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Bold as Love #3
Midnight Lamp
Rufus O'Niall is dead and the green nazi occupation has been but at a huge cost to the three extraordinary people who saved England from the dark. Shattered and deeply changed by the sacrifices each of them had to make, Fiorinda, Axe and Sage are in hiding from their friends and fans on the Pacific coast of Mexico when they're tracked down by an emissary of Fred Eiffrich, President of the United States. He's got an offer they can't refuse. It's about a movie, allegedly ...Sage finds himself drawn to an old flame. Ax has to fight dirty, for the future and against the might of a collapsing superpower. And Fiorinda, the magical daughter of the monster, whose memories of utter horror are threatening her sanity, struggles with a deadly addiction. The Bold As Love adventure continues, spinning a web of daring, dread and enchantment, in a world that could almost be ours.
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
1 person is currently reading
92 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 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 16, 2015
Spoilers for the first two books, because it can't be otherwise.
I actually don't think I can write an adequate review of this book without massive spoilers in general - and really, how do you review the third in a series of five, and do justice to it and the characters and everything else?
This series is monumental, and much as I want to rush through and devour the last two I think it is a good idea that I leave a little time between them. Without that space I would just fall into Gwyneth Jones' world and be lost for a while. And I'm not sure that would be entirely healthy, because being like Fiorinda, Ax and Sage is not a healthy place to be. Fi is suffering in the aftermath of the death of Rufus O'Niall and the murky, difficult discovery/growth/development of her ?magical abilities (they're definitely magical, but they're also kinda maybe something else). Sage is in a weird place in the aftermath of Rufus' death and his own experimentation with the Zen State, and is even more conflicted than Fi over the status of his relationship with the other two. And then there's Ax, kinda caught between them and kinda leading them on, reluctant to use his political clout but desperate to change and improve things nonetheless.
This part of the epic is different from the others in being set in Mexico and America, which brings some large changes: for a start, the trio are popular but not idolised; feted but not mobbed. For another, the USA was not affected by the technological losses and massive shifts in attitude that impacted on the UK with Dissolution Summer and the internet viruses, so this feels a bit more familiar, a bit more 'real life'. Which is actually a bit weird when you're used to having the heroes in a recognisably other place. There are also more fractures between the central trio and their band, their merry band, of cohorts - understandable after a few years of high-stress, high-weird life.
Many things happen. There are tragedies, averted and not; there are adrenaline-laced adventures; there are still, reflective moments of contentment. Characters develop and some change a lot.
You have to read the first one, and then you'll probably be hooked.
I actually don't think I can write an adequate review of this book without massive spoilers in general - and really, how do you review the third in a series of five, and do justice to it and the characters and everything else?
This series is monumental, and much as I want to rush through and devour the last two I think it is a good idea that I leave a little time between them. Without that space I would just fall into Gwyneth Jones' world and be lost for a while. And I'm not sure that would be entirely healthy, because being like Fiorinda, Ax and Sage is not a healthy place to be. Fi is suffering in the aftermath of the death of Rufus O'Niall and the murky, difficult discovery/growth/development of her ?magical abilities (they're definitely magical, but they're also kinda maybe something else). Sage is in a weird place in the aftermath of Rufus' death and his own experimentation with the Zen State, and is even more conflicted than Fi over the status of his relationship with the other two. And then there's Ax, kinda caught between them and kinda leading them on, reluctant to use his political clout but desperate to change and improve things nonetheless.
This part of the epic is different from the others in being set in Mexico and America, which brings some large changes: for a start, the trio are popular but not idolised; feted but not mobbed. For another, the USA was not affected by the technological losses and massive shifts in attitude that impacted on the UK with Dissolution Summer and the internet viruses, so this feels a bit more familiar, a bit more 'real life'. Which is actually a bit weird when you're used to having the heroes in a recognisably other place. There are also more fractures between the central trio and their band, their merry band, of cohorts - understandable after a few years of high-stress, high-weird life.
Many things happen. There are tragedies, averted and not; there are adrenaline-laced adventures; there are still, reflective moments of contentment. Characters develop and some change a lot.
You have to read the first one, and then you'll probably be hooked.
