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Blue Remembered Earth

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Blue Remembered Earth

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
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Summary

 One hundred and fifty years from now, in a world where Africa is the dominant technological and economic power, and where crime, war, disease and poverty have been banished to history, Geoffrey Akinya wants only one thing: to be left in peace, so that he can continue his studies into the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But Geoffrey's family, the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans. After the death of Eunice, Geoffrey's grandmother, erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur, something awkward has come to light on the Moon, and Geoffrey is tasked - well, blackmailed, really - to go up there and make sure the family's name stays suitably unblemished. But little does Geoffrey realise - or anyone else in the family, for that matter - what he's about to unravel.

Eunice's ashes have already have been scattered in sight of Kilimanjaro. But the secrets she died with are about to come back out into the open, and they could change everything.

Or shatter this near-utopia into shards . . .

Read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith

(p) 2012 Orion Publishing Group©2012 Alastair Reynolds Adventure Science Fiction Space Opera Fiction Africa
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This was the first Alastair Reynolds I've listened to (or read) and I was pleasantly surprised! Too often science fiction books are filled with endless paragraphs of exposition explaining how this or that works or can be scientifically explained; some people obviously like that kind of thing, but I prefer more nuance in writing style, prefer an author who can explain the science through the story and Reynolds has done just that in this book.

As for the narration, I thought it was brilliant. Perhaps those who have had problems with this narrator had issues because they were so used to the narrator (who has a very particular style) who has done so much of Reynolds other work? Anyway, I thought this narrator was fantastic. Could've done without the music between parts, but luckily that didn't come up often.

I'm off to buy the sequel.

Well written sci-fi

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Wonderful, and fully justified the new narrator, I have listened to 7 other of his books and am familiar with how they sound, but 'Tanzanian accent', 'Senegalese', etc could he have coped?
A new beginning, I will have to wait, but I do so in confident expectation, thank you Alastair.
P.S. Don't some people whinge? oops, guilty of it myself, mea culpa !

A small step.....

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This was my first experience of Alastair Reynolds. I found the story very intriguing, the vision of the future was well thought out and, as much as possible with Sci-fi, quite believable. I was thoroughly entertained.



Like a lot of people I can't understand the criticism of the narrator, I thought Kobna Holdbrook-Smith did a superb job - fresh and engaging throughout a very long audiobook.

Loved this audiobook

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This review is more about the narration than the book, I just want to take issue with the negative reviews of Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. I find his narration style excellent and very suitable for this work, initially i had a little problem identifying voices of the main character and his sister as children (they sounded too alike) but after the first chapter the narrator seemed to 'find his voice' and things improved dramatically. Give this book a chance and dont be put off by the negative reviews.

Excellent Narration

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I'm a big fan of Alastair Reynolds's novels (but particularly the Revelation Space series) so the concept of a medium-future space opera is an enticing one. Most SF tends to be 5 minutes from now or way way in the future so this is atypical, set in a time of colonization of the inner planets, with more sporadic industrial colonization of the outer planets and their moons. Due to environmental collapse due to global warming, Africa as emerged as a major power, and the main characters are black sheep members of the very rich and successful Akinya family making lots of money out of space tech. Doing a favour for his yuppie-ish cousins, Elephant behavioural scientist Geoffrey Akinya is sent on a treasure hunt around the solar system after artefacts left by the fearsome and recently deceased family matriarch Eunice, whose adventures around the solar system started the whole thing off.

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith does another fantastic narration job here. He can do an old Chinese lady talking to a young African boy and put you in the conversation, without it seeming like an episode of Allo Allo.

Superior space opera

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