DNF. I tried repeatedly to read this book and I just couldnt get into it. It's just not for me. I'm sorry. If/when I finally finish it, i may come back here and revise my review.

The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord
Review by Sam Lubell
Del Rey Hardcover / eBook ISBN/ITEM#: 9780593598436
Date: 29 August 2023

Nowhere on the cover of The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord does it say that this book is the third in a series (at least not on my pre-release ebook). Nor does the Amazon listing mention this. However, this novel follows her The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game in the Cygnus Beta series with some of the same characters. Readers should read those two books first as the author does not summarize them. While the book does have a helpful list of people and places in this series, it is at the end where many readers will not see it until they finish the book.

The novel begins with a coronation and a reception where an ill-prepared emissary claims to be glad the monarch's adoptive brother, currently in Paris, will no longer embarrass the family with his "whims and oddities". It then jumps to the adventures of Owen, a pop star with a mysterious past, and the security team protecting him. Much of this section is focused on Noriko, Owen's manager, and her growing realization that Owen is more than he seems. Owen is actually an alien with empathic powers and other aliens are on Earth to kill him. Although there is an embargo preventing travel to Earth, Owen and other aliens regularly use teleportation transit stations to bypass it.

The book then jumps eleven years to when 22-year-old Kanoa, a citizen of the Federated States of Polynesia, is chosen to be part of a Diplomatic Group of the Global Government Project. The Group's project is a First Contact simulation, using virtual reality, in which the aliens had infiltrated many of Earth's nations. Owen is identified as one of the creators of the simulation. But the simulation suddenly becomes real with a message from the Empress of the Galactic Council speaking directly to Earth, warning that "Your political and corporate bodies have been overrun by vermin from Alpha Lyrae."

Another plotline is the discovery of intelligent life in the depths of Earth's oceans. Kanoa, guided by visions of his father, becomes involved in this investigation since obtaining galactic recognition requires the inclusion of all intelligent life on the planet.

I found The Blue, Beautiful World rather disjointed. The Owen, the pop star, plotline appears, at first, to have only a tenuous connection to the young adults in the Diplomatic Group plotline. (There is a twist late in that plotline that firms up the connection.) And the deep sea creatures and Kanoa's visions seem to come out of nowhere. There is not much action in the book and no real villain. Although there are occasional mentions of Lyran cartels, the reader does not get a sense of who they are and what they want.

Perhaps this book would make more sense to readers of the first two, but I found that it did not sufficiently work by itself. Readers should read The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game before reading The Blue, Beautiful World.

This was an anticipated read for me and, unfortunately, I did not enjoy it as much as I hoped. I will still read from this author again in the future and I'm grateful for the opportunity to read it.

I always love exploring the science fiction worlds that Karen Lord sets up and this is no different. Because I have such strong faith in her as an author I didn't even look at a description and was pleasantly surprised to find out which characters we were following, and to finally see how Earth and its politics play a rule in the cynus beta verse. I love the focus on community and culture in her works and how they are used to problem solve and handle new immerging global issues. Her works do everything I want science fiction to do and with a unique lens and voice we rarely get to hear.

Depending on one’s point of view or reading personality, Karen Lord’s The Blue, Beautiful World could be considered a stand-alone novel within here Cygnus Beta universe of stories, or a more firmly-linked sequel of a series, following The Best of All Possible Worlds (2013) and The Galaxy Game (2015.) While the second and recent third novel of Cygnus Beta are fully comprehensible and enjoyable as isolated works, world-building elements, reappearing characters, and shared themes throughout the series would make each novel easier to unravel on their own and form an appreciation for connections between the parts of the overarching work.

I previously reviewed The Galaxy Game here with a similar overall conclusion, having never read the first Cygnus Beta novel. Looking back at it now, I’m reminded that I really do need to just read the entire series from the start. With some experience of Lord’s novels under my belt, I began The Blue, Beautiful World with more familiarity of what to expect in terms of Lord’s style. And I ended up being able to enjoy and appreciate it more than I had The Galaxy Game. Yet, I know I still haven’t been able to unpack all that there is in the novel or experience the pleasure of the plot’s progression as I likely would by starting at the beginning of the series. Additionally, I’ll note that I’ve now read both of Lord’s novels as ebooks, an experience I’ve found to interfere with my personal ability to engage with a work. Looking back on things I’ve read and reviewed, I find myself picking up on the writing and getting excited about a novel far more frequently with physical books than ebooks.

