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End of the World Blues
From Jon Courtenay Grimwood, author of the celebrated Arabesk series, comes a stunningly inventive novel of futuristic noir set in a world of shifting realities. Here a man is drawn into a gritty postmodern subculture and a secret kingdom of otherworldly beings to find what he lost long ago: a reason to live.
Kit Nouveau figured he'd already come to the end of the world. An Iraqi war veteran, expatriate, and part owner of Pirate Mary's, the best Irish bar in Tokyo, Kit had settled down to await the inevitable with barely a whimper. It wasn't exactly how Kit thought he'd end up, and he was right.
It's going to end up a lot worse.
A teenage runaway with fifteen million dollars in stolen cash and a taste for cosplay is about to save Kit's life in a lethal swirl of scarlet and bridal lace. Lady Neku, a.k.a. Countess of High Strange, has her own dangerous destiny to fulfill and it's mysteriously connected to Kit's ravaged past. Now Kit's only hope for redemption is to save an ex-girlfriend he tragically failed once before. But everyone says it's already too late. And she's left behind only one ominous clue: her suicide note.
Kit Nouveau figured he'd already come to the end of the world. An Iraqi war veteran, expatriate, and part owner of Pirate Mary's, the best Irish bar in Tokyo, Kit had settled down to await the inevitable with barely a whimper. It wasn't exactly how Kit thought he'd end up, and he was right.
It's going to end up a lot worse.
A teenage runaway with fifteen million dollars in stolen cash and a taste for cosplay is about to save Kit's life in a lethal swirl of scarlet and bridal lace. Lady Neku, a.k.a. Countess of High Strange, has her own dangerous destiny to fulfill and it's mysteriously connected to Kit's ravaged past. Now Kit's only hope for redemption is to save an ex-girlfriend he tragically failed once before. But everyone says it's already too late. And she's left behind only one ominous clue: her suicide note.
348 pages, Paperback
First published September 25, 2006
16 people are currently reading
572 people want to read
About the author
Jon Courtenay Grimwood
55 books203 followers'Tough, sexy and brutal, but leavened with sharp humour... Grimwood is a name to watch.' The Times
Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and christened in the upturned bell of a ship. He grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Apart from novels he writes for magazines and newspapers. He travels extensively and undertakes a certain amount of consulting. Until recently he wrote a monthly review column for the Guardian.
Felaheen, the third of his novels featuring Asraf Bey, a half-Berber detective, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. So did his last book, End of the World Blues, about a British sniper on the run from Iraq and running an Irish bar in Tokyo. He has just delivered the Fallen Blade, the first of three novels set in an alternate 15th-century Venice
His work is published in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish and American, among others
He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor-in-chief of Red magazine. They divide their time between London and Winchester...
Jon Courtenay Grimwood was born in Malta and christened in the upturned bell of a ship. He grew up in the Far East, Britain and Scandinavia. Apart from novels he writes for magazines and newspapers. He travels extensively and undertakes a certain amount of consulting. Until recently he wrote a monthly review column for the Guardian.
Felaheen, the third of his novels featuring Asraf Bey, a half-Berber detective, won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. So did his last book, End of the World Blues, about a British sniper on the run from Iraq and running an Irish bar in Tokyo. He has just delivered the Fallen Blade, the first of three novels set in an alternate 15th-century Venice
His work is published in French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Finnish and American, among others
He is married to the journalist and novelist Sam Baker, currently editor-in-chief of Red magazine. They divide their time between London and Winchester...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
August 5, 2016
One of the most difficult SF books to write is one partly set in the present, and partly in the (near or far) future. Here we have a gritty and hyper realistic Japan and London, and a post-meltdown future so far ahead it seems like a fantasy.
Balancing these two world views is tricky, because how do you make both seem equally real? And there is a danger that slipping into your imagined future can be more of a digression than a plot progression.
So it is a difficult balance to achieve, but it is obviously a challenge that JCG relishes, because this is a note perfect novel that reads like a grittier, more humane William Gibson, with splashes of Iain M. Banks (rope worlds and sentient castles) and M. John Harrison (a talking cat...) thrown in to leaven the mixture.
JCG is not one to drip-feed the reader either; there is just the right note of ambiguity here, and a whodunnit plot sufficiently complex to keep you guessing right until the end.
And there are some grace notes in this that will take your breath away: when Kit finally meets up with a person he has long been searching for, only to find she is dying from using an infected drug needle, what does he do? He helps her take a bath. It is a virtually silent scene, as these two battered souls share a quiet interlude of remembered intimacy and regret. Superb.
Some of the grace notes are decidedly kinky: the descriptions of Japanese rope bondage are loving and erotic, leading to one of my favourite lines in the novel: "No one could tie you tighter than you could tie yourself and it was the ropes you couldn't see that bound you tightest." Such economy of action and symbol is a highlight of JCG's honed prose.
It has become something of a cyberpunk cliche to use Japan as an example of both cultural assimilation and advancement. The secret to why End of the World Blues feels so fresh and dangerous is the characters: Kit Nouveau (gotta love that name) is a classic Grimwood anti-hero, and he is ably supported by a large cast of outcasts, biker gangsters, perverts and other assorted lost and mad souls.
This is literary science fiction that is elusive and beguiling, and thoroughly entertaining and satisfying.
Balancing these two world views is tricky, because how do you make both seem equally real? And there is a danger that slipping into your imagined future can be more of a digression than a plot progression.
So it is a difficult balance to achieve, but it is obviously a challenge that JCG relishes, because this is a note perfect novel that reads like a grittier, more humane William Gibson, with splashes of Iain M. Banks (rope worlds and sentient castles) and M. John Harrison (a talking cat...) thrown in to leaven the mixture.
