarium are particularly well fleshed out, consistent and believeable.

Where BRE falls down is the aforementioned lack of "peaks" and "troughs" in excitement. It is fairly linear in progression, with no real "set pieces" to stir the emotions, no tension or threat to the main characters ... and the ending, whilst "satisfying" (something not all Reynolds endings are)was not exactly an adrenalin rush, just a sort of "well here is a bit of exposition" to finish everything off tidily.

So a mixed bag for me ... by far the best and most enjoyable Reynolds "read" but a story that was fairly simple, straightforward and not particularly exciting. On balance, however, I REALLY enjoyed the few days I spent on this book

I will no longer buy Mr. Reynolds works sight unseen. From now on, I will wait and read reviews. Mr. Reynolds is in my top five favorite authors, and all of his other books are absolutely great, with a couple exceptions. The first minor disappointment was "Terminal World", but, it was still a good book. Now this novel "Blue Remembered Earth". Fully half of the book is completely irrelevant to the story, and the pace is agonizingly slow. One review said that it was "impossible to put down." I found it nearly impossible to pick up. I finished the book, which finally got moderately interesting around page 267, out of loyalty to Mr. Reynolds more than anything else. I await "On The Steel Breeze" but I won't buy it until it's out in paperback. I hope that Mr. Reynolds recovers from this, and begins to write as he did in the beginning. For the story, instead of for the money.

A novel which strives to impart the 'Overview Effect' upon it's reader, that shift an astronaut experiences when the focus of his world view is shifted forever. Blue Remembered Earth, is one of Reynolds best works and it is a difficult task which Reynolds took upon himself in trying to impart that cognitive shift upon the reader, and as such it will not be successful for every reader. There are several negative reviews of this book, in which I feel, the reviewer failed to make the leap.

The book starts as a standard quest narrative, and focuses the reader in on tiny details as one tries to put together the pieces like a mystery novel. All the while a huge plot is constructed around the plot thread. When the final reveal occurs the whole focus changes outward to a very large field of focus. This book *is* space euphoria if you can make that leap from written fiction. This elevation of perspective is the goal of good science fiction, and this work achieves that goal. A euphoric read for serious science fiction fans.

I enjoyed this novel very much. Whatever "universe" Reynolds imagines, it is always elaborate, well thought out, with the hard science married to vivid writing and images. (How imaginative were Chasm City and Century Rain? Breaths of fresh air.) The same is true here. (How about a region on Mars where cast-off machines are themselves evolving as they chew each other up.) The difference this time is, as has been mentioned by others, more time spent with character developement. The result is still recognizably Reynolds, though, even as his writing evolves. For me, this is a plus; for others, maybe not so much. Yes, the science fiction part matters, but so too does the writing. Many writers succeed more with the former than with the latter (and need better editors). Excellence at both is a potent combination. For me, Reynolds has the balance that should keep him in the forefront of Science Fiction writing for years to come. Sequels to this novel promise a compelling series.

The viewpoint character is extremely passive. This works okay for the initial setup, because that is all about showing us the world and setting the stage. I was actually enjoying the book for the first few chapters, it wasn't my favorite thing by Mr. Reynolds, but I was feeling I had got my money's worth and wasn't wasting my time.

And then chapter 7 happened. I don't want to spoil the book with too many specifics, but at that point the passiveness of the main character became a real problem. The main character is manipulated into working on a mystery, but he isn't at all interested in solving it. So a peripheral character does something absurdly stupid, and the main character enthusiastically goes along... And so the story moves forward again. Page after page of passive people following the lead of a crazed idiot. And then more peripheral characters enter and offer various means of salvation or selling out.

I probably should wait until I've finished it to review the book, but I don't think I can bring myself to finish it at this point - I feel insulted and annoyed.

Fascinating, convincing and very readable, despite some issues with pacing, this 'space opera' novel brings in some outstanding future concepts to create a believable future for humanity. Reynolds takes to its limit the notion of the 'surveillance state' and includes some remarkable transport ideas - space elevators, long-term hibernation ships and automated 'air pods' for personal flight. For me, its minor weaknesses are in the areas of pace (we spend too long in places which prove interesting enough to inhabit, but don't push the plot along quickly enough) and characterization, particularly the way in which the characters all seem to sound roughly the same. The scenes in the Winter Palace and out beyond Neptune are also a little pedestrian, with a little too much detail on every footfall and ship detail. However, as a journey and a description of a fascinating potential future, as well as a thoroughly engaging mystery novel, Reynolds succeeds admirably.

