#karen lord

[bookfirstlinetourney]

Round 1

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

-All Systems Red, Martha Wells

I don't know about you, but it's not every day I get to hang out at the Facebook headquarters while a British man in a Wookiee costume rides a bicycle next to me as I try to remember what it feels like to balance each pedal. Yet, that's exactly where I found myself.

-Laught It Up!, Candace Payne

A rival of mine once complained that my stories begin awkwardly and end untidily.

-Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord

[gollancz]

Locus magazine have released their 2023 recommended reading list, and there are so many wonderful Gollancz titles there!

Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon, Wole Talabi

The Sinister Booksellers of Bath, Garth Nix

The Blue, Beautiful World, Karen Lord

Hopeland, Ian McDonald

Airside, Christopher Priest

A Fire Born of Exile, Aliette de Bodard

Creation Node, Stephen Baxter

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

[drkarenlord]

‘Dr. Karen Lord is one of our greatest, and in her latest novel, The Blue Beautiful World,she shows us exactly why that is. Dr. Lord is looking at the big picture here. This is not simply a cli-fi book, it is not simply a first contact story, nor is it just a space opera. It is all of these things, it is so much more than these things. We follow Owen, a mega popstar with an uncanny ability to draw a crowd and make people fall in love with him—he is described as being the “hometown hero” of every city, because he sings in every language and appears to be everywhere at once. What exactly happens during his shows is anyone’s guess, but he seems to have the world in his hands, as if by some ultra-human force. Owen and his team find themselves at the center of intergalactic attention, and Owen’s abilities might be the key to helping humanity. The Blue, Beautiful World is tied to others in Dr. Lord’s Cygnus Beta but stands alone brilliantly, with fully fleshed-out characters that you’ll become more and more invested in as the story unravels—the story zooms out to galaxy level and deals heavily with A.I. and cutting-edge technology, but its cornerstone is the relationships between characters and their individual growth throughout. In the way that all great speculative fiction is, it is a story about what makes us human, and how the connections we form with each other are vital to our survival, and it’s told in the most exquisite prose.’

Lovely preview from Christina Orlando for The Blue, Beautiful World!

[freckles-and-books]

Next up: I’m excited to read more Karen Lord. I loved Redemption in Indigo when I read it earlier this year.

[lilianeruyters]

Karen Lord || The Blue, Beautiful World

Longlist 2024 Spoiler Alert Did I ever mention in a previous blog I am not into SciFi? I think I might have. Unfortunately The Blue, Beautiful World once more proved I am definitely not into SciFi. The further the novel progressed, the more I suffered. I must admit I might have liked The Blue, Beautiful World better if it had been made into a series or a movie. I always enjoyed Star Trek and…

[sebastianravkin]

Reading recommendation for 2024

This is another book from my reading of the world list but also happens to be one of my favorite Trickster stories. Includes a great magic item called The Chaos Stick. I have had to buy this book multiple times because I keep giving it to folks to read. 

The summary of the book on the jacket doesn't do it justice, but when I try to summarize it myself I find that it is difficult to do without giving the story away. So just go read it if you have a love of tricksters.

"Fantasy as a genre does not have boundaries. It has roots. You may call it fantasy. I call it life.” - Karen Lord

Redemption in Indigo by Karen Lord (Barbados)

[rhetoricandlogic]

THE BLUE, BEAUTIFUL WORLD by Karen Lord

RELEASE DATE: Aug. 29, 2023

A tale of hidden aliens and first contact on an Earth in crisis.

