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Song Of Time
A man lies half-drowned on a Cornish beach at dawn in the furthest days of this century. The old woman who discovers him, once a famous concert violinist, is close to death herself... or a new kind of life she can barely contemplate. Does death still exist at all, or has it finally been obliterated? And who is this strange man she's found? Is he a figure returned from her past, a new messiah, or an empty vessel? Is he God, or the Devil?
302 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
24 people are currently reading
1052 people want to read
About the author
Ian R. MacLeod
174 books127 followersIan R. MacLeod is the acclaimed writer of challenging and innovative speculative and fantastic fiction. His most recent novel, Wake Up and Dream, won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, while his previous works have won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and the World Fantasy Award, and have been translated into many languages. His short story, “Snodgrass,” was developed for television in the United Kingdom as part of the Sky Arts series Playhouse Presents. MacLeod grew up in the West Midlands region of England, studied law, and spent time working and dreaming in the civil service before moving on to teaching and house-husbandry. He lives with his wife in the riverside town of Bewdley.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
December 14, 2008
Don't read this book if you're not in the mood for re-evaluating your life. As Roushana Maitland looks back upon her hundred years on planet Earth, the reader can't help but do something very similar. It's a reflective, thoughtful and poetic book, but that doesn't stop it being upsetting and rather depressing!
This didn't really need to be a science fiction novel, though the same could of course said for many works in the genre. The core of it - the very literary biography of a violinist - could just have easily have been a 19th century novel by Stendhal, or a 20th century one by Moorcock. Where Doctor Zhivago is set against the background of the Russian revolution, Song of Time takes us through the equally epochal events of the 21st century.
But though it didn't need to be a science fiction novel, it is a very good one. There are many very interesting science fictional ideas in here, in particular with regard to post-death existence; just don't expect raygun fights. Many traditional science fiction novels are about people taking on a rotten society and changing it; this one is more about the way people get on with life despite the way things change. It's a very different kind of science fiction novel, but it's a welcome departure.
The early sections are reminiscent of Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock in their portrayal of a rather inappopriate love. They set the scene for Roushana's interest in music, and lay out the themes that will dominate the book: love, death, music, empathy. After the great love of her life dies, empathy will be Roushana's weak spot, whereas her mother will go in the opposite direction.
The description of these formative years is careful, detailed and highly emotional, but the author judges his book (or his readers) well. Just as the reader begins to wonder if it will be this maudlin and introspective all the way through (not that that would necessarily have been a bad thing), he unleashes an apocalypse to shake things up. It's a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
Unsurprisingly things get even more depressing for a while after that. The ramifications extend all the way to my own front door, as fighting breaks out in Handsworth and the troops are sent in. Then there is a heartbreaking visit to a devastated India, in particular to the bombed city of Ahmedabad, now home to the untouchables, who have found a strange freedom amidst the radiation.
But things pick up when the scene moves to Paris, in the grip of a new renaissance. There we meet Claude, a brilliant pianist and conductor who brings both the novel and its frosty lead character to life. Roushana moves out of herself and engages with wider worlds of art and politics, bringing dynamism and vigour to the novel just when it threatened to slow down to a miserable crawl. Roushana and the reader are whirled through Paris, to America and then back to England for the conclusion, where melodramatic revelations come perilously close to spoiling the mood.
Song of Time is a very different kind of science fiction novel, and one that won't appeal to everyone. It is ambitious, but it fulfills those ambitions. For example, writing about music is notoriously difficult, but MacLeod does a marvellous job of it here - crucial since his lead is a violinist. He covers the sweep of history impressively, but not intrusively; Roushana isn't shoe-horned into events. Most interesting is the novel's clear-eyed but sensitive attitude to death. What would it mean for us if it was avoidable? Would that be a good thing? Are stories with endings inherently better than those that go on for ever? MacLeod doesn't force the reader into agreeing with his answers, but he makes his character's final decision entirely believable.
This didn't really need to be a science fiction novel, though the same could of course said for many works in the genre. The core of it - the very literary biography of a violinist - could just have easily have been a 19th century novel by Stendhal, or a 20th century one by Moorcock. Where Doctor Zhivago is set against the background of the Russian revolution, Song of Time takes us through the equally epochal events of the 21st century.
But though it didn't need to be a science fiction novel, it is a very good one. There are many very interesting science fictional ideas in here, in particular with regard to post-death existence; just don't expect raygun fights. Many traditional science fiction novels are about people taking on a rotten society and changing it; this one is more about the way people get on with life despite the way things change. It's a very different kind of science fiction novel, but it's a welcome departure.
The early sections are reminiscent of Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock in their portrayal of a rather inappopriate love. They set the scene for Roushana's interest in music, and lay out the themes that will dominate the book: love, death, music, empathy. After the great love of her life dies, empathy will be Roushana's weak spot, whereas her mother will go in the opposite direction.
The description of these formative years is careful, detailed and highly emotional, but the author judges his book (or his readers) well. Just as the reader begins to wonder if it will be this maudlin and introspective all the way through (not that that would necessarily have been a bad thing), he unleashes an apocalypse to shake things up. It's a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.