Engaging mystery, satisfying payoff, terrific worldbuilding- especially enjoyed the different factions: aquatic, moon, terran, evolvarium.

But that couldn't outweigh my dislike for the two main characters. Sunday was self absorbed, Geoffrey was a wimp. Character development aside, what really irritated the shite out of me was how *reactive* they were. They accepted financial and operational help from various parties knowing full well there were strings attached the aid but trotted off with nary a concern about outwitting the "partners" or potential consequences. They were also weirdly forgiving of betrayal. The supporting characters weren't any more likeable.

Loved Chasm City, have retread it twice. Liked the Revelation Space series. Enjoyed The Prefect a lot. Some of the others are at least okay, if not the best. But I thought House of Suns was unengaging, I passed on the one after that (subject didn't interest me) and this one ... whew! Sounded interesting, but I've struggled through 156 pages so far, and I'll probably finish it eventually, but these have to be the slowest 156 pages ever written. Everything drags on. Extremely long chapters filled with long, boring, unenthusiastic conversations that don't even amount to much. Heck, even the characters seem bored. Reynolds can do better ... much better ... than this.

Reynolds has always set himself apart from other science fiction authors by widening the scope of the plot to the nth degree, by infusing the setting with richness and depth, and by marbling all of this with awe-inducing science and technology. Akin to Revelation Space and House of Suns, Blue Remembered Earth proves he still has the gift for exhibiting unique ideas, penning an intriguing story, and capturing the imagination of the reader. It's not his best work, but it's definitely the great beginning to a surely great series.

At the end of the year 2161, after sixty years of solitude orbiting the moon, the empress to a solar system-wide company passes away. Her genetic legacy includes one pair of grandchildren, Geoffrey, who studies elephants on the African plains, and Sunday, who pursues sculpture in the Descrutinized Zone on the moon, away from the patrolling omniscient eye of the Mechanism. Controlling the interests in the family company are their cousins Hector and Lucas, who have a frosty relationship with Geoffry and Sunday. Once into 2162, the cousins bride Geoff into traveling to the moon in order to recover the contents of a safe-deposit box once belonging to their wealthy and reclusive grandmother, Eunice. With agreement not to meet his sister when he's on the moon, Geoff breaks this treaty by visiting her enclave in order to unravel the mystery behind the contents of the box: a antique spacesuit glove which holds yet another mystery... colored gems.

Earth in the year 2162, as stylized by Reynolds, is one of African prosperity born from the decline of unmentioned Western nations and where humanity is recovering from the symptoms of a century of global warming. Pages 148-149 outline a post-warming earth, where sea levels had risen and were combated with seawalls, where Sahara had extended its arid grip upon the continent, where depopulation had been enforced, where humanity derived its energy from deep-penetration geothermal tap and solar arrays spanning the globe, efficient transmission accomplished by superconducting cables. Once ill-weather regions of the earth now harvest grapes and produce fine wines, such as Patagonia, Iceland, and Mongolia. In contrast to this great human revival to calamity, there has been an unheard of decline in crime because of the nearly worldwide Mechanism, which uses algorithms to predict human behavior... each person with an augmentation connected to this incorruptible sentinel:

"Murder isn't impossible, even in 2162... Because the Mechanism wasn't infallible, and even this tirelessly engineered god couldn't be in all places at once. The Mandatory Enhancements were supposed to weed out the worst criminal tendencies from developing minds... it was inevitable that someone... would slip through the mesh." (278)

The plot has a feel similar to Chasm City and The Prefect, where a mystery is unraveled step-by-step in order to find the nexus of "what it all means." Jumping from shadows of Kilimanjaro, to the lunar cityscapes, to the underwater expanse of the Panspermian Initiative, to the still inhospitable Martian atmosphere, and beyond... the scope of action on these and other settings is enough to please any space opera fan. Chuck in a few wholesome bits of orbital technology, mind transference technology, and a few spaceships - bam, what more could a hard sci-fi fan long for?

