This is the most recent Alastair Reynolds novel published only last month, so i’m now up to date with his novels, though I’ve still go one of his short story collections which I own but haven’t read. I’m on to other novels for now, though.
As with most of my other Reynolds books I’ve got the Gollancz hardcover of this one. Other than Terminal World which I have in the Ace hardcover all the others of his I’ve got at the Gollancz paperback, trade paperback or hardcover editions. I really like the cover art that Gollancz used on the books before this. The semi-holographic metallic printing of the spaceship scenes was wonderfully different and although not usually explicitly drawn from descriptions in the book, they were for me highly evocative of his work, perhaps just by association of a combined style I haven’t seen used on anything else. They’ve changed the whole cover design style for Blue Remembered Earth and while the cover art is a nice piece I was a bit disappointed that it was’t continuing the same style. However, it is also a more standard hardcover size – his other books were all large (the paperbacks wider than normal, the trade paperback and hardcover larger than any other non-art (graphic novels and artwork) books I’ve got and they don’t fit on the shelves in the usual ordering, which is slightly annoying (we’ve limited space in Tokyo and the shelves I’ve built are precisely right for the standard full sized hardback and just too small for the slightly larges ones of his).
anyway, on to the book itself.

This is the first in a trilogy called Poseiden’s Children. I noted before the similarity in ideas between Reynolds’ House of Suns and Stross’ Saturn’s Children. Now they’ve got some similar names between Poseiden’s Children and Saturn’s Children/Poseiden’s Brood (working title for the sequel to SC). Like his Revelation Space books which form a series but are all individually complete stories as well (the back-story develops but the forground story in each is complete), this one is a complete story, just one with the setup for further exploration of the world.

There is a near-future Solar System setting. There is some intersting socio-technological speculation somewhat reminiscent of Brin’s Sundiver and Earth. The scientific speculation is as always, pretty hard SF stuff, speculation and extrapolation based on a solid understanding of the fundamentals of physics, electronics, and AI. The broad social side is a little less specific. Africa is the risen power with China and India the fading empires. The EU rates on brief mention of the Euro exchange rate against the Yuan and the US is pretty much nowhere to be seen. THere is no mention really of how we get there from here, which is to me a little bit of a weakness. The time span of 2011 to 2150 is long enough for such changes perhaps, but the complete lack of US and EU presence doesn’t seem to quite allow time for two waves of superpower rise and fall. There’s also mass acceptance of “mandatory upgrades”, i.e. genetic (retro)engineering against criminal tendencies. There is some exploration of these themes within the story, but they’re somewhat shallow compared to the greater depth other writers have gone into on these themes, including the aforementioned Brin works (and his non-fiction Transparent Society) as well as others such as Stross’ Glasshouse.

The African background is interesting though the lack of any significant discussion of race issues, such as dealt with in Katherine Kerr’s Polar City Blues, does strike me when thinking about the book, though didn’t hamper my reading of it.

The main storyline is typically dense and inerwoven with complex plot manipulations, hidden pasts, hidden presents and moral dilemmas. The near-future setting in this book precludes the overwhelming presence of a Shroud, Spearpoint or similar object. There is one appearing briefly almost off-stage and depending on where he takes the trilogy it may or may not become more of a central theme.

I suspect the subsequent books will leapfrog forward in time considerably, though as is often the case with his work time dilation and life extension technologies may allow some of the familar characters to leapfrog through time and either be central characters or at least appear on-stage. While I think there are some weaker elements, this was an enjoyable read and I certainly aim to read the rest of the sequence when they come out.

Next, a complete change of pace and some contemporary urban fantasy from Simon R. Green.