In the near future, Owen (famous enough for one name only) is the biggest pop star in the world. Owen’s overwhelming appeal is something more than just charisma, though, as it’s slowly revealed that he and members of his entourage are visitors from another planet, watching as Earth struggles with climate change and population collapse. Virtual reality is everywhere, both as entertainment and as thin fabric masks people use to disguise their identities (alien and human alike). More than a decade later, Kanoa Havili is a student representing the Federated States of Polynesia in Havana at a World Council Global Government Project, akin to a Model U.N. With his fellow students from around the planet, they’re given a challenge to solve—what if an extraterrestrial civilization came to Earth?—but in the midst of working this out, it’s revealed that everything they’ve been studying is real. Now Kanoa and friends have to navigate a first-contact situation with a powerful ally on their side: Owen. Unfortunately, other than a thin character list buried at the back, readers are given no indication that this book takes place in the larger universe of Lord’s Cygnus Beta series, and as a result, the book reads like overly long fan fiction of a show you’ve never heard of. This wouldn’t be an issue if it were better written, with some deft recapping woven into the narrative, but instead, readers have to try to piece together who’s an alien, who’s not, and who all these other civilizations are. Meanwhile, the book is glutted with secondary characters, adding little to the story besides confusion, and offers some cringey adolescent sentences like “His look varied from the delicate, waiflike freshness of a teen idol to the grizzled, whipcord-and-washboard toughness of a decades-seasoned rock star…” or “The salt breeze in intermittent puffs like shy kisses, telling a lie of warmth that the sea would soon dispel.”

An intergalactic fumble.

[ninsiana0]

Read THE BLUE, BEAUTIFUL WORLD by Karen Lord if you love virtual reality, student government, first contact, oceans, the intimately familiar, the shockingly unfamiliar, superstars, invasions, adapting, and monsters.

(I received an advance copy of this book for review).

[nzbookwyrm]

[gollancz]

The novel is described as “an optimistic, thoughtful SF in the vein of Ursula K Le Guin in which the world has changed, and humankind has changed with it. After the great floods, human civilization has adapted with domed retreats, artificial islands, and virtual reality environments that replicate a lost world.” Its synopsis goes on: “But now the world is about to change again. Earth has been observed from afar by other civilizations, and they are ready to make contact. And preparing for this world-shaking event are people who have already devoted their lives to creating new visions of the future. And then there’s Owen, a charismatic mega popstar, who has a secret behind his ability to connect with his adoring fans. Owen’s talent may be the key to uniting humanity as it looks towards the stars... and to its own hidden secrets."

We are so delighted to be welcoming the incomparable Dr Karen Lord to the Gollancz list! THE BLUE BEAUTIFUL WORLD is such a gorgeous sci-fi of humanity and first contact, and you're going to love it.

[drkarenlord]

Today is a busy news day! Not only do we have the cover reveal for The Blue, Beautiful World (design by Regina Flath Insta and Twitter: @reginaflath), we also have the news of two first Cygnus Beta books being reprinted this summer, and the Redemption books next year.

[that--funny--feeling]

Gunn said the first movie was about the mother, the second about the father and the third about the self. And if I think about it, all characters finally come to terms to who they really are or want to be:

[SPOILERS]

• Mantis goes her own way, after following what Ego wanted and then what the Guardians wanted for all these years;

• Drax, that called himself the 'destroyer', finds his place as a 'father', even after his daughter's death;

• Groot: now that he is an adult again, it's pretty clear to us that he's phisically and mentally different from the GOTG1!Groot. He respects and supports everyone's choices in his family and makes us part of it too at the end (→ now we understand him too);

• Nebula, now free from Thanos, is now a leader and helps kids in need like she was as a child, following what she and Gamora talked about at the end of vol 2;

• Gamora learns why her 2018!self found a family between the Guardians, but feels she's different and chooses another path in the end;

• Rocket "ain't no one like me but me" accepts he's not alone in the world anymore and deserves to keep on living. Also, he calls himself "racoon" for the first time without it being a offense for him;

• Peter, always away from his planet, faces his fears and comes back to the Earth, where he lost his mother, and meets his granddad.

I don't like all the choices Gunn made in this movie (about Gamora's arc for example), but GOTG3 made me cry and laught and cry again and I'm happy we finally got to see the ending of this beautiful trilogy.

[heatherlucky29]