Plot aside, there is a core of characters which is tightly woven, numbering around six. It's easy to keep track of the ongoings, but when you start to toss in some far-flung family lineage, some transient personages, some representatives of human sects, and some semi-sentient corporal golem figures... you may need to keep a list if you're going to take more than three days to read this tome. A tome it may be, but it's not without its peppering of poetic prose:

"It was mid-afternoon and cloudless, the sky preposterously blue and infinite, as if it reached all the way to Andromeda rather than being confined within the indigo cusp he had seen from space." (154-155)

Nor it is without its share of humor, if you know your history of Mars in fiction: one character thinks the Martian city of Robinson is named after the novel Robinson Crusoe. The dialogue is less than airy at times, something Reynolds has been guilty of ever since Revelation Space. At times it's dry and recapitalizing. There's more swearing here than in his other novels, which is fine by my. Again, one more fault I found is a similar in fault to Chasm City: the unraveling is too convenient, the timing too auspicious, the clues too quickly understood, the backpedaling too awkward (i.e. the Phoboes Monolith).

It's not as preciously crafty as The Prefect or as expansive as Redemption Ark (my favorite Revelation Space novel), but Reynold's doesn't disappoint with Blue Remembered Earth- an optimistic tale of humanity's collective potential on the earth we live and on the orbiting bodies we will settle, develop, and prosper upon.

I've been reading this one slowly over time since I bought a copy which I had the author sign at Imagicon in he Netherlands a few years back. Family drama, deep mystery to solve that sets the protagonist in a wild goose chase and a newly envisioned Africa. Elephants! Wow that ending was a nice surprise.

Not nearly as dark as his Revelation Space books. I enjoyed his take on Africa's rise to being more politically prominent on both the Earth and the solar system. Will definitely read the next book in the series.

Where this book ends, others written by Reynolds usually start. This might have been a nice short story, a prequel to an existing storyline, however, it is a full-length novel and it drags. Reynolds stated that with this book, or series, he wanted to depart from his usual epic dark and sometimes violent space opera style (in which he succeeded) and rather paint an optimistic version of the future in Arthur C. Clarke's style (where he failed). There is no drama in the book, you read it hoping that there will be some plot twist waiting for you on just the next page but no.

The main characters (who I don't even know how they look - I don't think their appearance is described anywhere in the book) decided to turn their back on their wealthy and important family to follow some improbable and haphazardly placed clues all over the solar system. The point is, there is no point. Their motivation being they don't spite the family enough and they want some excitement in their lives. After several close shaves, lucky escapes, other improbable occurences and unnecessary plot elements (unnecessary at least to the plot of this book) and 450 pages of family squabbles the main characters finally arrive at their destination (which the first clue could have easily pointed to, no need to have flown around the solar system) and the reason for their journey is revealed.

It is an OK book. As a Reynolds fan I expected the usual awesome 5-star book and was sorely disappointed. For others it might be fine, I feel let down, especially as I know Reynolds can write so much better.

Blue Remembered Earth (2012) is the first SF novel in the Poseidon's Children series. It is set in Africa, on the Moon, and elsewhere a century and half from now. Humanity is spreading out from Earth, but their machines are much wider spread. Various commercial interests are more satisfied with machines than human presence, but other factions insist that real humans should be leading the diaspora.

In this novel, Geoffrey Akinya is a thirty-two year old biologist. He is studying the minds and behaviors of elephants.

Sunshine Akinya is an artist. She is also Geoffrey's sister and two years older than him. She lives on the Moon with Jiendra.

Eunice Akinya is the grandmother of Geoffrey and Sunshine. She has been a pioneer in space for decades before she retired to the Winter Palace, a satellite in orbit around the Moon.

Hector and Lucas Akinya are cousins of Geoffrey and Sunshine. They are closely involved in the family business.

Memphis Chibesa is the Akinya estate caretaker in what had been Kenya. He has been managing Akinya affairs for decades.

Jiendra Gupta is a designer of intelligent machines. He has contracts from Plexus.

June Wing is the CEO of Plexus, a manufacturer of intelligent machines.

Chama Akbulat is a biologist who collects and genetically modifies flora and fauna. He is the significant other of Gleb.

Gleb Ozerov is slightly older than Chama. He and Chama are Panspermians.

In this story, Geoffrey and Sunshine were children playing in the back of their house. They found a war machine buried near the river bank. It tried to capture Sunshine's mind, but Memphis rescued the kids.

