Product Description

Kit Nouveau didn't escape himself when he flew to Japan. He runs a bar in the Roppongi district of Tokyo and is having an affair with the wife of a High Yakusa ganglord. All things considered being held up at gunpoint isn't a complete shock. The pale girl in the black cloak appearing from nowhere and punching an ivory spike into the man's head on the other hand . . . Nijie has stolen fifteen million dollars, she's on the run, she's just killed a man and she has a cat who knows more than it should. It's a lot to deal with when you haven't even left school. But Nijie is really Lady Neku. And it is time for her to stop mewling in the darkness. And suddenly, the girl who became Lady Neku understands she's never really been anyone else. And in a sentient castle at the end of world Lady Neku otherwise known as Baroness Nawa-no-ukiyo, Countess High Strange and chatelaine of Schloss Omga realizes that a man called Kit has stolen some of her memories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #461847 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

TRASHOTRON
"Grimwood does suck you in, every time. And he delivers a unique reading experience, every time."

Review
"A slick, exciting contemporary thriller... littered with with dark humour and superb characters, Grimwood writes authoritavely on Japan and evocatively recreates London and the differences in cultures." (STARBURST )

"End of the World Blues would be a dark crime thriller set in the cracks between the mobsters and the darker end of law-enforcement, almost '24' as Tarantino might direct it. The crime drama and characterizations of ageing gangsters going respectable, and ageing coppers bending the rules, are gripping." (STARBURST )

"The New Wave is dead, but don't worry; its leading lights - and with his best novel to date that certainly includes Jon Courtenay Grimwood - are in rude health." (Jonathan Wright SFX )

"A tautly-told crime thriller dripping with atmosphere and fascinating characters. An enigmatic novel that you'll read twice in a row - because you'll want to, because you'll need to." (Dave Golder BBC FOCUS )

"Grimwood does suck you in, every time. And he delivers a unique reading experience, every time." (TRASHOTRON )

"Tokyo is the metaphor for rivalry, redemption and dislocation in Grimwood's latest parallelised sci-fi noir. As a summer page turner, it certainly hits the spot." (EDGE magazine )

"Grimwood has a real gift for emotional extremes and for how it feels to be threatened with the worst things you can imagine. End of the World Blues is the same sort of book as his last, "9 Tail Fox" but only in the sense that they are more like each other than like anything else." (Roz Kaveney TIME OUT )

"Jon Courtenay Grimwood has always written terrific cyber-punk, rooted in an acute sense of place and style. If you've liked anything by Grimwood, you'll love this. If you haven't, begin at once: if he gets any better, someone will have to drive a spike though *his* head." (Andrew McKie THE TELEGRAPH )

About the Author
Jon Courtenay Grimwood is a fulltime writer. He has also been an editor of and writer for various men's magazines. He reviews SF for The Guardian.

Customer Reviews

Grimwood on good form
This follows a familiar Grimwood pattern; two parallel stories, one cyberpunk-flavoured one set in the near-future and a harder science-fiction one set in the far future. Characters connect with both threads, and as always with this writer, it takes a while to figure out quite what's going on and how the two stories connect. Grimwood captures the flavour of street-level Tokyo beautifully and also the less glamourous and cyberpunk South London. There is the usual attention to detail with bands and cultural icons namechecked at appropriate moments. The story is fast paced and is somehow more accessible than one or two of his previous offerings. Some more familiar Grimwood themes are explored as the lead character works through issues of identity, guilt, and commitment. A great read!

Word woose, good but strangely unmemorable
A page turner from Grimwood, with his usual intertwined multi-layered story telling. The two connected stories are a present +20 minutes thriller and a dystopian far future "end of the world". The connection between the two is the schoolgirl Nijie who may or may not carry the memories of a power player from the far end of time.

I liked the conceit that the far future is linked to the near present via threads stronger than mere causality but I question the effectiveness of the dual stories, I found myself rather more intrigued by Nijie's near present story than Lady Neku's far future one and as such I wonder if this is really a Sci-Fi novel at all but more of a contemporary thriller with some Sci-Fi metaphor bolted on in parts.

As such this focus on only one half of the story makes the other rather less memorable to this reader and as such almost fragments the narrative into chunks of interesting thriller spaced by all too forgettable end of time padding.

Cross-genre shenanigans
This is my first experience of John Courtney Grimwood, and it is a positive one. His characters are well rounded, with a particularly good ear for dialogue. He's also keen on cross-genre writing - a concept as a writer I'm in favour of. When mixing genres it's important to maintain the integrity of the story underneath: the mix is nothing without a compelling narrative. End Of The World Blues succeeds, but in spite of this.

In End of The World Blues (henceforth known as EOTWB) we have two parallel stories - one set in modern day Japan and the other in a future version of what appears to be a dying Earth. While the story following Kit, an English bar owner in Tokyo, soon to have a number of live changing events is a conventional thriller, the parallel narrative following Neku, a princess living within a 'sentient' castle in the future, jarrs in its execution.

Yet apart from Neko and her appearance in Kit's life in modern day Japan, these parallel narratives keep a firm distance apart. Barring the odd tweak you could remove the science fiction mix from EOTWB without being any the worse off. The question is: why is it there? My problem with the sci-fi element is not that it's unwelcome, but that less attention has been furnished to the future world than with more conventional real world. Grimwood doesn't give the reader the time to relate to characters in the future earth - each one is weak, unmemorable and for the most part unlikeable, whereupon in the real world each character has depth and and human, modern day interest - that Grimwood has been unable - or unwilling - to translate to the future portion of the novel.

Grimwood is an engaging writer, sharp and witty, yet is subtle enough with his characterisations that cliches are avoided and surprises are unexpected. He puts me in mind of a less romantic Michael Marshall Smith, thin on hyperbole but generous with allowing his characters space. I will look forward to reading more of his work.