April 7, 2024
It’s the end of the world. The environment is crashing, the markets are in freefall, populations are on the move, social disorder and anarchy are breaking out all over. Who do you want in charge? Who’ll ride in to save the day? Politicians? Action heroes? Or rock stars? Rock stars? Good answer. Welcome to the world of Dissolution Summer. The United Kingdom has broken apart and Europe is spiralling into chaos. In Bold As Love, an unlikely Triumvirate of activist rock stars emerged to shepherd England through a series off all-too plausible crises: waif-like witch Fiorinda, wild-boy punk coder Sage ‘Aoxomoxoa’ Pender and dictator-in-waiting Ax Preston. In Castles Made of Sand, our three heroes confront the new realities of their own unorthodox relationship and a world where technological advance and magic have become intermingled.
The current volume sees the trio, ousted from power, bumming and birdwatching on a beach in Mexico, recovering from their traumatic battle with Fiorinda’s appalling father, Rufus O’Niall. Sought out at the behest of the President, they are brought to Hollywood under the pretext of helping promote a film recounting their exploits in England. In reality, the three are hunting for the emergent ‘Fat Boy,’ a human magical weapon powered by an unholy union of scientific research into human fusion consciousness and radical Celtic eco-warriors who practice human sacrifice. Fiorinda is the key to finding the magician, but her fragile psyche is giving way to full-blown schizophrenia, a condition that could lead her straight into the clutches of their enemies.
It’s odd that something with a premise that sounds like a rather cuddly fantasy adventure thriller with heroes straight out of a Hanna Barbra cartoon – magic rock stars team up to fight evil, crime! With lovable cartoon animal! - should succeed so well in being real. First of all, any vestige of wish-fulfilment has been ruthlessly burned away. Sure, in one sense it’s about flamboyant pop-stars wielding music, magic and science to save the world, but in another way it’s nothing like that at all. The world is never saved. Dictator Ax negotiates half-measures, compromises and sellouts and still barely manages to hold things together. Magic, though rare, is hated and feared for excellent reasons. Very often, the only thing that remains constant is their music. Jones keeps her world fully grounded in science, managing to incorporate magic as a function of the world’s breakdown into irrational conflict and superstition. There are no easy answers or straightforward solutions, just tiny, incremental bits of good in the face of a massive landslide of bad. It helps enormously that Jones is an incredibly good writer, who never lets melodrama infect her style or language. She dissects the group dynamics of her three protagonists with the same cool, level tone of voice she uses to depict an assault on a group of Celtic fringe lunatics barricaded in a ghost town.
With two more books to go, this series has gone from compelling to riveting to incandescent. Fiorinda, Sage and Ax are real enough to step off the page, so much so, in fact, that in the first book it’s difficult to keep track of the large cast of supporting characters. Their conflicts, dilemmas and suffering become our own, as do their joys and epiphanies. The grim realities of a future where all our barricades finally gave way is immediate and, frankly, terrifying. We’d better pray that Ax, Fiorinda and Sage are there to save us. Otherwise we’ll just have to bloody well do it ourselves.
The current volume sees the trio, ousted from power, bumming and birdwatching on a beach in Mexico, recovering from their traumatic battle with Fiorinda’s appalling father, Rufus O’Niall. Sought out at the behest of the President, they are brought to Hollywood under the pretext of helping promote a film recounting their exploits in England. In reality, the three are hunting for the emergent ‘Fat Boy,’ a human magical weapon powered by an unholy union of scientific research into human fusion consciousness and radical Celtic eco-warriors who practice human sacrifice. Fiorinda is the key to finding the magician, but her fragile psyche is giving way to full-blown schizophrenia, a condition that could lead her straight into the clutches of their enemies.
