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Bold as Love #4
Band of Gypsys
The riveting new instalment in Gwyneth Jones's award-winning 'Bold As Love' saga. Ax Preston, former dictator, returns to England; he's agreed to take up the job of Green President. At close quarters he finds some outrageous details in the contract, so the Triumvirate decamps for Paris, to sit out the first hard winter after the A team destroyed crude oil in ostentatious poverty. He's quite certain he can negotiate a better deal. But while Ax and Sage and Fiorinda are embarassing the English government, over conditions in the new slavery labour camps, bad things are happening for the President of the USA. Fred Eiffrich's enemies in Washington are about to drop a bombshell, one that will shatter any hope of a return to former realities, former certainties. What happened at Lavoisier is not over. It's coming back, it's never going to end. Not while Fiorinda lives ... or her child.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
1 person is currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Gwyneth Jones
149 books108 followersGwyneth 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.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 26, 2011
Another excellent outing in the Bold as Love quintet, this book certainly stands up to the earlier three and more. The Triumverate in diversity, living in Paris with hardly any money, only what Ax can earn busking, as a protest agains the 2nd chamber's introuduction of labour camps in England; they return to the country for Ax to take up his presidency to try and help protect the people. As the novel goes on, it becomes clear that this time the Rock n Roll Reich isn't going to come through, and as Ax, Sage and Fiorinda are held under house arrest, the Chinese are plotting an invastion.
Reread - Feb 2011
Reread - Feb 2011
November 25, 2016
Apparently autumn is when I read Gwyneth Jones's Bold As Love series; I can't remember when I read the first one, but I vividly remember finishing the second in a holiday cottage with a stunning view over Hastings harbour very early one morning exactly ten years ago this week (I know it was then, because we'd gone there to celebrate ten years together). I read the third last year and finished it the evening of the Paris attacks, and somehow, even though I thought I wanted something cosy and calming to drive away the fears the current state of the world have provoked, when I was flipping through the books on my Kindle last week trying to decide what to read it just felt like time to read the fourth.
I really like the series; a retelling of Arthurian legend (with, I think, a particularly strong nod to the Arthur of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Lantern Bearers and Sword at Sunset) disguised as, or transfigured into, a near-future sf fable about what might happen as the world of the twentieth century disintegrates. For a series first published between 2001 and 2006 it still feels like a remarkably plausible vision of the future (unlike her 1991 White Queen, which I also read last year and which is set in a 2038 where people still use fax machines and there's no internet), and I like her rockstar-turned-politician characters, both the central trio and the supporting cast. And actually, even though the series is about civilisation falling apart as the world collapses into a new dark age, I don't find the books dark and depressing; the world in Band of Gypsys has moved a long way from the not-very-different-to-now world of the first book (in some ways it felt as though it was set much further from "now"), generally not in any good ways, and there are deaths and destruction and unhappiness, but there's also sunlight and the English countryside and love and friendships and small acts of kindness, and the overall effect is somehow uplifting and hopeful despite the horrors of the setting.
The books are out of print at the moment, but cheap Kindle editions are available, and although I have paperbacks of the first three I bought Kindle copies of the later ones, and would advise anyone tempted to do the same thing to seek out secondhand paper copies instead - I have never read such a dreadfully formatted Kindle book, not even free editions of classics (well, there was the copy of Linda Grant's When I Lived In Modern Times which kept insisting that it was entirely in italics, but apart from that).
I really like the series; a retelling of Arthurian legend (with, I think, a particularly strong nod to the Arthur of Rosemary Sutcliff's The Lantern Bearers and Sword at Sunset) disguised as, or transfigured into, a near-future sf fable about what might happen as the world of the twentieth century disintegrates. For a series first published between 2001 and 2006 it still feels like a remarkably plausible vision of the future (unlike her 1991 White Queen, which I also read last year and which is set in a 2038 where people still use fax machines and there's no internet), and I like her rockstar-turned-politician characters, both the central trio and the supporting cast. And actually, even though the series is about civilisation falling apart as the world collapses into a new dark age, I don't find the books dark and depressing; the world in Band of Gypsys has moved a long way from the not-very-different-to-now world of the first book (in some ways it felt as though it was set much further from "now"), generally not in any good ways, and there are deaths and destruction and unhappiness, but there's also sunlight and the English countryside and love and friendships and small acts of kindness, and the overall effect is somehow uplifting and hopeful despite the horrors of the setting.
