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Kit Nouveau lives in Tokyo, running the Irish pub Pirate Mary’s, and is married to a very famous Japanese potter. She is so famous that there are those in Japan who think he shouldn’t be married to her. Kit is a refugee from his past, which involves the daughter of a crime lord, the death of a good friend, and his career in the military as a sniper. He crosses paths with a teenage runaway calling herself The Lady Neku and she saves his life. There is some kind of connection between Neku, her life on High Strange, and Kit’s past. High Strange is where Lady Neku comes from, and where she periodically returns – not that I was ever totally clear on all of this while I was reading the book. But it didn’t matter. I kept reading because Grimwood’s story was too interesting to quibble about that kind of thing. Kit is having an affair with the wife of a Japanese crime lord; his bar is torched; his wife dies in the fire. He returns to England, with Neku in tow. Things don’t get any less complicated in England. All the while, Neku is dealing with her own very bizarre family on High Strange. She is the only girl, with three brothers and a mother who makes icicles look positively fiery. There is an arranged marriage with the scion of her family’s political rivals. There is a castle that talks to Neku. Very strange. END OF THE WORLD BLUES won the British Science Fiction Association Award and I can see why. The contemporary setting provides a stunning contrast to the futuristic High Strange, although the similarities in the undercurrents of both worlds are thought-provoking. Kit’s past has made him the man he is today (no surprise there) but how he deals with his past when it’s forced back into his life demonstrates the possibility that there is hope for redemption after all. Neku’s world perhaps refutes that hope in terms of the long haul, but maybe not. Grimwood has made me want to read science fiction again, after a very long hiatus. He’s a talented man.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, October 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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