Unsurprisingly things get even more depressing for a while after that. The ramifications extend all the way to my own front door, as fighting breaks out in Handsworth and the troops are sent in. Then there is a heartbreaking visit to a devastated India, in particular to the bombed city of Ahmedabad, now home to the untouchables, who have found a strange freedom amidst the radiation.
But things pick up when the scene moves to Paris, in the grip of a new renaissance. There we meet Claude, a brilliant pianist and conductor who brings both the novel and its frosty lead character to life. Roushana moves out of herself and engages with wider worlds of art and politics, bringing dynamism and vigour to the novel just when it threatened to slow down to a miserable crawl. Roushana and the reader are whirled through Paris, to America and then back to England for the conclusion, where melodramatic revelations come perilously close to spoiling the mood.
Song of Time is a very different kind of science fiction novel, and one that won't appeal to everyone. It is ambitious, but it fulfills those ambitions. For example, writing about music is notoriously difficult, but MacLeod does a marvellous job of it here - crucial since his lead is a violinist. He covers the sweep of history impressively, but not intrusively; Roushana isn't shoe-horned into events. Most interesting is the novel's clear-eyed but sensitive attitude to death. What would it mean for us if it was avoidable? Would that be a good thing? Are stories with endings inherently better than those that go on for ever? MacLeod doesn't force the reader into agreeing with his answers, but he makes his character's final decision entirely believable.
September 9, 2019
I’m not quite sure what I felt about 'Song of Time'. It was beautifully written, and that meant I kept on reading well past the point where I realized the whole thing was only mildly interesting and quite unspectacular. Although things came together in the end, I never really felt that brought satisfaction.
May 7, 2022
È una fantascienza sussurrata, quella di Ian R. MacLeod. Se fantascienza è la narrativa che immagina l'impatto delle tecnologie future sulla vita umana, in quella di MacLeod la tecnologia si insinua con lentezza e discrezione nel paesaggio intessuto dalla scrittura. Ci sono costanti cenni alle innovazioni, anche radicali, potenzialmente sovversive, come quelle che vanno a mettere in crisi il confine tra la vita e la morte, ma l'autore non ha alcuna fretta, si prende tutta la sua calma nel sollevare via via, di paragrafo in paragrafo, i veli su questo futuro a cui non interessa definire le date (l'avanzato XXI secolo? o forse già il XXII?), in modo che la speculazione scientifica non rubi la scena ai veri protagonisti del romanzo: vite umane fatte di talento artistico e incontri tra culture che cercano di sopravvivere (e sopravviversi, perché c'è anche chi non ce la fa) in un Mondo sempre più instabile, tra nuovi virus usati a fini terroristici, un ritorno rampante del fondamentalismo religioso, rivolte urbane, una guerra nucleare (per quanto limitata) infine divenuta realtà, un disastro naturale che per fortuna ci risparmia eventuali tirate ecologistico-religiose sulla "Natura che si ribella" optando piuttosto per una riflessione sulla fragilità delle umane cose. È solo alla fine che il cerchio si chiude, che quei fili che hanno corso sparsi e paralleli per pagine e pagine sorprendentemente si riannodano e allora assume un senso aver accompagnato con così tanta pazienza la vita di una protagonista che si ritroverà a fare una scelta letteralmente tra la vita e la morte in un paesaggio futuro in cui questi concetti sono profondamente mutati, andando comunque a interrogare le domande più profonde e senza tempo su cosa significhi esistere.
Molti (ancora!) ritengono la fantascienza letteratura di serie B, e questo forse era valido per i decennî passati. Il genere sta maturando, è maturato, e sempre più scrittori validi salgono alla ribalta della fantascienza senza temere alcun confronto con la letteratura cosiddetta "normale" (come se poi anche quest'ultima, pur di far numero sugli scaffali, non proponesse tonnellate di materiale indigeribile o semplicemente insipido). Il libro di Ian R. MacLeod è una qualcosa di più che notevole, dimostra un ottimo controllo del mezzo stilistico e narrativo, con una continua invenzione nel modo in cui costruisce le sue scene e gestisce il suo intreccio basato sull'alternarsi tra passato e presente. Il quadro sulla sua tela, ornato sempre di colori vivaci e sorprendenti, emerge per accenni, per pennellate sparse, richiede forse un po' di pazienza ma ripaga abbondantemente, senza mai cadere nella trappola degli spiegoni, deleteria per ogni narrativa d'invenzione. È un autore di cui è ancora arrivato poco in italiano, ma non si può che auspicare che il parco dei suoi titoli nella nostra lingua si allarghi presto e bene.
Molti (ancora!) ritengono la fantascienza letteratura di serie B, e questo forse era valido per i decennî passati. Il genere sta maturando, è maturato, e sempre più scrittori validi salgono alla ribalta della fantascienza senza temere alcun confronto con la letteratura cosiddetta "normale" (come se poi anche quest'ultima, pur di far numero sugli scaffali, non proponesse tonnellate di materiale indigeribile o semplicemente insipido). Il libro di Ian R. MacLeod è una qualcosa di più che notevole, dimostra un ottimo controllo del mezzo stilistico e narrativo, con una continua invenzione nel modo in cui costruisce le sue scene e gestisce il suo intreccio basato sull'alternarsi tra passato e presente. Il quadro sulla sua tela, ornato sempre di colori vivaci e sorprendenti, emerge per accenni, per pennellate sparse, richiede forse un po' di pazienza ma ripaga abbondantemente, senza mai cadere nella trappola degli spiegoni, deleteria per ogni narrativa d'invenzione. È un autore di cui è ancora arrivato poco in italiano, ma non si può che auspicare che il parco dei suoi titoli nella nostra lingua si allarghi presto e bene.