The books are out of print at the moment, but cheap Kindle editions are available, and although I have paperbacks of the first three I bought Kindle copies of the later ones, and would advise anyone tempted to do the same thing to seek out secondhand paper copies instead - I have never read such a dreadfully formatted Kindle book, not even free editions of classics (well, there was the copy of Linda Grant's When I Lived In Modern Times which kept insisting that it was entirely in italics, but apart from that).
May 13, 2025
I stayed up until 1 am to finish this one.
This is one of the slower books in the series, but it's still satisfying. The Triumvirate have been persuaded to return to England, with Ax to take up the Dictatorship again. Spooked by evidence of the machinations of their enemies, they make a detour and spend a while doing baseline poverty reality TV in a cold Paris garret whilst friends and allies join them in France to plan their next steps.
As always, once back in England, they walk a fine line, implementing their plans to care for as much of the population as possible whilst keeping some freedom for themselves. Of course, their resistance makes their enemies hate them even more, and a long ago slight of a journalist by Sage comes back to bite all three on the arse. Last time, Fio was accused of witchcraft. This time, the lads are accused of lycanthropy.
They survive, make a deal, and end up living the dream. Well, their dream anyway. Everything is going well. And then the world changes. Again.
This is one of the slower books in the series, but it's still satisfying. The Triumvirate have been persuaded to return to England, with Ax to take up the Dictatorship again. Spooked by evidence of the machinations of their enemies, they make a detour and spend a while doing baseline poverty reality TV in a cold Paris garret whilst friends and allies join them in France to plan their next steps.
As always, once back in England, they walk a fine line, implementing their plans to care for as much of the population as possible whilst keeping some freedom for themselves. Of course, their resistance makes their enemies hate them even more, and a long ago slight of a journalist by Sage comes back to bite all three on the arse. Last time, Fio was accused of witchcraft. This time, the lads are accused of lycanthropy.
They survive, make a deal, and end up living the dream. Well, their dream anyway. Everything is going well. And then the world changes. Again.
January 10, 2012
It was interesting, but not nearly as good as her other books. Two of the main characters have very similar last names, so I could never keep track of who's whom when they referred to them or to their families by last name. Also, character A's nickname sounds a lot like char B's first name, so I assumed it was char B's nickname for half the book. Very confusing.
The biggest problem, however, is that the story has a "to be continued" type ending, with no indication that there's going to be a continuation. Goodreads generally puts a #1, #2, etc. after the titles of books that have more than one part. Since 'Band of Gypsys' doesn't have a number, I'm assuming there's no sequel.
The ending was a great ending for a chapter, but not for the book, since only one minor plot-thread was wrapped up. The main plot, and a bunch of other minor plot-threads are never resolved; the story essentially ends in the middle.
The biggest problem, however, is that the story has a "to be continued" type ending, with no indication that there's going to be a continuation. Goodreads generally puts a #1, #2, etc. after the titles of books that have more than one part. Since 'Band of Gypsys' doesn't have a number, I'm assuming there's no sequel.
The ending was a great ending for a chapter, but not for the book, since only one minor plot-thread was wrapped up. The main plot, and a bunch of other minor plot-threads are never resolved; the story essentially ends in the middle.
January 23, 2013
I'll admit I wasn't sure where Jones had left to go with this sprawling post-Arthurian political rock opera, but she's again surpassed my expectations.
The whole books ups the stakes, but the last third especially is a game changer. The writing in the penultimate chapter is particularly impressive.
The whole series appears to be pout of print, which is a damned shame.
Bring on the final book.
The whole books ups the stakes, but the last third especially is a game changer. The writing in the penultimate chapter is particularly impressive.
The whole series appears to be pout of print, which is a damned shame.
Bring on the final book.
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August 23, 2008isbn,original
January 6, 2015
couldnt follow it.. nowhere on book did it say part of series... worked it out part way through.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews