Song of Time [Hardcover]

Ian R. MacLeod (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Near the end of the twenty-first century, an old woman in Cornwall rescues a nude young man from the ocean, somehow dragging him from the beach to her well-appointed house. She is a world-famous violinist, who, despite having taken full advantage of life-prolonging therapeutics, knows death is near. He is obviously educated but lacks all personal knowledge. She calls him Adam. It suits her needs to reminisce and his to listen. Her remembrances are punctuated by daily life with Adam until she has told him all. Her colorful, eventful life almost distracts us from the exceptional tumult amid which it is lived. Her brother, more musically gifted than she, dies young. Her mother becomes, after her son’s and husband’s sudden deaths, a world-famous, tireless humanitarian. Her glamorous husband’s conducting career never recovers after a trumpeted world premier is upstaged by natural disaster. Yet brother, mother, and husband all are victims of macroevents that we in 2008 look on as dreaded possibilities but that she treats as only so much context. Another book, equally fascinating, could be written just to fully describe and explain MacLeod’s envisioned twenty-first century. This book forefronts a personal story within that vision and artfully suggests that, in human terms, the personal trumps the historical every time. --Ray Olson

Product Details

• Hardcover: 302 pages
• Publisher: PS Publishing; Limited ed edition (September 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1906301212
• ISBN-13: 978-1906301217
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,533,698 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Complex Song, December 4, 2011

By 

Mike Fazey (Perth, Western Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Song of Time (Hardcover)

Song of Time is essentially a future history of the 21st century told through the reminiscences of the protagonist, Roushana Maitland, a former concert violinist who is nearing the end of her 100 year life. I love speculative fiction, and Song of Time is certainly that, but it's also something more. The big picture social, political and environmental upheavals of the 21st century make a fascinating (and plausible) backdrop to the very personal issues that confront Roushana as she reflects on family, career, love, sexuality, loss and meaning - the stuff that shapes all our lives and that we laugh and cry and muse over, and never quite understand. As an acclaimed musician, she has certainly led an interesting and privileged life, but while her fame and fortune have in some ways insulated her from the ructions of the 21st century, they have not necessarily given her an easy life.

And then, there's the mysterious visitor who is washed up on the shore near her house with no memory of who he is or where he has come from - another fascinating dimension to this multi-faceted novel.

It's clear that, as her body fails, Roushana is considering making the transition to some form of non-corporeal existence. Neither the nature of this transition nor the technology that makes it possible are ever explained in the novel, and I quite liked that. Writers like Greg Egan and Robert J Sawyer have explored this territory before, so I don't think the novel lost anything by not providing more detail. Indeed, I think the absence of detail made the concept of transition darker, more mysterious, more frightening, which is how it must seem to Roushana.

Song of Time is an ambitious, serious novel within a framework of speculative fiction. I loved it. It deserves a much larger audience that it has had so far (the only edition published to date was limited to 500 copies), so I hope a paperback edition is on the cards in the not-too-distant future.

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Award Winner, May 1, 2009

By 

Micaela Ayers "Librarian" (El Dorado, KS, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Song of Time (Hardcover)

Song of Time by Ian R. MacLeod was named winner of the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award for best science fiction novel at the award's official ceremony during the opening celebrations of this year's SCI-FI-LONDON Film Festival.

"Set in a near-future England, Song of Time is a rich and subtle novel that couples themes of memory and identity with well crafted and all too human characters," said Paul Billinger, chair of the judges.

From "Shelf Awareness" May 1, 2009- [...]