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Gwyneth Jones
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Bold as Love Hardcover – October 1, 2005

by Gwyneth Jones (Author)
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 30 ratings
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P. K. Dick and Triptree Award-winning author Gwyneth Jones delivers a rock-and-roll fable set in a dystopic near-future England.

Dissolution Summer: the soon to-be former UK was desperate. The world was in the grip of a fearsome economic depression. The anti-globalization movement threatenedstability throughout Europe, supported by rioting youth, bitterly disaffected voters, and encroaching environmental doom.

The Home Secretary decided to recruit a Countercultural Think Tank: pop stars would make the government look too cool to be overthrown. His girlfriend, club promoter and music biz socialite Allie Marlowe, filled his shopping cart for him with such indie notables as Ax Preston, the soft-spoken biracial guitar virtuoso; Aoxomoxoa (aka Sage Pender), techno-wizard king of the lads; and Fiorinda Slater, the baby punk-diva with a horrendous past.

It was just another publicity stunt for the rockers, until the shooting began. Now Slater and her friends must find a way to stay alive and overthrow the dominant social order, while the UK disintegrates under their feet. Will rock-and-roll’s revolutionary promise finally deliver, or will ethnic violence drown hippie idealism in rivers of blood? Either way, the world will never be the same.
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  1. Print length
    280 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Night Shade
  4. Publication date
    October 1, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1597800023
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1597800020
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Rock and roll rules in British author Jones's Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning novel, the first of a four-book series. In the near future, the U.K. is dissolving and the government, to placate the masses, sets up a "Countercultural Think Tank," including some of the biggest names in pop music and headed by the Ozzie Osborne–like Pigsty Liver. After much publicity and a series of government-sponsored music festivals, however, the egomaniacal Pigsty murders the home secretary and takes over the government. Soon various members of his rock-star cabinet find themselves struggling to make order out of chaos and prevent an ethnic bloodbath. Though the story starts out like dark cyberpunk, it gradually modulates into something much stranger as characters find their hidden powers and take on the attributes of Arthurian fantasy. References to Jimi Hendrix and other '60s and '70s rockers abound. Jones's vision is unremittingly dark and her basic premise may strike some as a bit silly, but this novel packs considerable power.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

It is Dissolution Summer, the UK is about to revoke the Act of Union, and there is unrest all over Europe. Countercultural youth flock to music festivals, the largest of which is at Reading. Fiorinda, a young and rising star, goes to perform with DARK and ends up being recruited by the home secretary for a think tank of countercultural heroes--rock stars to make the government look cool. When this turns from a stunt into a violent coup d'etat, thanks to the Pig, who isn't much of a rock star but is a household name, Fio's worries become mostly about staying alive. She and Ax Preston, front man for the Chosen, battle along with Aoxomoxoa and the Heads to maintain some order in the face of societal collapse. Bold as Love is part sixties rock-and-roll idealism--Aoxomoxoa gets his name from a Grateful Dead album (the novel get its from a Hendrix LP)--and part near--future Arthurian legend: an altogether satisfying blend. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Night Shade (October 1, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 280 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1597800023
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1597800020
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.38 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 30 ratings

About the author

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Gwyneth Jones

Gwyneth Jones

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Gwyneth Jones grew up in Manchester UK and lives in Sussex. Among other honours she's won the James Tiptree award, two World Fantasy awards, the Children of the Night award, the Philip K Dick award, the BSFA award, the Pilgrim award for Science Fiction criticism, and the Arthur C Clarke award; for Bold As Love, first episode of a techno-green Utopian "near future fantasy" series. She's a volunteer for Amnesty International, a member of the Soil Association, keeps a blog and lives in Brighton. Hobbies include playing fantasy games and staring out of the window.

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3.9 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Alex
    5.0 out of 5 stars science fiction goes rock and roll in epic tale
    Reviewed in the United States on March 18, 2014
    I really enjoyed reading the trilogy, a thrilling epic which ranges widely through issues of social, technological, cultural and political interest, where a rock and roll band takes over the government and festivals have political influence. Gwyneth Jones imagines a near future which (apart from the use of magic) is chillingly possible, where things fall apart in a big way, Refugees hijack ships and arrive in their thousands, Yorkshire seeks to become independent Muslim state and eventually the old Mercia is invaded by the Chinese. The main protagonists are believable and engaging. But running through the books is an underlying humour, a relish for the absurd and the extreme. Better than Arthur C Clarke, this a good read, especially for science fiction, politics and festival geeks.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • David Nasty
    4.0 out of 5 stars Rocking sci-fi English style.
    Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Book was old school rock sci-fi, a neglected subgenre but a fast read and a satisfying one. Overall worth the time.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Super Reader
    Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2007
    This is another of those 'how the h*ll did she think of this books'?

    On the face of it, you might think it would be either a) ludicrous, or b) inordinately soppy.

    It ain't either. I don't know how Jones did it, but she did. Even escapes nicking Hendrix' titles.

    In a little bit in the future England, things are falling apart. So much so that the musical counterculture again has political clout, and so much so that a rockstar of the violent bent stages a coup.

    That does not end well, and this brings to the fore the classic Arthurian trio of Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot.

    Or, in this case, Ax Preston (got to have a guitar player, right?), Fiorinda Slater, and Sage Pender.