In 2161, Geoffrey is returning from his observations of an elephant clan when Memphis contacts him. He notifies Geoffrey of the death of his grandmother. She was a hundred and thirty-one years old, but still had been mentally vigorous.

Memphis went to the Winter Palace to bring back Eunice's ashes. Many relatives and friends attended the ceremony of scattering her ashes. Sunday came in the body of a new form of proxy. Geoffrey notices a proxy shaped like a young girl whom he doesn't know.

A few days after the ceremony, Hector and Lucas contact Geoffrey about a safe deposit box on the Moon. It had shown up as an asset of Eunice's estate. They suspect that it contains data that would blacken the family name. So the cousins want Geoffrey to check on the contents of the box.

They offer additional funding for Geoffrey's elephant studies. That offer and the chance to visit his sister convinces Geoffrey to accept the task. He says his farewells to the elephants and goes up the beanstalk to a ship going to the Moon.

On Luna, Geoffrey checks the safe deposit box and only finds a glove from a Moon suit. He takes it with him and goes to visit Sunday. She is living in the Descrutinized Zone, where public surveillance is forbidden. Unlike the Earth and other place, privacy is possible within the Zone.

Sunshine and Jiendra meet him at the train station. They take him home to a stack to shipping containers made into apartments. Geoffrey tells Sunshine what he had been doing on the Moon.

Sunshine shows Geoffrey a construct she has made of Eunice. The virtual being looks like Eunice and contains all data available on her grandmother. She knows that there is more information that is not included in the construct, but still uses the virtual being as a consultant on her grandmother's life and wanderings.

They remove the contents of the glove -- colored plastic gems -- and brainstorm on the reason that Eunice had left it in the box. They decide that the glove is a clue to another location. The number of gems reminds Jiendra of something. A few hours later, Jiendra recalls the memory.

The glove points to the Pythagoras Crater, a place that Eunice had visited long ago. There are signs of a later visit, including a scuffed spot where she might have buried something. Unfortunately, the coordinates are within the Chinese region and they don't like trespassers.

Jiendra takes Geoffry to the Robot Wars, an area where obsolete robots are used to try new algorithms and fight each other. There Geoffry meets June and learns that Plexus sponsors Jiendra's team. Geoffrey gets to take a drug that slows down his metabolism and perception so he can observe a robotic match.

Then Sunshine introduces Geoffrey to Chama and Gleb. He gets to see the menagerie, a number of minihabitats containing plants and animals. One even has a trio of dwarf elephants.

Chama decides to penetrate the Ghost Wall and takes a suborbital to Pythagoras. Sunshine, Jiendra, Geoffrey and Gleb ching to Chama's shuttle and try to talk him into coming back. The Chinese warns him several time to turn back, but Chama continues on.

This tale involves Geoffrey with the Panspermian Initiative. They make him an offer to fund the elephant studies in exchange for allowing the dwarf elephants to ching into his herd and socialize. Geoffrey refuses the offer for ethical reasons.

Meanwhile, Sunshine and Jiendra take a fast ship to Mars. Five weeks later, they are on Phobos. Sunshine finds another clue in a long deserted habitat on that moon.

Sunshine and Geoffrey get into more trouble. The next installment in this sequence is On the Steel Breeze.

Highly recommended for Reynolds fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of interplanetary adventures, mysterious quests, and a bit of romance. Read and enjoy!

-Arthur W. Jordin

This book was just too loose, meandering, and long--it needed to be edited down to perhaps a hundred pages less. Moreover, to me, it was more a bunch of not very well-connected vignettes rather than a solid whole, and very often just an Ooh and Ahh travelogue of the wonders of the 23rd century (in imitation, perhaps, of the novel "Gulliver's Travels," that played such an important part in this novel).

In addition, I found the state of the world described in this book to be just one long leftist wish fulfillment--Global Warming real and having apparently reduced the "evil" old West to impotence and irrelevance, Africa surviving the disastrous effects of Global Warming, getting its recompense for all the "evil" that the West had done to it by becoming the world's leading economic and technological power, humans becoming "more" through technological add-ons, modifications, and improvements, genetic manipulation to produce a new race of aquatic "merpeople," war, crime, and violence largely eliminated thanks to a virtually all encompassing surveillance state, universal screening for "violent" traits, brain implants, and an ever watchful machine intelligence in control--i.e. a leftist, totalitarian Utopia dominated by the MACHINE, which wouldn't mind and could incapacitate, jail, or even kill humans to "stop" violence.