JCG is not one to drip-feed the reader either; there is just the right note of ambiguity here, and a whodunnit plot sufficiently complex to keep you guessing right until the end.
And there are some grace notes in this that will take your breath away: when Kit finally meets up with a person he has long been searching for, only to find she is dying from using an infected drug needle, what does he do? He helps her take a bath. It is a virtually silent scene, as these two battered souls share a quiet interlude of remembered intimacy and regret. Superb.
Some of the grace notes are decidedly kinky: the descriptions of Japanese rope bondage are loving and erotic, leading to one of my favourite lines in the novel: "No one could tie you tighter than you could tie yourself and it was the ropes you couldn't see that bound you tightest." Such economy of action and symbol is a highlight of JCG's honed prose.
It has become something of a cyberpunk cliche to use Japan as an example of both cultural assimilation and advancement. The secret to why End of the World Blues feels so fresh and dangerous is the characters: Kit Nouveau (gotta love that name) is a classic Grimwood anti-hero, and he is ably supported by a large cast of outcasts, biker gangsters, perverts and other assorted lost and mad souls.
This is literary science fiction that is elusive and beguiling, and thoroughly entertaining and satisfying.
April 18, 2013
3 Stars
This is an example to me of what could have been a great novel if the story would not have fallen flat just after the midpoint of the book. I liked this sci-fi light story about a time traveling girl, I just did not love it. I never really connected with the characters or the setting. The future world was never fully realized, and the setting in Japan was not what it could have been.
This book is an ok read that moves along at a good pace but in the end it will be forgettable.
This is an example to me of what could have been a great novel if the story would not have fallen flat just after the midpoint of the book. I liked this sci-fi light story about a time traveling girl, I just did not love it. I never really connected with the characters or the setting. The future world was never fully realized, and the setting in Japan was not what it could have been.
This book is an ok read that moves along at a good pace but in the end it will be forgettable.
February 14, 2019
A little confusing for me.
June 22, 2014
The common sentiment in about a third of reviews is as follows: End of the World Blues is a cool noir novel and a smart sci-fi novella that Jon Grimwood decided to intercut together for reasons that escape readers.
Most people who found it dichotomous came for the noir, but wondered why the sci-fi chapters were there. As a sci-fi fan, I seem to be on the other side: Neku's "Floating Rope World" is a brilliant Earth that outlived its time, and I wanted to spend so much more story in it. Unfortunately, what I suppose is a reasonably good Noir (which is set in a near future that seems just like the present except for the phones) kept getting in the way.
It would be different if the two stories had some intrinsic connection, but they don't. It just reads like Neku (who never actually claims to be a time-traveller) stole a lot of money from the mob in the present under another name. How did a teenage girl steal millions from the mob? *That* would be an interesting backstory, but instead she is either a time traveller or is psychotic. Now that's fine, but her backstory has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plot. If we could just rip this book up into two piles and repackage one as noir and the other as sci-fi, I think many people would be a lot happier.
The characters are good. The setting is evocative. Kit is an interesting half-wash-out who knows he's a wash out, but still very much alive and ambitious. He is The Ex-Pat on several levels. Neku in her own world is a great spoiled child of demons who is trying to be better than the messed up politics in her life. In the present she's an alternate Lizbeth Salander in an alternate-universe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the "conspiracy/exploitation/mental-illness" knob turned up. On that note, I am curious why there is this common trope of "This middle aged partially broken-down but ultimately honest dude travels around solving a murder mystery with a quirky, disturbed goth girl with curious but unexamined sexual undertones." Midlife crisis? (This trope also has some relation to The Windup Bird Chronicles, another novel to which EOTWB is frequently compared.)
The audiobook version is quite well-done, BTW.
If anyone can recommend more stories like the messed up feudal *far future* in this book, please do drop me a line. I would love to read them.
Most people who found it dichotomous came for the noir, but wondered why the sci-fi chapters were there. As a sci-fi fan, I seem to be on the other side: Neku's "Floating Rope World" is a brilliant Earth that outlived its time, and I wanted to spend so much more story in it. Unfortunately, what I suppose is a reasonably good Noir (which is set in a near future that seems just like the present except for the phones) kept getting in the way.
It would be different if the two stories had some intrinsic connection, but they don't. It just reads like Neku (who never actually claims to be a time-traveller) stole a lot of money from the mob in the present under another name. How did a teenage girl steal millions from the mob? *That* would be an interesting backstory, but instead she is either a time traveller or is psychotic. Now that's fine, but her backstory has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plot. If we could just rip this book up into two piles and repackage one as noir and the other as sci-fi, I think many people would be a lot happier.
The characters are good. The setting is evocative. Kit is an interesting half-wash-out who knows he's a wash out, but still very much alive and ambitious. He is The Ex-Pat on several levels. Neku in her own world is a great spoiled child of demons who is trying to be better than the messed up politics in her life. In the present she's an alternate Lizbeth Salander in an alternate-universe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with the "conspiracy/exploitation/mental-illness" knob turned up. On that note, I am curious why there is this common trope of "This middle aged partially broken-down but ultimately honest dude travels around solving a murder mystery with a quirky, disturbed goth girl with curious but unexamined sexual undertones." Midlife crisis? (This trope also has some relation to The Windup Bird Chronicles, another novel to which EOTWB is frequently compared.)
The audiobook version is quite well-done, BTW.
If anyone can recommend more stories like the messed up feudal *far future* in this book, please do drop me a line. I would love to read them.