    With a severe energy crisis looming, and a fractured country and war with the muslims coming, and the standard government completely useless these three must try and use their musical and other talents to get everyone through.

    With the decline of most technology, the rise of just that bit of mystical power is coming.
    10 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • sfbuff
    5.0 out of 5 stars Like all of the 'Bold as Love' sequence
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    Like all of the 'Bold as Love' sequence: an impressively well written novel which encompasses and synthesises our underlying current societial issues in the UK should society as we know it fall apart while also acknowledging the implications of globalisation, clmate change and post peak oil transition, cultural power shifts and possible technological developments. All of which might be boring except there are characters you can care about, the return of magic and the attempt to protect the populaton from it, a compelling narrative and a gritty realism you can cut your teeth on. This is a believable world and possibly the best description of how an alternative society in Britain may come about, complete with a clear eyed vison of the down side and what it may involve for the excluded of the new order.
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  • Eileen Shaw
    3.0 out of 5 stars "Jesus, Lenin and Trotsky," he muttered, "Is this England?"
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    This is England, but not as we know it. The Counter-Cultural forces are at work and have de-stabalised the political system to the point where the government have formed a coalition with these rock stars and guitar heroes who have converged in all the usual places (Glastonbury, Reading, etc.) in order to have a good time, smoke a lot of weed and generally engage the suits in mind-enhancing dialogues. In this parallel world what solves people's dissatisfactions appears to be lots of free concerts by big name rock stars. The middle-classes are, presumably, just getting on with things in their own knitted cardigan sort of way, busy eradicating aphids in the garden and running their small businesses, because, after all, the people running the country are their children. So that's all right then.

    This is so nearly wonderful that you read it hoping it can do the magic and make you believe in a world with a rock group called Pigsty and the Organs living in Buckingham Palace. But no, sadly, it doesn't quite come off. There is a lot of talking, a lot of action, not to mention the defeat of the Islamist Republic of Yorkshire, in a North Yorks Moors battle. One wishes to believe that the people of England would, for just a short period of time anyway, get off their backsides and believe in something enough to fight for it. It's hard to believe - even squeezing one's feet into Dorothy's red shoes wouldn't do it.

    There are only three characters of any note in this - Ax Preston, "soft-spoken guitar man", Sage Pender, "techno-wizard king of the lads," and Firoinda, "talented rock and roll princess by birth, searching for her father, the legendary Rufus O'Niall." There is no attempt to characterise the grey suits of the government, and any opposition to the Counter-Culture is null and void as a result. But it very soon turns into a kind of soap opera, with Pigsty convicted of paedophilia and the power of rock music reigning supreme. Fiorinda has a prolonged psychotic episode caused by a bouquet of roses that has been dusted with psychotropic powders; then she gets to choose which of the two available men she wants to be with - and she chooses both. Dream on.
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  • R. Palmer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent near future novel
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    Bold as Love is a sort of SF/Fantasy vision of a near future England.

    It's set in a time where the counter-cultural movement has gained a lot of ground (this is mostly alluded to) whilst the United Kingdom is dissolved. As the title "Bold As Love" implies, this novel is indebted to rock music. The government of the new England decides that it needs to cosy up to the more powerful counter-cultural movement; there seem to be a number of reasons for this. Again, these are quite often, rather than explicitly told alluded to.

    The novel has a large number of themes and ideas in it; it is also a good literary piece of SF.

    It is clearly set in a time where there has been a breakdown (but in absolutely no way complete; people still live their lives in a way that we'd recognise) due to environmental crisis - predominantly energy crisis, I think. Like I say, though, this is never, explicitly, told. This leads to the growing importance of the environmental and counter-cultural movements, which leads to rock stars being invited to government. These make up most of the main characters in the novel.

    There are many things that I liked about Jones' novel. Firstly, it's character driven, and these characters are well drawn. Though there are some people that are worse than others, even the "good" characters are far from perfect, they have problems and make choices that they don't agree with because they are politically the correct thing to do.

    The mainstreaming of the environmental movement in the novel is handled well, too. It's portrayed as being multi-layed with people who are interested in treating the surroundings better, through to some people who hold questionable views on science or unfortunate views on Englishness.

    The referencing of made up rock stars could be lame...but actually, I think it works well. Mostly the dynamics of the rock world are actually handled in a believable way.

    It also covers some difficult issues around physical, mental and sexual abuse in an unflinching way. These bits are pretty grim reading, but worthy enough.

    There are a couple of things that let the novel down. These, though, are actually more to do with when the novel was originally published. The first is the depiction of the web. Some of it really feels like a depiction of what the web was like in 2001, and an extrapolation of that. Sometimes this feels intrusive, but I don't think, in all fairness, that's the author's fault.

    The other is that, though it covers the idea of there being a separatist movement amongst radicalised muslims in the north of England, it does seem to have been written pre-Sep 11th (which it must've been, given it was published in 2001).

    These faults are minor, though. If you're looking for good, character-driven, literary SF which portrays an interesting fantastical view of near-future England, this is a good place to go.
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  • charlie james
    1.0 out of 5 stars Avoid
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 23, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Just, awful. Michael moorcocks worst excesses filtered through a late middle aged melody maker journalist with depression
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