*SPOILER ALERT*

I also found the great mystery that all the clues were leading to was just too far-fetched--the shattered pieces of a plaque only the hero's wily, dynamic, secretive, iconoclastic, world-class explorer and businesswoman grandmother was smart enough to recognize as significant, that was likely scribbled on, untold millions of years ago, by some bored alien, for some reason whiling away time on Mar's moon Phobos, whose scribblings described an extremely powerful and entirely new Physics, light years more advanced than that of the 23rd century (isn't that the kind of game-changing, Rosetta stone level graffiti that we all write on public buildings and monuments and on tourist attractions?), and the key to an entirely new, higher order of energy and, therefore, a higher order civilization, and to extra-solar space flight or, if handled badly, to the destruction of the human race and our solar system.

There are some very interesting extrapolations of existing technologies, an optimistic bypassing of the difficulties of climate change, an extension of the surveillance culture of the UK into an almost utopia.... So, some interesting stuff. Then there is the laying out of what might be a good premise for further novels set in this universe. As with all of Reynolds' work, the characters are unconvincing and the action sequences are best quickly scanned through. Go ahead. Read it.

After struggling through PUSHING ICE (I'm reading my way through Reynolds in no particular order) this is a breath of fresh air. The techno-jargon is still layed on pretty thickly, but Reynolds creates some truly compelling characters and has an interesting take on the near future. And the Evolvarium scenes are pretty fascinating. (The average the store rating for this is about 3.5 stars but I have to disagree).

In the latter half of the twenty-second century, Africa is the world's superpower. For the most part, after barely surviving the Anthropocene climatic change disaster, national hostilities, violent crime and poverty no longer exist as a death from disease or a murder in an outpost in Europe or Australia become featured on the Nairobi news.

In this pristine realm, Geoffrey Akinya relishes his field studies of the elephants of the Amboseli basin. However, his pleasure is disrupted, but not by the death of his space exploring grandma Eunice who was the matriarchal cornerstone of the powerful Akinya business empire. Instead, soon after Eunice's ashes are scattered on Mt. Kilimanjaro, he is blackmailed into looking at a potentially embarrassing incident on the moon where like elsewhere in the solar system colonization is growing by those who prefer not to reside inside of Earth's Surveyed Zones. He and his sister Sunday's mission are to insure no scandal erupts, but what they learn about a secret of their grandma shakes their core while this twin cousins Hector and Lucas take a different approach.

This is an exciting futuristic science fiction tale in which the world building is phenomenal though only surfaces when an aberration occurs like a Caucasian or not speaking Swahili although a key element the Mechanism monitoring humans seems to Big Brother intrusive (and too selective). Sunday is the more aggressive of the siblings as they investigate a moon incident that damns their family if surfaced and may destroy their world.

Harriet Klausner

I couldn't finish it. It felt a little experimental, but in a very slow way. I really like Alastair Reynolds and I sort of like what he was trying to do here, but it was just really slow. The imagery was pretty bland for Reynolds and I think this book really needed it to be off the charts. It felt like he was trying to do a minimalist story telling thing, but it just comes across like a sketch.

An interesting science-fiction novel which could be a very plausible future given the current present. There are many ideas which are quite original and give the setup of the novel a very realistic flavor. Sometimes the developments are a bit slow but it is overall a quite enjoyable book to read. As a researcher in the field of physics and computer science I found the imagined technology and science credible and fun to read.

I almost put this down, and Ive read everything AR has put out, barring a very few. Its what others have written in the reviews, its a treasure hunt novel, really tedious to read. I know AR likes to have all the goodies at the end. the twist...I knew the wait was supposed to be there, but the Read / Ride to get there didn't pay off, nor did the end...I felt like I wasted my time :-(

I've read every Alistair Reynolds book and I have to say that it is increasingly becoming a love/hate relationship. He can smear words over 10 pages when it should only take a single page to to convey a story point. This 562 page paperback novel doesn't merit more than about 150 pages, and placing it in Africa with elephants adds nothing to the story. In fact the Africa part just makes it ridiculous. In his postscript Reynolds states that he has never been to Africa and has no reason to think they couldn't be the technological and economic leader of the world in 150 years. Really? What about 12,000 years of actual history showing the exact opposite?