May 20, 2016
Thoughtful and full of ideas, this near-future literary science fiction book pleased me in several ways. Thematically, it examines how life is lived and how remembered; how memories form and are used; how death might be approached; and of course, what love is. The background to all of this is a world with wonderful riches and culture, terrible poverty and violence, and a restless and dangerous earth. Music is the device that links it all together, as Roushana, the aged and dying protagonist, is a world-famous concert violinist moving in musical and often Bohemian circles.
I enjoyed the emphasis on music and found the story flowed musically as well. The sentences roll, and the structure is past and present by turns as Roushana examines her life, sharing her stories with the mysterious young amnesic man found washed up on the Cornish beach beneath her home. What I particularly enjoyed was how MacLeod carefully led up to a powerful ending so that what might seem shocking is, upon reflection, suddenly all too understandable. That's excellent characterization.
I also enjoyed all the futuristic bits. MacLeod doesn't do hard science s/f; he doesn't even attempt to explain the main scientific advance that allows people to be virtually alive after death. But he excells at the details of daily life, the comforts, amusements, transportation systems, etc. in use in the late 21st century.
If any of my friends would like to read this and have a good book discussion, I'm all up for it!
I enjoyed the emphasis on music and found the story flowed musically as well. The sentences roll, and the structure is past and present by turns as Roushana examines her life, sharing her stories with the mysterious young amnesic man found washed up on the Cornish beach beneath her home. What I particularly enjoyed was how MacLeod carefully led up to a powerful ending so that what might seem shocking is, upon reflection, suddenly all too understandable. That's excellent characterization.
I also enjoyed all the futuristic bits. MacLeod doesn't do hard science s/f; he doesn't even attempt to explain the main scientific advance that allows people to be virtually alive after death. But he excells at the details of daily life, the comforts, amusements, transportation systems, etc. in use in the late 21st century.
If any of my friends would like to read this and have a good book discussion, I'm all up for it!
November 17, 2015
“Life … is a series of acts which we eventually grow tired of performing.”
Thrilled and disappointed simultaneously. Subtle future technology juxtaposition with timeless issues of living and dying. Literary post-apocalyptic science fiction. Unfortunately, self-consciously literary.
Brilliant imagery, clumsy storytelling. Occasional homonym or similar faulty word choice. Several epigrams could become catch phrases for the culture were they not so ineptly worded. As if it was dashed off, but not re-read. Knocks the reader out of the story’s spell. Needed a good editing, if not a rewrite.
Two threads, before and after the collapse. Lots of forward and back flashes. Sometimes confusing. Many clichés. The usual suspects (both cultural and personal stereotypes); little originality in characterization. Excellent evocation of the pop culture fifty years in the future. Believable future developments in technology, ecology, culture and legal issues.
“No wonder people believe in God, now that they’ve realized just how useless politicians are.”
Will read differently depending on the age of the reader. After reflecting a while, I may adjust my rating up or down.
Paradox: While reading this book, terror attacks struck Paris. Dinner conversation turned (in a different context) to the potential for a Yellowstone cataclysm.
“If you don’t believe in hope, and in love as well, what was the point of anything?”
Thrilled and disappointed simultaneously. Subtle future technology juxtaposition with timeless issues of living and dying. Literary post-apocalyptic science fiction. Unfortunately, self-consciously literary.
Brilliant imagery, clumsy storytelling. Occasional homonym or similar faulty word choice. Several epigrams could become catch phrases for the culture were they not so ineptly worded. As if it was dashed off, but not re-read. Knocks the reader out of the story’s spell. Needed a good editing, if not a rewrite.
Two threads, before and after the collapse. Lots of forward and back flashes. Sometimes confusing. Many clichés. The usual suspects (both cultural and personal stereotypes); little originality in characterization. Excellent evocation of the pop culture fifty years in the future. Believable future developments in technology, ecology, culture and legal issues.
“No wonder people believe in God, now that they’ve realized just how useless politicians are.”
Will read differently depending on the age of the reader. After reflecting a while, I may adjust my rating up or down.
Paradox: While reading this book, terror attacks struck Paris. Dinner conversation turned (in a different context) to the potential for a Yellowstone cataclysm.
“If you don’t believe in hope, and in love as well, what was the point of anything?”
February 19, 2009
A near future science fiction novel and a mainstream character piece that isn’t a Frankenstein creation of thrown together parts(like one of the creepier characters) but an organic combining of the two styles where they work in complete compatibility. Fun thing with near future is we get to see what Macleod will get right (he already got one wrong, an aside about the U.S never having a Black president, oops), will classical music have a resurgence or do we face food born plagues(what a stretch),nuclear wars or supervolcanoes? Who knows, this book is written well enough to probably whether such things anyways. This book is one of the most awash in love for classical music I’ve encountered since Mann’s Doktor Faustus (a book that I was reminded of more than once while reading this). It is also gripped with an unholy melancholy that Macleod seems to bring to bear on his narratives quite a bit, but there is poetic introspection to make it palatable.
