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bluestarfish's review against another edition
4.0
Bold as Love is a near-future fantasy that was written in 2001 but due to Brexit reading about the Dissolution of the British countries felt a bit more nearer-future now. This is a wild, odd book, and I don't find these very often so I really enjoyed reading this (even when it got a bit gory). In a bid to hold England together rock stars have been recruited to prop up the government, but things go awry and soon rock stars are seemingly the only thing holding the country together while facing a civil war in the North of England, a big influx of refugees from Europe, green extremism, and climate change induced muddy festivals. There are techno-hippies, strains of Arthurian structures, survival, the immediacy of the rock music now, lots of drugs, plenty of chaos and swirling power... It's an odd book to try and get your head round in one go. i love the fact that there's an interesting looking bibliography at the back - and an even longer discography!
twincam59's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
What could possibly go wrong if rock stars were to govern England?
chalkletters's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
Following Spear and Legendborn, Bold as Love finishes book club's mini-season of Arthuriana. Though it won the Arthur C Clarke Award, Kate billed it as sci-fi but with enough ambiguity to count. Maybe it's because I don't read a lot of science fiction, but I couldn't wrap my head around the shape of the story. Things happened, characters wanted things, but I never had a sense of where the plot was heading or what would need to happen for Bold as Love to end.
Though Gwyneth Jones’s central characters do map to the King Arthur legend, Bold as Love isn't particularly obvious about being influenced by the legends. Until 60 per cent of the way through the book, it’s entirely possible to miss or forget about the connection to Camelot. That said, the setting does feel disconnected enough from reality to be vaguely mythic, giving Bold as Love a sort of meandering dreamlike feel. Gwyneth Jones manages to tackle some deeply troubling topics without losing that, without feeling like she's visiting trauma on the reader in the way that some books do.
Fiorinda, Sage and Ax dominate the bulk of Bold as Love’s chapters. Fiorinda feels real immediately, in part because the book opens with her childhood and backstory. Ax and Sage are harder to get a handle on at first, but become increasingly solid as the story builds. While the cast of characters around them aren't terribly detailed, it’s not difficult to distinguish one from another, or to remember roughly which interest group each is attached to.
That said, it’s hard to gauge how much impact the characters have on moving the plot forward without being able to pin down exactly what the plot is. There's little sense that any of the characters have an end goal beyond coping with the new world Gwyneth Jones has constructed around them. There are enjoyable moments of drama and tension, but actions and consequences remain nebulous throughout.
Despite that, neither the reading experience nor the ending is unsatisfying. If you’re content to let yourself be taken along for the ride without a map, it’s an interesting journey.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest
Moderate: Violence, Death, Drug use, Child abuse, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Adult/minor relationship, Excrement, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
Minor: Domestic abuse, Animal death, Addiction, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, and Death of parent
bracky's review against another edition
dark
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
jennykeery's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
kbrsuperstar's review against another edition
3.0
I have just closed this book and I genuinely don't know if I liked it or not. I enjoyed the characters and I actually grew to like the dystopian near-future setting, but it was just so... rambling and plotless. A bunch of incidents occur (that are quickly dealt with) and the narrative shuffles on but nothing really happens in 250+ pages.
nwhyte's review
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3639413.html
I read the first part of this when it first came out in Interzone, way back in the day, and thought I had read the rest since, but this was mostly new to me. I generally enjoyed it, which is a relief because I bounced off a couple of other books by Gwyneth Jones that I tried in the meantime. I also suspect that I would not have enjoyed it as much when it first came out; the disintegration of the United Kingdom's structure of government doesn't seem either as improbable or as unwelcome as it did in 2001. The setting is a near-future England where Scotland and Wales have become independent and Ireland has reunited, and the counterculture takes over the government so that senior political figures are also playing in their own bands, and if anything a bit better known for the latter than the former. Our heroine, Fiorinda, undergoes a gruesome sexual initiation in the first section of the book and one of the plot strands is her personal quest to come to terms with it; other strands involve the machinations of various factions, some more believable than others. It's a really impressive vision of what a future England could look like, even if it's now twenty years old; slightly dystopian but also with a tinge of optimism.
I read the first part of this when it first came out in Interzone, way back in the day, and thought I had read the rest since, but this was mostly new to me. I generally enjoyed it, which is a relief because I bounced off a couple of other books by Gwyneth Jones that I tried in the meantime. I also suspect that I would not have enjoyed it as much when it first came out; the disintegration of the United Kingdom's structure of government doesn't seem either as improbable or as unwelcome as it did in 2001. The setting is a near-future England where Scotland and Wales have become independent and Ireland has reunited, and the counterculture takes over the government so that senior political figures are also playing in their own bands, and if anything a bit better known for the latter than the former. Our heroine, Fiorinda, undergoes a gruesome sexual initiation in the first section of the book and one of the plot strands is her personal quest to come to terms with it; other strands involve the machinations of various factions, some more believable than others. It's a really impressive vision of what a future England could look like, even if it's now twenty years old; slightly dystopian but also with a tinge of optimism.
kit_kate's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Drug use
Moderate: Rape
sfian's review against another edition
1.0
I bought this during a period when I was picking up books based on end-of-year recommendation lists from various sources, in this case the BSFA. A combination of two things I love (music and science fiction) and a winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award - how could it possibly not be worth reading.
In fact, this is a clear example of why I should probably a) stick with what I know I like and b) not rely on awards and recommendations. It just didn't engage me at all. The SF is minimal - apart from one incident with a global computer virus, it's basically SF because it is set in the near future - the music is mostly in the background and I found the politics of the story hard to follow. The characters may be musicians, but I didn't like any of them and, apart from the fact that one of the main three is female, found them difficult to distinguish between.
I won't be buying any more in the series and this one will shortly be finding its way to the charity shop.
In fact, this is a clear example of why I should probably a) stick with what I know I like and b) not rely on awards and recommendations. It just didn't engage me at all. The SF is minimal - apart from one incident with a global computer virus, it's basically SF because it is set in the near future - the music is mostly in the background and I found the politics of the story hard to follow. The characters may be musicians, but I didn't like any of them and, apart from the fact that one of the main three is female, found them difficult to distinguish between.
I won't be buying any more in the series and this one will shortly be finding its way to the charity shop.
celiaedf12's review
2.0
This was very odd. A futuristic dystopian fantasy with rock stars, it was too strange for me to really enjoy it, unfortunately.
As the political structures of England fall apart, violent coups occur and alternative regimes rise up, with our Arthurian-inspired trio, Fiorinda, Ax and Sage rising to lead the people. And give concerts and inspire the people along the way.
It's not dreadful, certainly, and I quite like Jones' writing style and her quirky characters - but this plot was too vast and weird to draw me in.
As the political structures of England fall apart, violent coups occur and alternative regimes rise up, with our Arthurian-inspired trio, Fiorinda, Ax and Sage rising to lead the people. And give concerts and inspire the people along the way.
It's not dreadful, certainly, and I quite like Jones' writing style and her quirky characters - but this plot was too vast and weird to draw me in.
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