The ebook ARC version of The Blue, Beautiful World came to me in preparation for an interview with Karen Lord for the Skiffy & Fanty podcast. I obtained and read the novel on a relatively quick time line to be an alternate for the podcast recording, which ultimately Brandon O’Brien and Shaun Duke were able to do. That’s for the best, because they did a stellar job, taking part in a fascinating conversation with Lord about her latest novel and work as a whole. If you end up still being undecided on The Blue, Beautiful World – or starting off the series at its start – do give this interview a general listen. For those who may have already read the novel, there’s some good content to get you thinking more deeply about that experience.

OK – After all this preamble, what is The Blue, Beautiful World actually about and what is the nature of Karen Lord’s writing?

Human civilization continues Earth and the life upon it on a course of profound change, reaching ever closer to a tipping point where the collective, contradictory mix of activism, panic, and indifference will push things into a vastly different reality for better or worse. Adding complexity to this, humanoid life exists on planets orbiting stars relatively close to our Sol, and representatives of these are looking to make official first contact with Earth. Those on Earth remaining in power with knowledge of alien civilization existence and potential influence on Earth stand in tension with the varying goals and interests of those aliens for our planet.

The Blue, Beautiful World begins after a short prologue by introducing Owen, a pop music star whose charisma – and other abilities – command enormous attention and influence over his legions of worldwide fans. Though not explicitly stated, the reader can quickly make the connection of Owen to the exchanges of the prologue set on another planet. While the previous Cygnus Beta novels have been set off-Earth, this one remains on our planet, as its title suggests. Owen becomes involved with a group of similar celebrity influencers and visioneers seeking to prepare humanity for official first contact in all its implications and potential consequences. To say more of the plot would be complicated, and would be detrimental to the key component of Lord’s writing that demands readers to construct things from fragmentary revelation.

Like its predecessors, The Blue, Beautiful World deals with large scale epic events but on a largely intimate level of individual human/humanoid relationships. Also, like those prior entries, it’s an unconventional approach to the space opera genre that is built on suddenly shifting perspectives, focus, and twists of reader expectations. This could be immensely rewarding for certain kinds of readers, and exceptionally frustrating for others. Just as the reader starts becoming familiar with Owen and his wonderfully compelling manager Noriko, the first part of the novel ends and Lord abruptly shifts things in setting and characters, requiring readers to completely reset footing and figure out how what is happening and where connections lie. While focusing intently on the perspectives and interactions among the relatively large cast, Lord conveys many large scale developments to the overall plot briefly, almost as if in passing.

As Lord describes in her interview with Skiffy & Fanty in response to Shaun’s remark over how much The Blue, Beautiful World threw him for a loop, her writing style specifically aims to leave some things unsaid, some things unexplained, because that is how reality is. We’re all here struggling to figure out the universe, and our place it. Her characters and her novels are in that same place. Like us, they are trying to figure out if they are the protagonist of their story or if someone else is, she explains. As a result, Owen is kind of the protagonist of the novel, at least the first part – though maybe it’s more Noriko – then others join in vying for that role.

To summarize the significance of this for a perspective reader, The Blue Beautiful World is a well-written novel of complexity and intelligence, but it’s not a well-written space opera comfort read. It’s demanding. Lord writes beautifully, in that her sentences are rich and evocative, and they can be enjoyed at just that level. But if the reader just starts getting confused regarding the plot or thrown off by shifts in perspective, that beauty can only hold attention so long. But if the reader is down for careful reading, reflection, and appreciation of the novel’s realism, there are few other contenders out there to its power.

As opposed to my read of The Galaxy Game many years back, there were several elements to The Blue, Beautiful World that captured and held my interest even while wishing for a little more constancy and familiarity to keep my bearings. As with the other books of Cygnus Beta, this novel addresses the theme of power, of looking at who gets to make decisions for the planet and its inhabitants. It involves the politics of diplomacy more than I recall from the previous novel, and I enjoyed those threads, particuarly relevant to the first-contact trope of space opera. Adding into that mix, Lord includes a fantastic bit in here regarding how those with vested interest in our planet and intelligence to communicate so might extend beyond the human. With nation-state political powers collapsing and shifting amid the changes to Earth, many of those with historic powers begin to see that influence and control slipping away, with more going out to common citizens who manage to gain attention and influence of the population providing them with the opportunities and responsibilities of celebrity.