December 4, 2013
We read this book for my speculative fiction book club and it was an interesting trip, not as thoroughly enjoyed by some members of the club as other books, but interesting nonetheless. The novel tells two stories, one of Lady Neku, a thirteen year old girl from the far future (maybe) who has gotten embroiled in a number of troublesome events in our near future, and the other of Kit Nouveau, a British Iraq War vet whose bar is blown up, and with it his wife. Then his ex-girlfriend's gangster mom turns up and things get dicey.
Some thoughts:
* I found the book hard to get into, but pretty interesting after the first half. The pacing of the mystery picked up once the characters and their relationships to one another were established. Grimwood has a roundabout way of writing that takes some getting used to, but his choices about when to reveal certain key details about Kit's past work well.
* Neku dances along at the edge of sanity, one moment seeming to be everything the narrative makes her out to be--a teenage refuge from a far-future dynastic war--and the next she's a scared teenager flirting with a college boy. We had an interesting discussion about whether her dual story was real or not--I believe there are a couple bits in the book that prove it to be real, but they're pretty shallow and could be read as psychological. I suggested that the similar structures of the events in her far-future memory segments and the current life events work the same either way.
* I also couldn't help but notice the similar plot structures to the much less well-written or interesting novel The Identity Plunderers that I read a couple weeks ago. Both books involve two stories, one from the current world, one from the far future. Both involve alterable memories and people trying to recover those memories. Both are not immediately obvious about who's trying to do what or who the key players are. Both have titles that are only tangentially related to the novels they name.
* The novel works very much like a classic hard-boiled detective novel, something like The Big Sleep. Kit gets thrust into a series of mysteries whose players and forces overlap in strange ways. There are big forces and plenty of beatings and warnings to stay out of it that don't get followed. The resolution of the mystery also doesn't come off as a big moment of revelation they way it usually does in classical detective stories. Instead it slowly seeps into the narrative, and the story of how the detective reveals the solution and gets away without being murdered holds much more interest for us. Also, he has little hope of winning out over the corrupt forces that rule the world. You can almost hear the character at the end of the novel saying, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."
* The science-fiction elements of the book are actually pretty weak and I'm not sure they're necessary. While they're well-written and interesting, I'm not sure what would have been lost if Neku had actually been a contemporary girl with similar problems. We also pondered whether placing a book in the near future (10 years or so) without significant technological or cultural change (video phones seem to be the main new thing) makes it science-fiction or not.
Overall, a well-written book, but I'm not sure if I liked it enough to read any more of Grimwood's novels. I'll see if I find myself haunted by this book in the coming weeks or months.
Some thoughts:
* I found the book hard to get into, but pretty interesting after the first half. The pacing of the mystery picked up once the characters and their relationships to one another were established. Grimwood has a roundabout way of writing that takes some getting used to, but his choices about when to reveal certain key details about Kit's past work well.
* Neku dances along at the edge of sanity, one moment seeming to be everything the narrative makes her out to be--a teenage refuge from a far-future dynastic war--and the next she's a scared teenager flirting with a college boy. We had an interesting discussion about whether her dual story was real or not--I believe there are a couple bits in the book that prove it to be real, but they're pretty shallow and could be read as psychological. I suggested that the similar structures of the events in her far-future memory segments and the current life events work the same either way.
* I also couldn't help but notice the similar plot structures to the much less well-written or interesting novel The Identity Plunderers that I read a couple weeks ago. Both books involve two stories, one from the current world, one from the far future. Both involve alterable memories and people trying to recover those memories. Both are not immediately obvious about who's trying to do what or who the key players are. Both have titles that are only tangentially related to the novels they name.
* The novel works very much like a classic hard-boiled detective novel, something like The Big Sleep. Kit gets thrust into a series of mysteries whose players and forces overlap in strange ways. There are big forces and plenty of beatings and warnings to stay out of it that don't get followed. The resolution of the mystery also doesn't come off as a big moment of revelation they way it usually does in classical detective stories. Instead it slowly seeps into the narrative, and the story of how the detective reveals the solution and gets away without being murdered holds much more interest for us. Also, he has little hope of winning out over the corrupt forces that rule the world. You can almost hear the character at the end of the novel saying, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."
* The science-fiction elements of the book are actually pretty weak and I'm not sure they're necessary. While they're well-written and interesting, I'm not sure what would have been lost if Neku had actually been a contemporary girl with similar problems. We also pondered whether placing a book in the near future (10 years or so) without significant technological or cultural change (video phones seem to be the main new thing) makes it science-fiction or not.
Overall, a well-written book, but I'm not sure if I liked it enough to read any more of Grimwood's novels. I'll see if I find myself haunted by this book in the coming weeks or months.
August 16, 2018
I did not care for this book. It seemed like there were at least 3 different stories going on all at once, which would be okay if they had anything to do with each other. It begins with the story of Kit and Yoshi, then there's a whole middle section that has nothing to do with Yoshi, but has everything to do with his ex and her family. Then at the end, it throws the Yoshi situation back in. All throughout the book we have Neku's past, which is just out of place.
Not for me. It was just all over the place. I did enjoy some of the mini stories. I found Neku's future world intriguing, but question why that was even part of the story. It didn't seem like it had anything whatsoever to do with the plot. There were too many characters introduced at the beginning and then left alone for the majority of the book and then reintroduced like they've been important the whole time at the end.
I will probably forget this entire book, even the parts that intrigued me, within a month and I don't even care.
Not for me. It was just all over the place. I did enjoy some of the mini stories. I found Neku's future world intriguing, but question why that was even part of the story. It didn't seem like it had anything whatsoever to do with the plot. There were too many characters introduced at the beginning and then left alone for the majority of the book and then reintroduced like they've been important the whole time at the end.
