alastair reynolds is one of my favourite science fiction writers, an astrophysicist by trade, his books balance the fiction with the science but above all else he is a story teller.
blue remembered earth is the first of what could be a series, slightly more optimistic than his other books and set in a world where africa is the dominant space faring nation. all war and violence and crime is obsolete through an artificial construct called the mechanism. 
after the death of the family matriarch eunice, grandchildren geoffrey (an elephant researcher) and sunday (a sculptress who lives on mars) are sent on a quest to uncover a mystery left behind by eunice that will change the course of human history. 
essentially the novel takes us on this journey through various environments and cultures, as the siblings solve the mystery they are sent off earth and under the ocean and eventually space itself. 
like all reynolds books it's fantastic, well written and very imaginative. i loved reading this, took me a week or two but it was worth the effort and i couldn't turn the pages fast enough towards the end as the puzzle seemed to converge. i was particularly struck by the panspermists who gene splice their bodies and have an underwater empire and technology that is in harmony with nature. i also liked the elephant human mind link in amboseli national park, a place i travelled through a few years back and have very fond memories of.