Being from the island of Barbados, Lord offers a unique and needed voice to the space opera genre with the Cygnus Beta novels that show how various voices, cultures, and politics come together into interesting possibilities for the future. In some ways the novels are a literary manifestation of that identity of relatively small nation, an intimate population isolated by surrounding sea-space yet firmly connected with a global network.

I’m now eager to finally get that physical copy of The Best of All Possible Worlds and more fully diving into Lord’s work for what I might have missed about it, myself, and this blue orb we live upon.

The overarching theme of this review is that if the novel had 100 more pages and expanded on the world-building and background, this would have been a great read. Unfortunately, after the first 100 pages of the novel, I was left very confused about the main characters, the setting, and the motivations of the characters and the book. If Lord had 100 more pages with more details, I would have loved The Blue, Beautiful World. Still, I needed clarification for most of my time reading it. The concept alone is intriguing, but the execution fell short of my expectations once the perspective shifted in the book's second half.

The characters, specifically Owen and Noriko, ensnared my attention. Yet, Lord didn't have enough time or pages to develop the characters beyond the novel's second half. Also, there were too many characters to keep track of once the second half kicked in, and I was left going back and forth between early chapters to figure out who was who.

Additionally, the ending and most of the novel's second half felt rushed and anti-climatic; thus, once I finished the book, I couldn't believe there weren't more pages! Again, if Lord had been given a couple hundred more pages, The Blue, Beautiful World would have been such a fascinating novel and done the concept justice.

Overly ambitious and lacking in detail, The Blue, Beautiful World had all the makings of an epic sci-fi novel yet fell short of a hundred or so pages.

This is a very gentle, contemplative sci fi novel about first contact, that focuses on what it would take to bring humanity together in a non-violent way to take a place on the galactic stage. There are no battles, no explosions, the stakes are less about control and dominion and more about if Earth/humanity is ready to work with other planets/aliens.

At the same time, if there is a main character of the book, it would be Owen, who is decidedly not human, and has powers that COULD lead to control and dominion, and his struggles to both unite humanity while using his power wisely. Slight character spoilers - Owen shows up in Karen Lord's earlier books, and I think a better, or perhaps just different, approach to this book would be as the final book in a trilogy about Owen's character arc (which I would have liked to do, except it's been too long since I read her earlier books, and I didn't realize who Owen was for a while).

I'd recommend for people who want a more philosophical approach to sci fi, and not for those looking for a fast place, action-oriented scifi plot.

The Blue, Beautiful World by Karen Lord follows The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game but this time takes place almost entirely on Earth, which is unaware that civilizations on other planets have been watching and others interfering to their own advantage; colonialism and post-colonialism are themes throughout these three books. I love sociological science fiction, and Lord’s is marked by expansive worldbuilding that seems far-flung and random at first, with multiple points of view, but gradually coalesces into a fuller picture of a galaxy that includes a range of extrasensory powers and seemingly impossible methods of travel. But Earth, too, has its uniqueness, beyond our current imaginings and even those of the alien beings hoping to shepherd its people into a global government that can help Earth meet its neighbors as equals rather than as a colony. Familiar characters from the earlier books reappear, some in different guises; hope and thoughtful explorations of human interactions remain the same.

This was an interesting book. Because they were talking about things. And then they would change over to this place where everybody's going to and it was a portal to earth. Owen was a pop star and he was traveling around Europe. And you have some problems.. His manager had problems as well. They were trying to her so they kept going to different places to hide. Owen went back to his aunt's house in.
In prague and he really liked it there and he was happy there. He had visions and stuff like that. He would collapse on stage so he took a break. The second part of the book was about a boy who lived on an island in the Pacific. He talked about his father who died and this was quite interesting as well. They went up to this community and it was kind of strange, but they looked at everything that was going on and Earth and this woman who ran it with CHA RYSAS. A. This was the portal and they could see how things were changing On earth. Everybody seemed to meet up there and some people were leaving. Some people were staying but it was kind of interesting how you could take present day and then into the future. That's a very good writer. Because you have 2 stories going on the same time. But they were all connected and you can see this at the end of the book

The first portion of this book was so interesting, it felt like we were being set up for quite a ride. Then I hit the 2nd half and realized there was a whole hell of a lot I'd missed, but it wasn't found in this book.