May 9, 2009
I haven't been posting much lately about books I've been reading, maybe because I haven't been all that impressed with them, which may say more about me and my choices (or my current glum mood) than it does about the books. But this novel is a gem, the life of a gifted woman written as if being narrated by an eloquent novelist or memoirist of the next century. Highly recommended.
September 14, 2018
They say the past is a foreign country where folks do things differently. The world constantly moves on, places change, affiliations fade, relationships end... and at some point in one's life social paradigms have shifted sufficiently that this becomes not so much an expression of bemused noncomprehension as a desire to go home. There is something of this pathos in Song of Time, Ian Macleod's Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel.
Roushana Maitland, world-renowned violinist is nearing the end of her long life. Song of Time, set in the near future, is her story. As she contemplates technology's now-available option to go on living a sort of virtual life-after-death (details about this are vague, but then technology isn't the point, just the pretext prompting her to look back), an amnesiac man washes up on her Cornwall beach who may have a mysterious connection to her past.
Maitland lived in some very interesting times- to paraphrase the old Chinese curse. She grows up in Birmingham, England with a musical-prodigy brother who develops a mysterious new illness and eventually takes his own life. This illness proves to be the first salvo in a world about to be dramatically transformed by apocalyptic events, and Roushana guides us through the geopolitical, ecological and personal upheavals as she now looks back over her life.
Song of Time is an excellent portrait of an age, in this case an age yet to happen, and perhaps a glimpse of a future we may experience. It is a quintessentially English novel. In American dystopian novels, the future is often brutishly totalitarian, a suspension of normal life leaving little choice but abject servitude or active resistance- usually involving explosions and acts of heroic daring. In Song, with the Brit's richer literary tradition, one finds a more nuanced and subtle exploration of the mundanities of living in a cautionary future- after all, ordinary life does go on; careers must be forged and groceries shopped for- and it is infinitely more interesting and enjoyable to read for that.
If you are looking for a genre-centric dystopian adventure story, this isn't the novel for you. But if your taste skews toward the literary side of speculative fiction, I highly recommend Song of Time. I give it a rare 5-out-of-5-stars rating.
Roushana Maitland, world-renowned violinist is nearing the end of her long life. Song of Time, set in the near future, is her story. As she contemplates technology's now-available option to go on living a sort of virtual life-after-death (details about this are vague, but then technology isn't the point, just the pretext prompting her to look back), an amnesiac man washes up on her Cornwall beach who may have a mysterious connection to her past.
Maitland lived in some very interesting times- to paraphrase the old Chinese curse. She grows up in Birmingham, England with a musical-prodigy brother who develops a mysterious new illness and eventually takes his own life. This illness proves to be the first salvo in a world about to be dramatically transformed by apocalyptic events, and Roushana guides us through the geopolitical, ecological and personal upheavals as she now looks back over her life.
Song of Time is an excellent portrait of an age, in this case an age yet to happen, and perhaps a glimpse of a future we may experience. It is a quintessentially English novel. In American dystopian novels, the future is often brutishly totalitarian, a suspension of normal life leaving little choice but abject servitude or active resistance- usually involving explosions and acts of heroic daring. In Song, with the Brit's richer literary tradition, one finds a more nuanced and subtle exploration of the mundanities of living in a cautionary future- after all, ordinary life does go on; careers must be forged and groceries shopped for- and it is infinitely more interesting and enjoyable to read for that.
If you are looking for a genre-centric dystopian adventure story, this isn't the novel for you. But if your taste skews toward the literary side of speculative fiction, I highly recommend Song of Time. I give it a rare 5-out-of-5-stars rating.
November 17, 2016
Stopped at page 68. Overwrought prose, really odd typos (missing words include "to", for example: did anyone copy edit this?). The author was really trying way too hard to write in a "literary" style, and the story suffers for it. I don't usually comment on cover art, but as an artist, I have to say this is one of the ugliest covers I've seen. The figure's head is too small, for one thing. Angsty, emo, yech. Not for me.
September 12, 2018
Song of Time is a melancholy reflection of life and legacy. Roushana Maitland is preparing to die, or more accurately shed her physical body and enter digital immortality. In the middle of her preparations, a young man with amnesia washes ashore on the cliffs below her house.
The meat of the book is is Roushana reflecting on her life through the tumultuous 21st century, and the role of art in a world. A talented concert violinist, Roushana provides a frame to ask if art gives life meaning, and if not art, then what. The biography is a clever way to provide a future history that is just short of apocalyptic. A new disease claims Roushana's brother. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan almost kills her mother. Global warming threatens everything, until the Yellowstone Volcano erupts and cools the plnet, at the cost of North America. Somehow, life goes on.
The book is best when it explores Roushana's relationship with the artistic people around her. Her piano prodigy brother, the gender-ambiguous critic Harad, her husband and conductor Claude, in his talent and weakness. The glimpses of the future are both chilling and believable. The 'present' timeline, with the amnesiac young man, doesn't do as much, and the odd unlife of the digitally immortal is sadly wasted as it relates to what the world looks like. Still, this is a satisfying, sophisticated, and melancholy yet optimistic book.
