The Blue, Beautiful World (SF)

The Blue, Beautiful World (SF) - Karen Lord ****

This is a genuinely original science fiction novel with an intriguing underlying concept and multiple twists and turns at its heart. It's a shame that the cover proclaims it a 'story of first contact', because one of the twists is the reveal that this is the case, which isn't obvious to begin with in the book itself, but you can't see the cover without knowing it.

The first part involves a dip into the life of international music star Owen, whose combination of magnetic stage presence and cult-like following reminded me of Valentine Michael Smith in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. We then switch to the recruiting of a series of twenty-somethings to a mysterious global organisation and their distinctly odd training, ranging from assessing threats to the world to playing football. That abrupt switch requires a small suspension of irritation, but everything does come together in a satisfying fashion - and the 'first contact' challenge is quite unlike anything I've ever seen before.

In this respect, the novel really does earn the anonymous Guardian comment on the back 'Lord is on a par with Ursula K. Le Guin' - the originality and richness of the plotting is indeed up there with the greats. If I'm honest, the writing style isn't there yet - it's mostly fine, but a tad amateurish in places, which feel in need of a good polish. In this respect, I'm afraid, there's a way to go before catching up with Le Guin's skill as a writer.

The same applies to characterisation. All the central characters are part of a technocratic, intellectual elite who consider the ordinary people sheep to be manipulated. Theirs is a world where nepotism is actively encouraged. Lord seems to think (perhaps rightly) that major changes in society require not very nice people to make things happen.

More positively, I've always enjoyed books where you read something and think 'Huh? What's going on?' and this happens quite a few times with those aforementioned twists, including one example that for quite some time seems like a mistake on the author's part, but is then explained as the plot develops.

If you like a Star Trek-like tendency to have very humanoid aliens (with the same underlying excuse as to why this is the case) and some physically unlikely alien abilities (notably psi) that were common in earlier SF, but have rather dropped out of fashion, this is a very impressive novel.

Hardback:

Kindle:
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you

Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

Comments

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

The Autobiography – Charles Darwin ****

I have to confess to putting off reading this book until the last moment, as I expected it to be a typical piece of Victorian sentimental unreadable stodge. I was wrong. Darwin’s little book (only 150 small pages with appendices) was originally written for his own children, and displays a very personal style of writing – though, as son Francis comments, his style was always more populist than was common then: “In writing he sometimes showed the same strong tendency to strong expressions that he did in conversation. Thus in the Origin, p440, there is a description of a larvel [sic] cirripede ‘with six pairs of beautifully constructed natatory legs, a pair of magnificent compound eyes and extremely complex antennae’. We used to laugh at him for this sentence, which we compared to an advertisement.” The main book is delightful because it demonstrates Darwin’s self-depreciating modesty, and the fascinating path he took from enthusiastic shooter of game, to amateur geologist (still his...

Govert Schilling - Five Way Interview

Govert Schilling is an acclaimed and prize-winning freelance astronomy writer and broadcaster in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines, but he also has written for New Scientist, Science and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and he is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope. He wrote dozens of books (including a couple of children’s books) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, many of which have been translated into English, German, Italian, and Chinese, among other languages. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10986 Govert after him, and in 2014, he received the David N. Schramm Award for high-energy astrophysics science journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.His latest book is Target Earth . Why science? We live in troubling times. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound, and trust in science is diminishing. Many adults don't seem to realize that almost everythi...

Search This Blog