Turns out this is part of a trilogy, something I wish I'd known before picking this up. Because I missed out on all the world building and relationships, the ending fell flat for me.

Whoever decided to market this as a standalone did a real disservice to what could have been an outstanding series.

An original sci-fi book covering first contact on Earth. Unfortunately, this book was not my cup of tea.

Read THE BLUE, BEAUTIFUL WORLD by Karen Lord if you love virtual reality, student government, first contact, oceans, the intimately familiar, the shockingly unfamiliar, superstars, invasions, adapting, and monsters.

This is a fantastic extension of the Cygnus Beta series. The universe just keeps getting richer & richer, and the characters more & more complex.

First contact has always been something that the people of Earth regarded as a myth. But, to a small, select group, the truth is known. Aliens have been on Earth for a while, gathering intel on the people. With the climate crisis reaching its pinnacle, the aliens have decided to make themselves known. Their emissary is a pop megastar, Owen, who is an alien. Owen has abilities that can unite Earth after first contact. But, there is a dark side to Owen, and it calls to him. Can Owen keep his dark side suppressed to help the people of Earth? Or will that dark side take over and have him become Earth’s dictator?

When I read the blurb for The Blue, Beautiful World, I was intrigued. I like reading science fiction, and seeing that the author would integrate VR technology into the plotline, I wanted to read it. While the book was great in some areas, it was lacking in others, which killed the book for me.

The Blue, Beautiful World is the third book in the Cygnus Beta Series. Readers cannot read this book as a standalone. You must read the first two books to know what is happening in this one. This was a significant issue for me because I read book three first.

I will be blunt: I was not too fond of this book. I found it very hard to follow at the beginning. But, towards the middle of the book, it got better to follow. Not by much, but I wasn’t as lost as in the book’s first half.

I did like the science fiction angle and loved that the author had VR as a significant part of the plotline. It made for exciting reading, even if it did get dry and repetitive at points. I wish the different civilizations (aliens) were introduced at the book’s beginning. There was a brief rundown (around when the Lyraen spies were caught). But nothing was mentioned about any of the races (and there are a bunch of them).

The characters were meh to me. The only one I connected to and liked was Kanoa. All the others (Owen, Noriko, Berenice) either I didn’t like or weren’t as fleshed out as they should be. I also needed clarification on the different names that the same characters went by. It drove me up the wall to discover that what I thought was a singular main character was exactly two (for example, Tareq is two separate people: Kirat and Siha).

The end of The Blue, Beautiful World was different. I had to reread it twice to understand what was going on. And even then, there is going to be a book 2? I needed clarification on that.

I recommend The Blue, Beautiful World to anyone over 21. There is violence and mild language, but no sexual situations.

Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey, NetGalley, and Karen Lord for allowing me to read and review The Blue, Beautiful World.

A little too meandering, unfocused for me. Not enough character development - I never really got a sense of who any of them really were, besides maybe Kanoa. Internet concepts, just not fleshed out enough.

I received a complimentary copy of this excellent sci-fi from Netgalley, author Karen Lord, and publisher Random House Publishing. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read The Blue, Beautiful World of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend Karen Lord to friends and family. She writes of another world, tightly wound and delivered cleanly, peopled with folks you must enjoy. We see our world, for the most part, after first contact with people from other worlds.

That said, there are a LOT of characters in this novel, most with strangely unworldly names, and it was difficult at first to keep them separated in my too-old mind. There is, at the end of the book, a small listing that was tremendously helpful, but unfound until the final page?! Anyway, I loved them all. You will, too. Don't forget the cheat sheets at the end, though. It will simplify your life.

In science fiction, aliens who come to Earth are usually scary and menacing, aspiring to destroy, conquer, or even eat mankind. But the aliens in Karen Lord’s The Blue, Beautiful World (Del Rey, 2023) aren’t interested in conquering or destroying; they’re interested in inviting Earthlings to join a Galactic Council.

It turns out, however, that humans need a little time and training before they’re ready to assume the responsibilities of galactic citizenship. And complicating matters is the fact that humans might not be the only Earth dwellers to receive the aliens’ invitation.