I will probably forget this entire book, even the parts that intrigued me, within a month and I don't even care.
January 17, 2019
Trite and trippy. Who crosses scifi melodrama with gritty expat noir? The book wants to explore interesting, unique characters, but when you're reading about an ex-rocker bar owner and a kawaii assassin from the future it's tough not to imagine the book is aimed directly at all the wannabe debonair white expats on the Pacific rim, and their equally pathetic brethren who stayed at home.
All thje cliche would be easier to plow through if the book's overarching mystery - what the hell is going on - were unraveled with any sort of tempo. Instead, it's deliberately obscured by the characters' unwillingness or inability to recount the answer to the reader. The tension's there, but it's sustained by this kind of cop-out forced prolonging cheat. The reader has to push through the pages to get answers, instead of being pulled through them.
It's not a bad book. It's super creative! It'd be great if it said anything with all that creativity. But it doesn't.
All thje cliche would be easier to plow through if the book's overarching mystery - what the hell is going on - were unraveled with any sort of tempo. Instead, it's deliberately obscured by the characters' unwillingness or inability to recount the answer to the reader. The tension's there, but it's sustained by this kind of cop-out forced prolonging cheat. The reader has to push through the pages to get answers, instead of being pulled through them.
It's not a bad book. It's super creative! It'd be great if it said anything with all that creativity. But it doesn't.
October 21, 2014
After a relatively slow start, this book became fascinating. The two main story lines follow Kit Nouveau, an American expatriate living in Tokyo and running an Irish bar with his wife Yoshi; and Lady Neku, a teen runaway or possibly the survivor of an influential family from another timeline. Although I found the theory of different timelines and realities difficult to comprehend (not sure if the theory was not explained fully or I wasn't working hard enough to get it), I still loved the stories. I am still not sure if the author meant Lady Neku's other reality's events to be mirrors of this reality or just a distorted fantasized version of this reality, but it doesn't matter- it's actually more interesting to wonder about it. I really liked both Kit and Neku, and I will be looking for more Grimwood books.
May 7, 2020
A gritty near-future noir story with surreal otherworldly fantasy grafted on
This is basically a dark, gritty crime noir story set in near-future Tokyo, with a very well-developed anti-hero, the self-named Kit Nouveau, who is haunted by the damage he's done to those he loved. Into his world drops an orphaned cosplaying street kid who calls herself Lady Neku, who it turns out is a deadly assassin. So far, the internal logic of the storyline holds up, but when we discover that Lady Neku is actually an immortal, multidimensional being from a strangely surreal distant future, who somehow inhabits the body of the orphan girl (just how is never really explained), that logic begins to fail, and from that point it reads like two entirely separate novels spliced together. Grimwood's characters are well written, and the depiction of Tokyo streets and subcultures is vivid and compelling; the novel's only weakness is the jarring dislocation between the two storylines. Perhaps that is intentional. Anyway, it's worth reading, and I plan to look for his other work.
This is basically a dark, gritty crime noir story set in near-future Tokyo, with a very well-developed anti-hero, the self-named Kit Nouveau, who is haunted by the damage he's done to those he loved. Into his world drops an orphaned cosplaying street kid who calls herself Lady Neku, who it turns out is a deadly assassin. So far, the internal logic of the storyline holds up, but when we discover that Lady Neku is actually an immortal, multidimensional being from a strangely surreal distant future, who somehow inhabits the body of the orphan girl (just how is never really explained), that logic begins to fail, and from that point it reads like two entirely separate novels spliced together. Grimwood's characters are well written, and the depiction of Tokyo streets and subcultures is vivid and compelling; the novel's only weakness is the jarring dislocation between the two storylines. Perhaps that is intentional. Anyway, it's worth reading, and I plan to look for his other work.
December 30, 2017
Truth be told that the book cover is beautiful, but the plot confuses, especially involving a character - Lady Neku. So many questions on my mind, revolving around her.
The book cover was the sole reason that made me purchase the book. A pearlish object on the front cover, which I later found out was a Samurai war helmet, instantly caught my attention. It felt otherworldly, as I moved the book in all directions. The bookstore had only a copy, and I decided to take it home!
There are 66 chapters, quick to read, but hard to digest. The narration is convincing when it takes place in Japan and real locations on Earth. Im even convinced of a talking Castle, but the timeline of the story criss crossing different realities put me in confusion. However, the book didn't fail to entertain. My feelings are mixed with this one.
The book cover was the sole reason that made me purchase the book. A pearlish object on the front cover, which I later found out was a Samurai war helmet, instantly caught my attention. It felt otherworldly, as I moved the book in all directions. The bookstore had only a copy, and I decided to take it home!
There are 66 chapters, quick to read, but hard to digest. The narration is convincing when it takes place in Japan and real locations on Earth. Im even convinced of a talking Castle, but the timeline of the story criss crossing different realities put me in confusion. However, the book didn't fail to entertain. My feelings are mixed with this one.
May 13, 2021
A troubled and damaged former soldier with criminal ties running an Irish pub in Japan gets dragged into a world of trouble when his bar explodes and his wife dies in the fire, and a former lover of his vanishes, presumed dead.
As other reviews note: this really, really feels like two completely separate stories mashed together in a way that just doesn't really work for me. Either story would be stronger on its own without the other distracting from it, I think. It feels like the author might have been going for a "this character is damaged and here's the mythology created to protect themself" thing, but it doesn't really work. I'd have gladly read a whole book about the future world, but the future world bits distracted me from the mystery of Kit and his troubles.
Still, a neat book, but one that would have been great as two books.