It’s odd that something with a premise that sounds like a rather cuddly fantasy adventure thriller with heroes straight out of a Hanna Barbra cartoon – magic rock stars team up to fight evil, crime! With lovable cartoon animal! - should succeed so well in being real. First of all, any vestige of wish-fulfilment has been ruthlessly burned away. Sure, in one sense it’s about flamboyant pop-stars wielding music, magic and science to save the world, but in another way it’s nothing like that at all. The world is never saved. Dictator Ax negotiates half-measures, compromises and sellouts and still barely manages to hold things together. Magic, though rare, is hated and feared for excellent reasons. Very often, the only thing that remains constant is their music. Jones keeps her world fully grounded in science, managing to incorporate magic as a function of the world’s breakdown into irrational conflict and superstition. There are no easy answers or straightforward solutions, just tiny, incremental bits of good in the face of a massive landslide of bad. It helps enormously that Jones is an incredibly good writer, who never lets melodrama infect her style or language. She dissects the group dynamics of her three protagonists with the same cool, level tone of voice she uses to depict an assault on a group of Celtic fringe lunatics barricaded in a ghost town.
With two more books to go, this series has gone from compelling to riveting to incandescent. Fiorinda, Sage and Ax are real enough to step off the page, so much so, in fact, that in the first book it’s difficult to keep track of the large cast of supporting characters. Their conflicts, dilemmas and suffering become our own, as do their joys and epiphanies. The grim realities of a future where all our barricades finally gave way is immediate and, frankly, terrifying. We’d better pray that Ax, Fiorinda and Sage are there to save us. Otherwise we’ll just have to bloody well do it ourselves.
August 29, 2020
The only bad thing about getting books by Inter-Library Loan is that if you put a loan on a series, it is guaranteed that you will get them all in the wrong order. This is the case with Midnight Lamp, which is the third book in the “Bold as Love” series, but which I have read second after the first book. Fortunately, this is not a major problem in following the plot, since the events of the second book are gone over in outline since the characters are currently recovering from said events.
Our Heroes are hiding out in Mexico after a series of extremely traumatic events that have left Fiorinda and Sage transformed, and in Fiorinda’s case, emotionally unstable. (Okay, truthfully that should be “more emotionally unstable” since she was already unstable to begin with.) As a result of the traumatic events, they are having an extended vacation. They are approached by a guy named Harry Lopez, who wants to make a movie about them. They are not really interested, but are drawn in because the U.S. President Fred Eiffrich needs their help.
Apparently, there is a group of people attempting to work “effective magic.” This group of people are apparently affiliated in part with “the Celts” an organization of pagan fascists who are the primary reason why Our Heroes are vacationing in Mexico. The method of “effective magic” being used involves human sacrifice (I was very strongly reminded of David Brin’s “Thor Meets Captain America” though in this case there are no inhuman entities masquerading as gods, just insane magic users) the situation is escalating and the President is understandably worried about an “It’s a Good Life” scenario (that is to say, an insane magic user doing horrible things with reality just because he/she/they can).
So the trio decide to go to California. Unfortunately, they spend most of the time getting the run around, and occasionally insulted by slightly stupid yet well-meaning Presidents. (Fred sticks his foot in his mouth up to his knee when he fails to catch on to the fact that the Trio are in a relationship with each other.) Then Fiorinda turns up missing, and Sage and Ax have to head out and rescue her before something horrible happens.
While I did like the book, and the continuing interactions between Sage, Fiorinda and Ax, I was not very fond of the “pagans are evil at worst and flaky twits at best,” theme. There were also some attacks concerning Vodou in that they were lumped in with the “pagans” and Satanists that were committing human sacrifice. (While the writer is very fair-minded toward many other religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, she seems to draw the line at Vodou, and pagan revivalist faiths.)
Our Heroes are hiding out in Mexico after a series of extremely traumatic events that have left Fiorinda and Sage transformed, and in Fiorinda’s case, emotionally unstable. (Okay, truthfully that should be “more emotionally unstable” since she was already unstable to begin with.) As a result of the traumatic events, they are having an extended vacation. They are approached by a guy named Harry Lopez, who wants to make a movie about them. They are not really interested, but are drawn in because the U.S. President Fred Eiffrich needs their help.
Apparently, there is a group of people attempting to work “effective magic.” This group of people are apparently affiliated in part with “the Celts” an organization of pagan fascists who are the primary reason why Our Heroes are vacationing in Mexico. The method of “effective magic” being used involves human sacrifice (I was very strongly reminded of David Brin’s “Thor Meets Captain America” though in this case there are no inhuman entities masquerading as gods, just insane magic users) the situation is escalating and the President is understandably worried about an “It’s a Good Life” scenario (that is to say, an insane magic user doing horrible things with reality just because he/she/they can).