The meat of the book is is Roushana reflecting on her life through the tumultuous 21st century, and the role of art in a world. A talented concert violinist, Roushana provides a frame to ask if art gives life meaning, and if not art, then what. The biography is a clever way to provide a future history that is just short of apocalyptic. A new disease claims Roushana's brother. A nuclear war between India and Pakistan almost kills her mother. Global warming threatens everything, until the Yellowstone Volcano erupts and cools the plnet, at the cost of North America. Somehow, life goes on.
The book is best when it explores Roushana's relationship with the artistic people around her. Her piano prodigy brother, the gender-ambiguous critic Harad, her husband and conductor Claude, in his talent and weakness. The glimpses of the future are both chilling and believable. The 'present' timeline, with the amnesiac young man, doesn't do as much, and the odd unlife of the digitally immortal is sadly wasted as it relates to what the world looks like. Still, this is a satisfying, sophisticated, and melancholy yet optimistic book.
November 15, 2020
Not sure how I stumbled on this amazing "autobiography" of an elderly woman musician slowly dying in a disturbingly almost believable dystopian future. Absolutely loved it.
December 27, 2022
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/song-of-time-by-iain-r-macleod/
The only other book I’ve read by this author is his best known work, The Light Ages, which I felt ambivalent about. But I really enjoyed this, and it has incentivised me to look out for his other books. It’s a story in two timelines: the very near future collapse of western civilisation due to plague and unrest, and the slightly further future timeline putting it all back together again. The narrator is a world-famous violinist from Birmingham with Irish and Indian heritage; her marriage to a world-famous conductor reflects the integration and disintegration of their world, as she retells the story years later to a mysterious visitor to her Cornwall cottage. Really good, and you can get it here.
The only other book I’ve read by this author is his best known work, The Light Ages, which I felt ambivalent about. But I really enjoyed this, and it has incentivised me to look out for his other books. It’s a story in two timelines: the very near future collapse of western civilisation due to plague and unrest, and the slightly further future timeline putting it all back together again. The narrator is a world-famous violinist from Birmingham with Irish and Indian heritage; her marriage to a world-famous conductor reflects the integration and disintegration of their world, as she retells the story years later to a mysterious visitor to her Cornwall cottage. Really good, and you can get it here.
January 1, 2023
Primo flop dell'anno. Una noia assurda. Se è vero che la SF non è più quella della Golden Age, giustamente, è anche vero che un minimo mi deve prendere. Sono arrivata a pagina 200 (su 270) e ancora non era decollato. Di SF c'è poco, qualche accenno ad un mondo di sfondo che non trovo comunque sufficiente e comunque mi sembrano accenni quasi casuali, tecnologie appena inventate per fare rientrare il libro nella categoria. Capisco che il fulcro debba essere l'introspezione e il percorso psicologico di Roushana ma ho trovato molto noiosa anche questa, l'autore a mio parere non riesce per niente a suggerire una psicologia del personaggio, è solo un racconto in prima persona con veramente poca profondità, cercata piuttosto in situazioni che penso volessero essere "stuzzicanti" per la lettrice/lettore ma che trovo di una banalità allucinante, tipo il rapporto col fratello o quello con Claude.
February 6, 2021
Desses de revisar a vida antes de morrer, um começo e todo um ritmo muito lento. Outro que tentei começar e desisti umas três vezes, acho que é desses que tem hora certa pra ser lido. Achei a passagem da infância pra vida adulta meio suprimida, parece que faltam uns 20 anos ali, mas no geral eu achei bem legal como ela pontua as coisas de scifi só meio ali, no fundo de tudo. É um livro ok, para ler no mesmo ritmo com calma. Ele se diz "mais" reflexivo, mas acho que é só mais lento mesmo.
October 12, 2022
On a dying earth the elites seek immortality.
As a dying musician tries to remember her past so it can be recorded for her eventual passing to a digital existence, we witness the decline of civilization in the face of man made and natural disasters.
I enjoyed the perspective of a terminal patient reflecting on her life, non-linear format and the idea that technology will continue to progress for the few who can afford it, despite all the setbacks.
As a dying musician tries to remember her past so it can be recorded for her eventual passing to a digital existence, we witness the decline of civilization in the face of man made and natural disasters.
I enjoyed the perspective of a terminal patient reflecting on her life, non-linear format and the idea that technology will continue to progress for the few who can afford it, despite all the setbacks.
March 3, 2024
An elderly musician finds a man washed up on a beach and recounts her life to him as she prepares to die. Bags of fun this one! I'm not sure what I thought of Song of Time, it was beautifully written, and the characters had plenty of depth, the near future history was interesting and believable...but the bulk of the story just wasn't very interesting. A decent read but I became less interested the more it went on.
February 15, 2019
This was pretty crap really, the story weaved around and the final moment that she had killed her husband and didn't want to enter the cloud as an immortal didn't really make sense of the momentum of the rest of it. There was some good bit in it I admit but overall a bit disappointing - the visitor/robot was particularly non sensible
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 5, 2018
This is elegant & lovely. A woman looking back on her life as she prepares to die, in a world very like ours could become. Speculative fiction with a mystery, a twist and compelling characters. A lot about music and art. This book won many awards.
May 31, 2025
Non sono riuscito a capire se è un romanzo di sci-fi perché sembra più una storia psicologica sulla vita dopo la morte o sul.tema dell'eternità, condito con spunti sulla musica classica eseguita da protagonisti bohemien...
December 24, 2025
Hi! Your writing genuinely pulled me in, especially the way you handle emotional moments. A few scenes felt very visual to me.
I’m a commission-based narrative artist, and if you ever want to explore a comic or webtoon version, feel free to reach out.
📩 Discord & Instagram: lizziedoesitall
I’m a commission-based narrative artist, and if you ever want to explore a comic or webtoon version, feel free to reach out.
📩 Discord & Instagram: lizziedoesitall
March 13, 2025
A very odd little book that I think will stick with me
July 26, 2019
Really enjoyed this one. Reminded me a bit.
May 21, 2009
Hmm.
Ian MacLeod’s Song of Time begins as Roushana Maitland, an aged concert violinist, finds an angelically beautiful young man washed up on the shore near her Cornish home. He has no memory of himself or his past, so Roushana calls him Adam, which becomes, in effect, his real name. She tells the young man stories from her life — memories of her childhood in Birmingham, of travelling to India with her mother to aid the victims of nuclear fallout, of her musical career in Paris. But there’s another point to these recollections (which alternate with present-tense passages depicting Roushana and Adam in Cornwall): Roushana is dying, but has a chance to preserve herself by ‘uploading’ her memories to a crystal implanted in her brain, which will enable her to enter a virtual ‘afterlife’ (wherein she will still be able to interact with the world, albeit non-corporeally). And, of course, Adam has a secret — but so does Roushana.
My journey through Song of Time was a strange one. For the first third, I found the book very moving; I was feeling the emotions while bypassing the words, which doesn’t happen very often. But the remainder of the novel was much less affecting — apart, that is, from the final pages. Much of that opening third details Roushana’s early life, when she was merely a good musician, overshadowed by her brilliant brother Leo. But Leo had contracted ‘white plague’, an engineered virus that caused multiple food intloerances, and did not have long to live. It’s this early part, laced with tragedy, where I found MacLeod’s writing to be particularly evocative and poignant. For example:
‘All I remember is being summoned from lessons at school just before lunch, and finding Mum sitting waitinf for me on the sofa in the head teacher’s office, her face white and entirely blank. The head seemed embarrassed, and mumbled that it was probably better if she left us both alone.’
So what happens to the emotional impact later on? What changes? In a way, nothing — what happens is that, as the story moves on, something comes to the foreground that had been niggling me from early on. It gives rise to my main problem with Song of Time: that I don’t buy into the future presented by the book. Throughout, the prose style is quiet and reflective; this is appropriate, given the nature of the story, but has the effect of ‘muffling’ the futuristic changes. So, when Roushana describes the more extreme weather of her childhood, we don’t feel that weather — it feels as though life carries on pretty much as it does now, however much the author suggests that it does not. And the Paris of her adult years does not feel as turbulent as the text says it is. Even Roushana’s Cornwall, in the closing years of the current century. has a timeless quality about it; only the sequences set in India don’t feel so distant.
But my credulity was most tested with the eruption in the novel of the Yellowstone supervolcano. I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that such an event would be disastrous for human civilisations the world over. Yet even the impact of this eruption, as depicted in the novel, did not feel as great to me as I thought it should. I had a hard time believing that the world of Roushana’s old age could emerge from that cataclysm, because in many ways it doesn’t feel all that different from our present.
The title Song of Time refers to part of a generative symphony that Roushana performs; music is one of the novel’s key themes, though I can’t really say much more about it — I don’t know enough about music to be able to judge what MacLeod does with the subject. But the book has another important theme, and that’s memory. ‘Memories are what you are,’ says the book, near the beginning. In the case of the dead, with their newly virtual existence, that’s literally true; in the case of Adam — well, he has no memories, so who is he?
And Roushana? Although the connection is never made explicitly in the novel, a life composed of memories could be seen as a ’song of time’, one that can be changed and re-interpreted each time it’s rehearsed. Perhaps, in the end, Roushana is whatever she wants to remember — or be remembered as.
I may have given the impression here that I dislike Song of Time more than I actually do. It’s flawed, no doubt — but at its best, it is beautifully written and moving (and, though I haven’t touched on this, the characters never rang false even though the world didn’t entirely convince me). In short, the good parts are very good indeed; I just wish there were more of them.
Ian MacLeod’s Song of Time begins as Roushana Maitland, an aged concert violinist, finds an angelically beautiful young man washed up on the shore near her Cornish home. He has no memory of himself or his past, so Roushana calls him Adam, which becomes, in effect, his real name. She tells the young man stories from her life — memories of her childhood in Birmingham, of travelling to India with her mother to aid the victims of nuclear fallout, of her musical career in Paris. But there’s another point to these recollections (which alternate with present-tense passages depicting Roushana and Adam in Cornwall): Roushana is dying, but has a chance to preserve herself by ‘uploading’ her memories to a crystal implanted in her brain, which will enable her to enter a virtual ‘afterlife’ (wherein she will still be able to interact with the world, albeit non-corporeally). And, of course, Adam has a secret — but so does Roushana.