As other reviews note: this really, really feels like two completely separate stories mashed together in a way that just doesn't really work for me. Either story would be stronger on its own without the other distracting from it, I think. It feels like the author might have been going for a "this character is damaged and here's the mythology created to protect themself" thing, but it doesn't really work. I'd have gladly read a whole book about the future world, but the future world bits distracted me from the mystery of Kit and his troubles.
Still, a neat book, but one that would have been great as two books.
Read
January 27, 2024Its mad tight in that bath
its notallowed but wanated
in gohstly castle
there hole in memory
is it stolen
its grace of moon walk and talk there
floating rope world
gothic quistion
stoll from ending life
to worm the past
another war dinner
no gift here
fantazy like heart beat
still living throw time
immortal began strangly surreal event
not to pure marshemelo ether
black history to be
scarlet twest throw gap of time
tired to be just me
but me is me
save me
its notallowed but wanated
in gohstly castle
there hole in memory
is it stolen
its grace of moon walk and talk there
floating rope world
gothic quistion
stoll from ending life
to worm the past
another war dinner
no gift here
fantazy like heart beat
still living throw time
immortal began strangly surreal event
not to pure marshemelo ether
black history to be
scarlet twest throw gap of time
tired to be just me
but me is me
save me
April 4, 2024
Not bad. It feels very inspired by Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland & The End of the World but fell flat on its face trying to bridge the 2 settings and stories. Where Hard Boiled's 2 stories and settings felt intentional and their connection made sense by the end of the book, End of the World Blues' 2 settings felt disjointed and didn't really make much sense. The book would have done much better with just Kit's story and served as a good noir detective novel.
March 26, 2025
Excellent sci-fi noir
A really well-written mystery which pulls the reader along while weaving two storylines about a British expat in Tokyo and a mysterious Japanese girl who may also be a princess from a far distant future Earth. Solid characters,settings,and action. For fans of William Gibson and Neal Stephson.
A really well-written mystery which pulls the reader along while weaving two storylines about a British expat in Tokyo and a mysterious Japanese girl who may also be a princess from a far distant future Earth. Solid characters,settings,and action. For fans of William Gibson and Neal Stephson.
October 26, 2019
I've previously read 4 books by Jon Courtenay Grimwood and while I enjoyed them, this was, I feel, the most accomplished of his books that I've read so far. The descriptions of places are vivid and effective, the characters well drawn and the mysteries that drive the plot compelling.
June 2, 2019
Just didn't grab me.
June 14, 2019
Odd mishmash of a book, but stylistically well done, with interesting characters.
April 20, 2020
Compulsively read. Not sure how the future world fit into the story.
November 23, 2020
Great. English bar owner in Japan protects young other dimension girl. Lots of good Japan culture and place.
October 31, 2021
The sci-fi part ruins it, the noir part is whatever.
February 24, 2025
Excellent ride
Highly imaginative plot, strong flow, interesting characters, it's a book William Gibson might enjoy reading, and you would likely as well.
Highly imaginative plot, strong flow, interesting characters, it's a book William Gibson might enjoy reading, and you would likely as well.
July 28, 2013
This is one of my very favorite books. It should be noted that there are aspects of it that require serious suspension of disbelief. The background of Kate O'Malley being a retired crime boss is pretty implausible. That Kit Nouveau, in addition to having dated Kate's daughter, is completely independently of that also screwing the wife of a high level yakuza boss pushes the bounds of coincidence pretty high. To top it off, he has attracted the attention of a girl who has time traveled to Tokyo from the temporal end of the world. It's all a bit much.
And yet, it all hangs together for me. The things Grimwood does well here are so overwhelming that I don't even need to forgive the implausibility. The story is what it is in its whole and that whole is glorious.
Normally I'm not a reader who becomes entranced with the way that language is used. This is not to say that I don't care about it, just that the prose style is something that resides in the background while I read books I enjoy. In most cases if the style becomes something I'm focusing on it means that it is annoying me. And if people who review a book (*cough* The English Patient *cough*) tell me how marvelously stylistic a book's language is, I'm probably going to hate it.
End of the World Blues is that incredibly rare book where I fall in love because of the stylistic things I notice. I often admire Grimwood's writing (though not always) but it all comes together here. The characters are nuanced and poignant. When Kit's one time lover says to him:
It captures Kit Nouveau. And it makes sense.
This is not a time travel story that plays with the idea of people changing their history or struggle with their inability to do so. The ways it plays with cause and effect are very different. The one character who does move through time is missing much of her memory for most of the book.
No, this story is about the delicate lines of causality that weave their way through us. The sheer implausibility of the plot is intended. Any of the threads that hold it together could have snapped. Indeed, all of the infinity of other threads that could have held the story together did break, leaving us only with what we have. No other story Grimwood could have told would have been any less implausible when you broke down all of its particulars.
In many ways this is the quintessential Jon Courtenay Grimwood book. It's focal character is a dissolute man caught somewhere between youth and middle age, trying to shed the irresponsibility of being young as people he feels an obligation to begin to press themselves upon them. Many of the roles are similar. Not only does Kit bear a strong resemblance to Raf from the Arabesk trilogy, but Lady Neku fills the same role as Hani. Other similarities abound.
The way Grimwood uses foreign cultures in fascinating ways. In the Arabesk it was the mix of Arab and Ottoman in an alternate future history. Here it is Japan. Not only is the story grounded in what at the least seems to be a very knowledgeable treatment but it is used to tell us about Kit, trapped between England and Japan as thoroughly as he is caught between past follies and a desire to be responsible. It is not done in a facile way to suggest that all of the answers lie on either side, but rather that the varied virtues and pitfalls of each can bring out the characters.