It’s not surprising that water and oceans figure prominently in Lord’s novel. As a Barbadian writer, she has a lifelong respect—and fear—of the water.

“I'm kind of terrified of the ocean,” Lord said. “To give you context, there is literally a part of the island that you can drive to and look around and see three coastlines. But you can't see any other land from any of the coasts. It's an oddly isolating feeling, like you're standing tiptoe on a small rock—and you could tip over and crash into the ocean anytime.

“I love living here, but when something bad goes down, it's like, boom, all of a sudden you realize the ocean is not your natural habitat. It's not making things easy for you. We are very much living on the skin part of land. We don't know the ocean. We don't know the surface of the ocean. We don't know the depths of the ocean. There is a huge level of respect and mystery that the ocean commands.”

The Blue, Beautiful World is Lord's fifth novel. Her previous books are Redemption in Indigo, which received the William L. Crawford and Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. That was followed later by a sequel, Unraveling. While The Blue, Beautiful World is considered a standalone story, it is set in the Cygnus Beta universe, which is where two of her previous books, The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game, are also set.

A number of alien civilizations have been watching Earth and waiting until just the right time to make contact. In the meantime, several influential people on Earth are preparing its inhabitants for that contact.

Owen is a mega pop star. Charyssa is a onetime beauty queen who became a beloved actress and is now an icon. Peter Hendrix is the genius who invented the highly advanced VR technology everyone across the globe is accustomed to using. Charyssa and others are training a council of young adults to be the leaders who can bring Earth together and be ready to work with aliens.

All of these people and their associates are determined to do their best for Earth. But as they work on their projects, some of them have hidden their true backgrounds. Owen, for one, has special gifts and access to others with abilities that aren’t the norm on Earth. And it will take all he has to ensure this newest addition to galaxywide cooperation and communication is treated as it should be.

I did not realize before reading it that The Blue, Beautiful World is set in an existing “universe” created by Karen Lord. There’s nothing to warn readers of that. I’m not sure if it makes a difference if one has read The Best of All Possible Worlds, but I do know that I felt through this entire novel that I was missing something. Many authors take their time giving clues for readers to slowly build up their understanding of the worlds they create, with the rules (for magic or science, etc.) doled out piecemeal.

Usually, those become clear (outside of any “mystery” of a story) by at least the third or half mark, I’ve found. Here, I felt it never became clear. I kept waiting and waiting and realized at about four-fifths of the way that I was waiting for a structure to emerge that never would.

It’s an interesting book and I enjoyed parts of it, but I can’t get past being too confused about the narrative arc.

A new sci-fi novel about first contact in a world that is crumbling. I think this idea had promise, but the book was really short for a sci-fi that I feel like I didn't get that world building I wanted. I also didn't connect a lot with the characters.

Lyrical but there isn't any plot. Karen Lord sets up an Earth where various aliens have been lurking for centuries. Some have good intentions to bring Earth into the intergalactic civilization. Some others want to exploit our resources. That's all great but there is no story here..

As the Earth's climate changes, aliens observe and deem them ready for contact. Leading the charge for first contact are dreamers and changemakers. Peter Hendrix invented the most advanced VR tech. Charyssa is a celebrity with a passion for humanitarian work. Kanoa is a member of a global council hoping to reimagine the relationship between humans and aliens. The group's secret weapon is pop superstar Owen, who uses more than charisma to connect with fans and might help humanity connect with aliens. This gift means others can't control him, and he also feels compelled to use it. What will happen to the rest of humanity?

We open with Owen's tour and his entourage, who interact with Peter and Charyssa due to the work with VR and technology. Peter is aware of Owen's secret, which we learn before some other people he's close to. The First Contact scenario is being studied by the characters, especially the youth. Once we got to their part of the story, about a third of the way through the book, I really lost interest. I wasn't attached to any of the students or their troubles as they acclimated to being on a team and learning about "theoretical" galactic problems. I think part of that is because it came across as very info-dumpy, and I really didn't enjoy that aspect of the book.

This novel is an exploration of technology and humanity, and how people could possibly enter a global stage of development to enter into a galactic alliance. It's always a fascinating concept, which drew me to this novel. For that reason, I wish I enjoyed it more than I did.