My journey through Song of Time was a strange one. For the first third, I found the book very moving; I was feeling the emotions while bypassing the words, which doesn’t happen very often. But the remainder of the novel was much less affecting — apart, that is, from the final pages. Much of that opening third details Roushana’s early life, when she was merely a good musician, overshadowed by her brilliant brother Leo. But Leo had contracted ‘white plague’, an engineered virus that caused multiple food intloerances, and did not have long to live. It’s this early part, laced with tragedy, where I found MacLeod’s writing to be particularly evocative and poignant. For example:
‘All I remember is being summoned from lessons at school just before lunch, and finding Mum sitting waitinf for me on the sofa in the head teacher’s office, her face white and entirely blank. The head seemed embarrassed, and mumbled that it was probably better if she left us both alone.’
So what happens to the emotional impact later on? What changes? In a way, nothing — what happens is that, as the story moves on, something comes to the foreground that had been niggling me from early on. It gives rise to my main problem with Song of Time: that I don’t buy into the future presented by the book. Throughout, the prose style is quiet and reflective; this is appropriate, given the nature of the story, but has the effect of ‘muffling’ the futuristic changes. So, when Roushana describes the more extreme weather of her childhood, we don’t feel that weather — it feels as though life carries on pretty much as it does now, however much the author suggests that it does not. And the Paris of her adult years does not feel as turbulent as the text says it is. Even Roushana’s Cornwall, in the closing years of the current century. has a timeless quality about it; only the sequences set in India don’t feel so distant.
But my credulity was most tested with the eruption in the novel of the Yellowstone supervolcano. I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that such an event would be disastrous for human civilisations the world over. Yet even the impact of this eruption, as depicted in the novel, did not feel as great to me as I thought it should. I had a hard time believing that the world of Roushana’s old age could emerge from that cataclysm, because in many ways it doesn’t feel all that different from our present.
The title Song of Time refers to part of a generative symphony that Roushana performs; music is one of the novel’s key themes, though I can’t really say much more about it — I don’t know enough about music to be able to judge what MacLeod does with the subject. But the book has another important theme, and that’s memory. ‘Memories are what you are,’ says the book, near the beginning. In the case of the dead, with their newly virtual existence, that’s literally true; in the case of Adam — well, he has no memories, so who is he?
And Roushana? Although the connection is never made explicitly in the novel, a life composed of memories could be seen as a ’song of time’, one that can be changed and re-interpreted each time it’s rehearsed. Perhaps, in the end, Roushana is whatever she wants to remember — or be remembered as.
I may have given the impression here that I dislike Song of Time more than I actually do. It’s flawed, no doubt — but at its best, it is beautifully written and moving (and, though I haven’t touched on this, the characters never rang false even though the world didn’t entirely convince me). In short, the good parts are very good indeed; I just wish there were more of them.
May 27, 2019
Not a bad book, but the author chose to use 1st person present tense, which never fails to drive me up the wall. Not terribly original as far as scifi goes, but reflective and interesting.
August 11, 2017
an MacLeod is yet another innovative Brit to break in at the start of the twenty-first century. This novel made a very good first impression on me. The prose is stunning; this is easily one of the best-written novels I’ve read for this project. I’m just not sure that the story lives up to MacLeod’s crisp and elegant language.
The novel is narrated by a British woman of part-Indian descent named Roushana Maitland. Most of it is a sort of memoir of her life through the twenty-first century, which turns out to be a rough one. As environmental disasters, war, refugee crises, and increased religious and racial strife take their toll on the world, Roushana deals with personal tragedies and becomes a violin virtuoso. This sort of dystopia pile-on isn’t especially new – I was reminded a lot of Butler’s Earthseed at times – but the perspective of a wealthy and successful artist is more original. Some of the sub-plots add some new wrinkles as well – like post-human “ghosts” and a Frankenstein’s-monster messiah figure who sells bottled water and takes Paris by storm. There’s also a framing story wherein we follow the elderly Roushana in Cornwall as she encounters and befriends a mysterious naked man who washed up on the beach.
The writing and Roushana’s story were strong enough to keep me turning the pages, but some of my initial enthusiasm wore off as the novel went on. It’s just so damned bleak. MacLeod piles hate upon disaster upon disease upon destruction. Again, this isn’t unlike Butler’s Earthseed, but there are two big differences: Roushana isn’t as strong or compelling as Olamina. She’s often lost and confused, and she ends up playing second fiddle (pun alert!) to her composer husband Claude for much of the novel. Also Earthseed was a struggle for survival, while Roushana’s privileged position precludes that exciting element. When MacLeod unleashed his final U.S.-destroying disaster, I responded with an “Oh come on!” rather than getting further absorbed in the story. MacLeod also piled on a series of “surpise” melodramatic scenes from Roushana’s personal life in some late twists that also had me rolling my eyes a bit.