When Grimwood breaks out of this pattern his stories tend to suffer. But what he does well he does so well that it is a joy to read variations on the theme. So much so that I'm reduced to writing impressionistic reviews of the books that result. I can only hope that it leads the people who would enjoy this book to read it and those who would not to give it a pass.
And yet, it all hangs together for me. The things Grimwood does well here are so overwhelming that I don't even need to forgive the implausibility. The story is what it is in its whole and that whole is glorious.
Yes, she thought, that was it. She was Lady Neku. And suddenly, the girl who became Lady Neku understood she'd never really been anyone else.
Normally I'm not a reader who becomes entranced with the way that language is used. This is not to say that I don't care about it, just that the prose style is something that resides in the background while I read books I enjoy. In most cases if the style becomes something I'm focusing on it means that it is annoying me. And if people who review a book (*cough* The English Patient *cough*) tell me how marvelously stylistic a book's language is, I'm probably going to hate it.
End of the World Blues is that incredibly rare book where I fall in love because of the stylistic things I notice. I often admire Grimwood's writing (though not always) but it all comes together here. The characters are nuanced and poignant. When Kit's one time lover says to him:
"Oh, God," she said, catching her breath. "All that black leather and cynicism and fucked-up back history. And you've still got a heart of pure marshmallow."
It captures Kit Nouveau. And it makes sense.
This is not a time travel story that plays with the idea of people changing their history or struggle with their inability to do so. The ways it plays with cause and effect are very different. The one character who does move through time is missing much of her memory for most of the book.
No, this story is about the delicate lines of causality that weave their way through us. The sheer implausibility of the plot is intended. Any of the threads that hold it together could have snapped. Indeed, all of the infinity of other threads that could have held the story together did break, leaving us only with what we have. No other story Grimwood could have told would have been any less implausible when you broke down all of its particulars.
In many ways this is the quintessential Jon Courtenay Grimwood book. It's focal character is a dissolute man caught somewhere between youth and middle age, trying to shed the irresponsibility of being young as people he feels an obligation to begin to press themselves upon them. Many of the roles are similar. Not only does Kit bear a strong resemblance to Raf from the Arabesk trilogy, but Lady Neku fills the same role as Hani. Other similarities abound.
The way Grimwood uses foreign cultures in fascinating ways. In the Arabesk it was the mix of Arab and Ottoman in an alternate future history. Here it is Japan. Not only is the story grounded in what at the least seems to be a very knowledgeable treatment but it is used to tell us about Kit, trapped between England and Japan as thoroughly as he is caught between past follies and a desire to be responsible. It is not done in a facile way to suggest that all of the answers lie on either side, but rather that the varied virtues and pitfalls of each can bring out the characters.
When Grimwood breaks out of this pattern his stories tend to suffer. But what he does well he does so well that it is a joy to read variations on the theme. So much so that I'm reduced to writing impressionistic reviews of the books that result. I can only hope that it leads the people who would enjoy this book to read it and those who would not to give it a pass.
Sometimes, decided Kit, the only safe choice was to walk away from yourself. So he did.
March 8, 2017
Five stars for creativity and all the new Japanese words I learned.
December 9, 2011
"And just as Kit decided that perhaps it wasn't worth dying for a postcard of Amsterdam, his world exploded into a hurricane of white lace and scarlet silk, the mugger's gunshot going wide as the cos-play spun between Kit and the weapon, knocking it aside. Silver hair shook free and an ivory hair pin punched home, freezing a facial nerve as it ruptured the mugger's eardrum and entered his brain.
Lady Neku is a girl from a dying earth in the distant future, so far away that she doesn't know how far back in time she has come while running away from something terrible and forgotten. But she is also a teenage girl living on the streets of present day Tokyo, who is mysteriously in possession of a suitcase containing millions of U.S. dollars which she stores in railway station lockers. Like Lady Neku, bar owner Kit Nouveau is a runaway, not wanting to face up to his past or his present. He buys Neku a cup of coffee every day as she sits in the street near the Tokyo bar that he owns, and she saves his life when he is mugged in the alley behind his bar.
I have been thinking about how to describe the story without giving too much away, and it is difficult. Apart from the one time that Lady Neku cuts a hole in the air with her knife and disappears through it, nothing overtly unrealistic happens in the parts of the story set in the present day, and it is basically a convoluted tale of gangsters and the need to come to terms with your past. So I will just say that after a couple of narrow escapes from death, Kit Nouveau is advised that it will be safer for him to leave Japan for a while. This coincides with a woman who has always hated him tracking Kit down and asking him to come back to Britain to find the daughter she (or possibly her husband) refuses to believe is dead.
There are many ambiguous deaths in this book; suicides that may be murders or faked; and accidents that may be murders or suicides. Unless I missed something, it is never made clear who hired the original hit man who tried to shoot Kit in the alley. It doesn't seem to have been the Japanese gangsters, so could it have been Kate trying to have him killed but then changing her mind, or was someone else after Kit too? The author doesn't seem to be interested in tying up all the loose ends, so it is left to readers to make up their own minds and the book is none the worse for that.
Lady Neku is a girl from a dying earth in the distant future, so far away that she doesn't know how far back in time she has come while running away from something terrible and forgotten. But she is also a teenage girl living on the streets of present day Tokyo, who is mysteriously in possession of a suitcase containing millions of U.S. dollars which she stores in railway station lockers. Like Lady Neku, bar owner Kit Nouveau is a runaway, not wanting to face up to his past or his present. He buys Neku a cup of coffee every day as she sits in the street near the Tokyo bar that he owns, and she saves his life when he is mugged in the alley behind his bar.
