Novel of the future says much about the present

An intelligent, energetic mystery that balances a deceptively straightforward style with a complex and thought-provoking vision of the future, Alastair Reynolds’s Blue Remembered Earth might be the first great novel of the year. That it is science fiction is incidental — brimming with the optimism and gee-whiz wonder all too often absent from modern writing, this is a terrific book.

Set in the mid-22nd century, the novel follows Geoffrey Akinya, scion of Africa’s most powerful family and a biologist studying elephant cognition in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. Geoffrey wants to be left alone, but his scheming, purse-string-holding cousins have different ideas. There are loose ends after the death of his grandmother, matriarch of “a business empire as wide as the Solar System”, so the reluctant Geoffrey is tasked with investigating.