So, the darkness overwhelms a well-written story about the arts, but it’s not quite dark enough to be a compelling story of survival. And all of this rather overwhelms MacLeod’s exploration of his central themes of memory and mortality. But, it was an engaging read
The novel is narrated by a British woman of part-Indian descent named Roushana Maitland. Most of it is a sort of memoir of her life through the twenty-first century, which turns out to be a rough one. As environmental disasters, war, refugee crises, and increased religious and racial strife take their toll on the world, Roushana deals with personal tragedies and becomes a violin virtuoso. This sort of dystopia pile-on isn’t especially new – I was reminded a lot of Butler’s Earthseed at times – but the perspective of a wealthy and successful artist is more original. Some of the sub-plots add some new wrinkles as well – like post-human “ghosts” and a Frankenstein’s-monster messiah figure who sells bottled water and takes Paris by storm. There’s also a framing story wherein we follow the elderly Roushana in Cornwall as she encounters and befriends a mysterious naked man who washed up on the beach.
The writing and Roushana’s story were strong enough to keep me turning the pages, but some of my initial enthusiasm wore off as the novel went on. It’s just so damned bleak. MacLeod piles hate upon disaster upon disease upon destruction. Again, this isn’t unlike Butler’s Earthseed, but there are two big differences: Roushana isn’t as strong or compelling as Olamina. She’s often lost and confused, and she ends up playing second fiddle (pun alert!) to her composer husband Claude for much of the novel. Also Earthseed was a struggle for survival, while Roushana’s privileged position precludes that exciting element. When MacLeod unleashed his final U.S.-destroying disaster, I responded with an “Oh come on!” rather than getting further absorbed in the story. MacLeod also piled on a series of “surpise” melodramatic scenes from Roushana’s personal life in some late twists that also had me rolling my eyes a bit.
So, the darkness overwhelms a well-written story about the arts, but it’s not quite dark enough to be a compelling story of survival. And all of this rather overwhelms MacLeod’s exploration of his central themes of memory and mortality. But, it was an engaging read
September 27, 2010
This is a wrenching and beautiful work about a woman reaching the end of her life in near-future Scotland. We learn of the adventures and loves and losses that constitute who she is as she shares her life’s story. Her audience is a seeming shipwreck-victim whom she discovers on the rocky shore near her home. She is recording her memories for the "crystal" in her brain, creating a digital copy of herself that will carry on past her impending death. Her life, like many, is a series of tragedies and joys that coincide with a major events and catastrophes across the planet.
MacLeod's language is so gorgeous that it moved me to make notes after countless passages. Through her story-telling and her visitor's slow mental recovery, we discover a great many truths about what it means to be human, how we change as we age, and how our memories define who we are... I won't say more. But I will recommend that you read it.
MacLeod's language is so gorgeous that it moved me to make notes after countless passages. Through her story-telling and her visitor's slow mental recovery, we discover a great many truths about what it means to be human, how we change as we age, and how our memories define who we are... I won't say more. But I will recommend that you read it.
March 9, 2015
Song of Time tells the life story of an elderly violinist who has lived through a turbulent century, through the memories she recounts to an amnesiac man she has rescued. The story worked extremely well on the large-scale level of the world’s slow collapse as well as on the small-scale, personal, emotional level of Roushana’s life. The mystery of the rescued man, Adam, ties into the ideas about identity and mortality that Roushana is exploring as she considers the end of her life, and whether she should seize the chance for a post-death existence in the future world. Song of Time was a wonderfully immersive story, though a pretty sad one, and is a novel that I think I will remember for a long time to come.
Full review on my blog!
Full review on my blog!
March 26, 2009
A very well executed piece set in the near future. At the end of her life a woman looks back on her life as a musician, having lived through many of the defining moments of the 21st century. Although this is SF it has strong literary leanings and the characterisation is excellent, rich, sympathetic and three-dimensional.
In many ways this needn't be set in the future, and as such is not really science fiction, except for the one issue it deals with sparingly but clearly throughout the book, that of uploading. As the lead character reflects on her life, the book reflects on the meaning of identity, and how this could meaningfully be transferred to a different reality.
This book deserves a much wider reading than I suspect it will receive.
In many ways this needn't be set in the future, and as such is not really science fiction, except for the one issue it deals with sparingly but clearly throughout the book, that of uploading. As the lead character reflects on her life, the book reflects on the meaning of identity, and how this could meaningfully be transferred to a different reality.
This book deserves a much wider reading than I suspect it will receive.
October 10, 2015
What a strange, science-fiction world view of the future! There were many elements in this book which I enjoyed: the main characters were intriguing and well developed; the unfolding story line of the memories shared; and the premise of needing to consider your past in order to move toward the future. However, there were many things that I found irritating: the multiple typos; the rambling quality of the book (it needed a really good editor!); and the very dark world-view and what it portends will happen in the future. Plus I hated the ending! Such a mixed bag, so I'm not sure if I'd really recommend the book.
June 23, 2014
This was a very emotional book. It takes place in the near future, which I guess is what makes it SciFi, but to me it's more of a piece of literature. The main character is forced to reevaluate her life because she needs to recall memories as she nears death. Read the book and that will make more sense. She helped by a stranger that washes up on the shore near her house. Classical music plays a major roll in the story, although you don't need to know anything about it. That aspect of the story is more about musicians living the rock and roll life style... sex drugs and rock and roll.
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