I have been thinking about how to describe the story without giving too much away, and it is difficult. Apart from the one time that Lady Neku cuts a hole in the air with her knife and disappears through it, nothing overtly unrealistic happens in the parts of the story set in the present day, and it is basically a convoluted tale of gangsters and the need to come to terms with your past. So I will just say that after a couple of narrow escapes from death, Kit Nouveau is advised that it will be safer for him to leave Japan for a while. This coincides with a woman who has always hated him tracking Kit down and asking him to come back to Britain to find the daughter she (or possibly her husband) refuses to believe is dead.
There are many ambiguous deaths in this book; suicides that may be murders or faked; and accidents that may be murders or suicides. Unless I missed something, it is never made clear who hired the original hit man who tried to shoot Kit in the alley. It doesn't seem to have been the Japanese gangsters, so could it have been Kate trying to have him killed but then changing her mind, or was someone else after Kit too? The author doesn't seem to be interested in tying up all the loose ends, so it is left to readers to make up their own minds and the book is none the worse for that.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 11, 2022
Interstellar gods managing the leftover refugees of humanity. Our world is nothing than a constructed barrier of safety created by them to allow us life.
Think this book is sci-fi? It is not. This book is a thinly veiled series of structured thoughts showing the smallness of our universe. Everything we know is insignificant. Interestingly enough, everything outside our understanding is also-also insignificant.
From the the Hagakure, The Way of the Samurai -
“Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall there was this one: ”Matters of’ great concern should be treated lightly. Matters of small concern should be treated seriously. Among one’s affairs there should not be more than two or three matters of what one could call great concern. If these are deliberated upon during ordinary times, they can be understood.”
These are ordinary times and the deliberation of concerns will not be fully qualified and resolved until the end of the tale…
This story revolves around, Kit Noveau, an ex-rocker from Ireland. living in Tokyo. he is also ex-military, unable to go home without fear of being arrested for being a deserter, not that he would want to go home.
For ten years he has been married and hiding out in Tokyo. His wife is an introverted world respected pottery artist. His best friend is an Australian biker in hiding, unable to return home himself. Yoshi, Kit’s wife, owns a bar called “Pirate Marys” in a rundown part of Tokyo.
Enter into the story Lady Neku. Neku carries blades and wears costume. Neku is hiding $15 million dollars in a train station pay per day locker. Kit gives her fresh coffee on cold mornings and she feels she owns him more than owes him.
When a homeless man (or an assassin) attacks Kit one morning, Lady Neku leaves a blade in the attacker’s lung, and blood pouring from his body. Soon after she rips a hole in time space and steps through.
Everything else is story, more detective novel than sci-fi fantasy. All the elements of this book meld together into a nice blend of images. It is like reading Murakami lite with a bit of bit of Gaiman and Joe Hill.
Think this book is sci-fi? It is not. This book is a thinly veiled series of structured thoughts showing the smallness of our universe. Everything we know is insignificant. Interestingly enough, everything outside our understanding is also-also insignificant.
From the the Hagakure, The Way of the Samurai -
“Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall there was this one: ”Matters of’ great concern should be treated lightly. Matters of small concern should be treated seriously. Among one’s affairs there should not be more than two or three matters of what one could call great concern. If these are deliberated upon during ordinary times, they can be understood.”
These are ordinary times and the deliberation of concerns will not be fully qualified and resolved until the end of the tale…
This story revolves around, Kit Noveau, an ex-rocker from Ireland. living in Tokyo. he is also ex-military, unable to go home without fear of being arrested for being a deserter, not that he would want to go home.
For ten years he has been married and hiding out in Tokyo. His wife is an introverted world respected pottery artist. His best friend is an Australian biker in hiding, unable to return home himself. Yoshi, Kit’s wife, owns a bar called “Pirate Marys” in a rundown part of Tokyo.
Enter into the story Lady Neku. Neku carries blades and wears costume. Neku is hiding $15 million dollars in a train station pay per day locker. Kit gives her fresh coffee on cold mornings and she feels she owns him more than owes him.
When a homeless man (or an assassin) attacks Kit one morning, Lady Neku leaves a blade in the attacker’s lung, and blood pouring from his body. Soon after she rips a hole in time space and steps through.
Everything else is story, more detective novel than sci-fi fantasy. All the elements of this book meld together into a nice blend of images. It is like reading Murakami lite with a bit of bit of Gaiman and Joe Hill.
August 7, 2008
This author was recommended to me, though not this book. However, when I went to the store to buy the recommended book, it wasn't in stock. This one was, and it looked very intriguing - especially since it's partially set in Japan. (I spent 2 weeks in Japan last year, and was enthralled by the culture.)
The book started out in a good way, throwing us into some circumstances that were not clear, hinting of more information to come as the book unfolds. However, it seemed to take a very long time getting to this information, and in a way, never really did. You are left to decide for yourself what is really going on.
The narrative was quite disjointed, which made some of the plot-lines hard to track, adding to the confusion/ambiguity. Unless you read this in a single sitting, you'll find yourself constantly looking back in the book, to remind yourself of who these people are and what happened earlier. While this may be seen as a failing of the author, I wonder if perhaps it was intentional, to illustrate the disjointed nature of life as he sees it - especially the lives of the characters.
The two main characters are Neku (aka "Lady Neku"), who may be a teen street waif living by her wits or may be a time traveller from the future, and Kit Nouveau, a young British ex-pat who had some disturbing experiences in 'the war' and has a tragic and tangled love life. It was interesting to see how these two characters' lives became entwined, and I felt they were fairly well developed. But, again, the disjointed nature of the narrative and some of the wandering plot lines didn't allow the depths and impact of their relationship to be fully presented.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, but I felt like it fell short of what it could have been. I will probably read another of his books (the one actually recommended by my friend), before I make up my mind on this author.