So the trio decide to go to California. Unfortunately, they spend most of the time getting the run around, and occasionally insulted by slightly stupid yet well-meaning Presidents. (Fred sticks his foot in his mouth up to his knee when he fails to catch on to the fact that the Trio are in a relationship with each other.) Then Fiorinda turns up missing, and Sage and Ax have to head out and rescue her before something horrible happens.
While I did like the book, and the continuing interactions between Sage, Fiorinda and Ax, I was not very fond of the “pagans are evil at worst and flaky twits at best,” theme. There were also some attacks concerning Vodou in that they were lumped in with the “pagans” and Satanists that were committing human sacrifice. (While the writer is very fair-minded toward many other religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, she seems to draw the line at Vodou, and pagan revivalist faiths.)
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 26, 2011
Though the third in the series, this was the first in the Bold as Love quintet that I read the 1st year I was a Clarke Award judge, didn't have the time then to go back and read the first two - and though I've just re read those again recently (in the right order this time), this one for me, still stands out as being the strongest. In this novel, Gwyn Jones shows her characters as flawed human beings, Ax, Sage and Fiorinda were all damaged in some way by the events of Castles Made of Sand, and throughout Midnight Lamp they begin to pull themselves free of that damage and to believe they can build a life together.
there are fun bits in here as well, virtual hollywood, where actors have been replaced with avatars, the semi AI car rugrat.
I now have books four and five on order, I've never read those ones and am looking forward to them.
Reread - Feb 2011
there are fun bits in here as well, virtual hollywood, where actors have been replaced with avatars, the semi AI car rugrat.
I now have books four and five on order, I've never read those ones and am looking forward to them.
Reread - Feb 2011
May 11, 2025
A re-read, probably number 3 for this book. It gets better every time.
Our trio is back together, fragile but united. Fiorinda is terrified of her powers and traumatised by the torture and barely averted execution that she was subjected to, Sage is recovering from a near fatal injury, and Ax is struggling to get his mojo back after being kidnapped, raped, and kept captive for a year. They're laying low, and being very gentle with each other.
Can this last? Of course not, they're figureheads and rallying points, and it's not long before they're summoned by the President of the USA to help him deal with some home grown neuronautical terrorists.
The Triumvirate get the old bands back together under cover of a Hollywood film about the UK Countercultural Revolution, and do their very best to track down the Big Bad.
Hard to put down. Bewitching. Gorgeous.
Our trio is back together, fragile but united. Fiorinda is terrified of her powers and traumatised by the torture and barely averted execution that she was subjected to, Sage is recovering from a near fatal injury, and Ax is struggling to get his mojo back after being kidnapped, raped, and kept captive for a year. They're laying low, and being very gentle with each other.
Can this last? Of course not, they're figureheads and rallying points, and it's not long before they're summoned by the President of the USA to help him deal with some home grown neuronautical terrorists.
The Triumvirate get the old bands back together under cover of a Hollywood film about the UK Countercultural Revolution, and do their very best to track down the Big Bad.
Hard to put down. Bewitching. Gorgeous.
December 7, 2013
A particularly enjoyable Gwyneth Jones book - her books are always intelligent and thought-provoking, but not necessarily a comfortable read. However this, while challenging in many respects, had me loving her central characters immediately, and following their story was a pleasure. Now I need to go back and read the first two books in the series, to understand their backstory properly!
February 5, 2023
Somehow I end up reading a book from the Bold as Love sequence on holidays. This is book 3 and the characters and setting is growing on me. It's important to be at rest for these books I find. Midnight Lamp has a nicely plotted story and the Triumvirate can't be trusted to share all they suspect or know with the reader, but that's fine. I love them the way they are.
October 1, 2012
It was OK. Apparently the last in a series but I read it cold. It was engaging enough to see it thru to the end.
Drugs and Sex and Rock and Roll. Throw in magic.
Chop Wood, Draw water was a theme that was carried through.
August 24, 2010
Wish I had read the first book as well. Great premise, excellent writing. I will probably read the first one as this one was so good.
November 23, 2020
Ok follow-up to Bold as Love. Got a bit boring and didn't finish it.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews