Bold as Love

Rock and roll rules in British author Jones's Arthur C. Clarke Award–winning novel, the first of a four-book series. In the near future, the U.K. is dissolving and the government, to placate the masses, sets up a "Countercultural Think Tank," including some of the biggest names in pop music and headed by the Ozzie Osborne–like Pigsty Liver. After much publicity and a series of government-sponsored music festivals, however, the egomaniacal Pigsty murders the home secretary and takes over the government. Soon various members of his rock-star cabinet find themselves struggling to make order out of chaos and prevent an ethnic bloodbath. Though the story starts out like dark cyberpunk, it gradually modulates into something much stranger as characters find their hidden powers and take on the attributes of Arthurian fantasy. References to Jimi Hendrix and other '60s and '70s rockers abound. Jones's vision is unremittingly dark and her basic premise may strike some as a bit silly, but this novel packs considerable power. Agent, Emma Sweeney at Harold Ober Associates. (Oct.)