Reynolds also defends the science and physics used in the story although he does state that the quark-quark science is complete fantasy. He should have added the several references of "climate change" to the fantasy level as well, although scientific fraud would work just as well. Reynolds inability to recognize scientific fraud makes me devalue any opinions he may have on actual science.

Reynolds does fill his novels with actually interesting ideas outside of the completely stupid (AGW), and that does help keep ,me reading even when I feel like putting the novel down. And even though I stuck it out and read the entire book, I can't recommend it to others. As other reviewers have said, it is nothing more than a treasure hunt with few answers. In fact all through the book Geoffrey is involved with his elephant research and at the end he sets it aside to move on in other work, but we are never told what that work is. And then there are the parts that are simply non-sensical such as the illegal Eunice golem robot on the iceteroid who says she has to delete herself. Why? She is nothing but a running program. The program does not have to be deleted, just ended until it is started again on another machine. It is only the illegal golem robot that needs to be destroyed. These types of idiocies are all through the book as well as extremely odd uses of language such as referring to a spaceship as "ravishingly beautiful". Seriously? An inanimate object is "ravishing"? Reynolds needs to use his dictionary a bit more often. He seems to like the word "awesome" a lot as well and when he uses it I think I am reading valley-girl-speak. The editing is as typically poor as anywhere in the literature world today. Publishers really need to stop outsourcing their editing to India because the result really sucks.

'Blue Remembered Earth' shows the reader a realistic and imaginative story about:

Space Exploration, Underwater Cities. Interstellar Travel with Slower than Light Ships, Space Elevators, Brain Augmentations that prevent Violence. A Crimefree World. Smart Clothing and Furniture, Telepresence via Robots, a Solarwide Sophisticated Internet Network, Machine Evolution, Robotic Asteroid Mines, Self Repairing Coral Reefs, a Solar-wide-telescope, a Mandala Artifact on a Distant Planet, Darwinian Robot Battlegrounds on Mars, and even a Genetically Engineered Human Whale.

All this in a Near Utopia setting where Africa dominates the economy, where climate change has pushed us into space and the world is finally at peace. Utopia's can be rather dull sometimes, but sometimes a book doesn't need to be full of violence and excitement, but instead offer us 576 pages of fresh and exciting ideas of human potential. It is a lively roller coaster ride through the solar system that will lead the readers mind to the stars.

I have read every published short story and novel by this author. This novel is his worst. The ideas are small, the setting and characters are dull, and the story is boring. What happened to larger than life characters like Nevil Clavain or Ilia Volyova? Where are the fascinating settings such as The Obelisk or Chasm City? Why Africa?

I read the whole novel but I can't describe any of the characters. They are entirely forgettable!

Can't really recommend it. The plot revolves around an interesting mystery, but the main character is this rich, aloof dope obsessed with elephants, and he doesn't grow of develop at all during the story.

A fantastically imagined future for humans. Earth, the Moon, and Mars are the present, but an earth shattering discovery means the Solar System may soon be in the rear view mirror. A great ride, if a little slow at times, but when it gets going riveting.

This book describes great adventurers in the early days of space exploration, and their thrilling exploits -- How The West Was Won, or rather how the Solar System was won.

Actually, it only hints at them. It's set 60 years after those great adventurers have packed up shop. The book leaves us to follow their grandchildren -- boring unadventurous folk, who lash out all too readily with pointless insults, who don't care for adventure or anything outside their small lives, and who get buffeted by fate like petals on a river. And almost nothing happened for the first 2/3rds of the book apart from long introspections and relationship dramas. I couldn't empathize with the characters, and don't know why anyone would write an entire book about them.

I gave this book 3/5 stars. That's because the quality of writing is very good, and the sci-fi imagination of the author is top notch. He describes a near future with near-future computer and space technologies that are plausible yet astonishing, and he describes an exciting vision of space travel as we can imagine humanity doing it with limited resources.

I have to agree with some previous reviewers. About the worst book he's put out. Like trying to pour cold molasses. Endlessly returning to insults and attitude between siblings...we get it..ok?

Just an exercise in frustration waiting for the point to arrive. I re-read a lot of my books, this won't be one of them.

As the title says, why would the Kindle edition be priced higher that the Mass Market edition? The electronic has to be cheaper or at least at par.

The book itself is fine - typical Alistair Reynolds, starts off slow and the last few chapters run at a breakneck pace.