The book started out in a good way, throwing us into some circumstances that were not clear, hinting of more information to come as the book unfolds. However, it seemed to take a very long time getting to this information, and in a way, never really did. You are left to decide for yourself what is really going on.
The narrative was quite disjointed, which made some of the plot-lines hard to track, adding to the confusion/ambiguity. Unless you read this in a single sitting, you'll find yourself constantly looking back in the book, to remind yourself of who these people are and what happened earlier. While this may be seen as a failing of the author, I wonder if perhaps it was intentional, to illustrate the disjointed nature of life as he sees it - especially the lives of the characters.
The two main characters are Neku (aka "Lady Neku"), who may be a teen street waif living by her wits or may be a time traveller from the future, and Kit Nouveau, a young British ex-pat who had some disturbing experiences in 'the war' and has a tragic and tangled love life. It was interesting to see how these two characters' lives became entwined, and I felt they were fairly well developed. But, again, the disjointed nature of the narrative and some of the wandering plot lines didn't allow the depths and impact of their relationship to be fully presented.
All in all, I enjoyed the book, but I felt like it fell short of what it could have been. I will probably read another of his books (the one actually recommended by my friend), before I make up my mind on this author.
October 26, 2010
End of the World Blues is one of those novels that had great ideas but not always perfect execution - sometimes I thought the plot slowed down more than it should have, but it was still an intriguing read and I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up again. I think I can see why people love Grimwood as an author because he has such a vivid sense of place in his settings and rounded characters. I liked that the novel explored elements of Japanese culture (many of which I recognized). Lady Neku was an interesting character, and I found myself drawn to Kit, the main character as things start getting crazy in the plot progression.
Kit is obviously a flawed individual with his share of problems. This is evidenced even from the beginning of the novel with his relationships in full detail and becomes even moreso when he believes his ex-girlfriend is in danger. Lady Neku simply wants a chance to start again, and as for the rest of the colorful cast of characters in this novel - well, they're just that, colorful. I think overall it was the vivid sense of characterization and ideas that drew me to the novel. It's my first Grimwood novel, so I'm looking forward to seeing what other work is within his pallete.
Overall score: 3/5
Kit is obviously a flawed individual with his share of problems. This is evidenced even from the beginning of the novel with his relationships in full detail and becomes even moreso when he believes his ex-girlfriend is in danger. Lady Neku simply wants a chance to start again, and as for the rest of the colorful cast of characters in this novel - well, they're just that, colorful. I think overall it was the vivid sense of characterization and ideas that drew me to the novel. It's my first Grimwood novel, so I'm looking forward to seeing what other work is within his pallete.
Overall score: 3/5
February 4, 2008
The three stars I gave this book are due to ambivalence rather than a straight measure of quality; some aspects of it were extremely good, some wholly unsuccessful. I'm very fond of cyberpunk novels set present-day, and this did a rare quality job with character development. The secondary thread of the plot, which is either a far future or a delusion in the mind of one of the characters, wasn't very well developed or explained; I think this would have been a much stronger book without it. It also frequently left me asking myself things like "Wait, what the hell is this ?". Despite thumbing back through searching for a number of these references, most weren't apparently elaborated anywhere until *after* the protagonist acts on what he's figured out, or enters an explanatory flashback. Overall I like the style, though, and I'll definitely hold out hope for future works by this author.
July 26, 2016
Jon Courtenay Grimwood is pretty good at confusing me and making me take a step back to think things over, but he's never bored me yet.
This bookd is a whodoneit detective book, fantasy/scifi novel, yakuza/mafia organized crime thriller with a creepy dose of Japanese subculture thrown in for the heck of it.
Now that I have tried, I'd suggest that you don't even try to categorize this book, since it really can't be done. Filled with all the elements mentioned above, along with others that I just can't label, this book takes you to the future (I think), the past (pretty sure of that) with off-planet bits that I still haven't completely figured out and can't mention without tripping the spoiler alarm.
After reading the book, I can completely understand some people just hating it, and I can completely understand some people chucking it after a couple of chapters, but if you like being taken for an interesting, mind-twisting trip, then you might find yourself enjoying the ride.(
This bookd is a whodoneit detective book, fantasy/scifi novel, yakuza/mafia organized crime thriller with a creepy dose of Japanese subculture thrown in for the heck of it.
Now that I have tried, I'd suggest that you don't even try to categorize this book, since it really can't be done. Filled with all the elements mentioned above, along with others that I just can't label, this book takes you to the future (I think), the past (pretty sure of that) with off-planet bits that I still haven't completely figured out and can't mention without tripping the spoiler alarm.
After reading the book, I can completely understand some people just hating it, and I can completely understand some people chucking it after a couple of chapters, but if you like being taken for an interesting, mind-twisting trip, then you might find yourself enjoying the ride.(
June 7, 2013
This book had some trouble holding my attention. I spent the first few chapters just trying to figure out who Neku even was. Sometimes it works to just drop the reader into a book, and sometimes it's just kind of disorienting. Here I found it disorienting. Even once I figured out what was going on, I still felt kind of fuzzy about Neku's world until nearly the end of the book. But maybe that's the point since Neku has lost her memory and is trying to remember what happened. Still, I liked each of the stories that were woven together. Neku's trying to remember what happened to her family nicely mirrored Kit's own quest to find out what happened to his ex who supposedly committed suicide. But there was still something unsatisfying about it at the end. I think because of the dual stories I didn't get quite as much of each of the worlds as I would have liked.
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