Castles Made of Sand

Bold as Love #2

by Gwyneth Jones

The BOLD AS LOVE series is a world of daring, dread and enchantment, a world that could almost be a brilliant combination of myth, magic and pop culture. Ax Preston, Sage Pender and Fiorinda, charismatic leaders of the Rock-n-Roll Reich, have beaten the cascade of disasters that followed the collapse of the former United Kingdom. Now they have to find some resolution to the impossible dynamics of their own relationship, while the world keeps falling apart. There are fearsome things going on in England's rural hinterland, and in Continental Europe the green nazis are planning a final solution to desperate environmental damage. But there's nothing the Triumvirate can't handle - until Fiorinda's father, a monster of the kind the world has never before known, reaches out to reclaim his magical child, the flower-bride. And that's when darkness falls over Ax's England ...Harrowing ...enchanting - a dark fairy tale with an epic sweep, set in a world very like our own.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

464 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 2002

About the author

Gwyneth Jones is a writer and critic of genre fiction. She's won the Tiptree award, two World Fantasy awards, the Arthur C. Clarke award, the British Science Fiction Association short story award, the Dracula Society's Children of the Night award, the P.K.Dick award, and the SFRA Pilgrim award for lifetime achievement in sf criticism. She also writes for teenagers, usually as Ann Halam. She lives in Brighton, UK, with her husband and two cats called Ginger and Milo; curating assorted pondlife in season. She's a member of the Soil Association, the Sussex Wildlife Trust, Frack Free Sussex and the Green Party; and an Amnesty International volunteer.

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Castles Made of Sand is my favourite book in the Bold as Love series and one of my favourite novels of all time. Yet it's quite difficult for me to review. I've already explained the reasons for my love of the series and for rereading now while reviewing Bold as Love. What makes Castles Made of Sand the best, in my view, is the incendiary combination of extremely tense plot and incredible relationship drama. Both are truly epic. Ax, Sage, and Fiorinda attempt to negotiate a poly romance while also dealing with green Nazis, evil wizards, the destruction of the internet, and climate refugees. While the first book establishes the characters, setting, politics, and music brilliantly, this one that really got me in the feelings. The Triumvirate love each other so much!!

As usual, I am much less able to articulate my response to a book when it was predominantly emotional. Rereading for the first time in more than ten years, I found myself still caring intensely about the sufferings and triumphs of the three main characters. Although there are four more books in the series (and perhaps another still to come), the first two form a lovely self-contained narrative with a wholly satisfying conclusion. The first scene of Castles Made of Sand continues the final scene of Bold as Love, so I would definitely recommend reading the two together. Castles Made of Sand rewired my brain when I was 17 and is one of a small handful of books I've kept for more than twenty years. I simply adore it; Gwyneth Jones set the standard that I compare all near-future sci-fi and epic romance to.

[Carol Kerry-Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

As good as I remember it from the first time round, Gwyn Jones' writing is as strong as always, and I still cried in the same places as last time, I'd forgotten enough of the story for some things to come as a surprise again. A brilliant follow on from Bold as Love.

Reread - Feb 2011

[Philip Chaston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading out of sequence but this proved more satisfying than the finale, even though I knew the end of the story. A case of spoilers that didn't spoil. Yet, a series based on the counter-culture of the folk revival extended through the 80s and 90s, now defunct. As such, this becomes an exploration of a time that did not last extended and bitter-sweet as the successive waves have been far worse in their embracing of irrationality. When you think you can replace science through a process of decolonisation, you are on a one way ticket to a dark age. They cite the Cultural Revolution; the truer historical parallel is Christianity and the late Roman Empire. I am on the side of the pagans.

[Sara]

Fire to paganes
in every dark age edg
cold rock princes like me
its not prisoner baby fealing
cultural reveolition move
as tree loaf dance with wind
chake the wild visit
talk to end
start with wind
music fly throw time
even old folk have ther cover
strang scinese hold the gray
still there more

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jones begins this story just minutes after the conclusion to Bold as Love, such that I had to go back and read the last chapter of that book to make sense of this one. Which, to my mind, doesn't happen very often; it made it feel like this was less a sequel, as such, and more a continuation of the same story. As it should be, I think.

*Spoilers here for Bold as Love*

I loved this novel. A lot. Maybe not quite as much as I loved the first one, because that was all bright and shiny and shocking and new... but it's love nonetheless.

I still liked the characters. Fiorinda is a bit more grown up and less annoying baby-rock-princess; still vulnerable (if not as much as the boys think) and spiky with it; she's not my favourite person to read but she is sympathetic. Mostly. Ax, now dictator of Britain in some sense (I found the politics a bit hard to follow, especially figuring out how the rocknroll counter-culture side fit in with the still-existant Westminster government), struggles believably with the difficulties of leadership and relationships. Sage... well, Sage was always going to be my favourite, but/and he gets darker here too. He struggles with love and with science-cum-magic, and with music, too.

The plot... well, it's hard to go into it without being spoilery, which I would like to avoid. But there are metaphorical dragons that our heroes must confront: some political, especially in the form of neo-Celtic pagans who've read a bit too much about maybe-druids and their sacrifices; some personal, both in how to balance one relationship with another and how to balance any relationship with power and expectations. And then there's the people who are actively trying to bring down this counter-culture, for their own political and personal reasons.

Look, it is wonderful. Not without flaws, and not without uncomfortable bits (those two not always the same); but it's a fascinating view of the world and explores some provocative ideas for how to make the world a better place. Also, she brings the magical aspect just a little bit more into view...

For a spoilerific and eye-opening (for me) description of this novel, especially as it relates to Arthurian and medieval fantasy tropes, my hat goes off to the Wikipedia contributors for this novel. Well done indeed.

[Jeanette Greaves · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 2 picks up straight away as Book 1 finishes, mere minutes later. And this is where things start to get very nasty indeed for our three protagonists. Separation and torture are the order of the day, and Fiorinda's reunion with her rapist father is not a pleasant one.

And through it all, I fall for this threesome all over again.

[Lemongrass · Rating 4 out of 5]

How can an idea as lame, strange and dated as that underlying this book and its precursor, Bold as Love, be so moving and endearing?