Crime-lit Rebrand

Elysium Fire, Alastair Reynolds

A return to Reynolds' Revelation Space series, and an unexpected sequel to a previously standalone novel, The Prefect. That was an enjoyable and superior tangent to the main sequence of novels, but with this it seems that a rebranding as science fiction / crime crossover is in the offing. Not unwelcomely, and though it's not as novel as its predecessor, it's still pleasant to be back in the company of Dreyfus and his hyperpig deputy, Sparver. The tale itself, centred around depravity in elite circles and control of the democracy of its setting, Yellowstone and the Glitter Band, has some surely-intended Brexit echoes, and it fairly ticks along. But it's a little short-changed by its lazy use of the twins cliché, and its sidelining of key storylines from the earlier novel that also underscore the lower stakes this time around. But solid Reynolds.

Back to the Glitter Band

Another posting, another science fiction novel. The Prefect is a further Alastair Reynolds novel, again set within his Revelation Space universe, albeit at an earlier point in its history. While the last of his novels that I reviewed, Chasm City, took place against the backdrop of a ruined Glitter Band, Reynolds' The Prefect takes place at an earlier time when the Band is still fully operational. For reference, the Glitter Band is an orbital ring of 10,000 separate habitats (space stations) around the planet Yellowstone.



The eponymous Prefect is Tom Dreyfus, a senior operative working for the Glitter Band organisation known as Panoply. Working in large part to coordinate the complicated democracy of the Glitter Band, Panoply is the closest it has to a police force, although security is only an occasional task for Panoply and its remit prevents it from acting against the often perverse internal activities of Glitter Band habitats. The novel opens with Dreyfus investigating two seemingly unrelated crimes, the first an infringement of Glitter Band democracy, the second the destruction of one of the Band's habitats. Both first appear as open and shut cases, but the latter lacks a credible motive, a fact that Dreyfus latches onto and doggedly pursues. While his investigations gradually uncover deeper machinations, the conspiracy that links the two crimes is accelerated, and powerful forces are unleashed into the Glitter Band. Faced with an overwhelming enemy, and hampered by both the restrictions placed on Panoply and a mole operating within it, Dreyfus is forced to revisit the events surrounding an earlier Panoply debacle, and to the realisation of his involvement in it. There he finds a dark secret from history, a key into his own past and an unlikely ally in the fight to save the Glitter Band.

Similarly to Chasm City, The Prefect makes good use of settings and events that are only alluded to in other Revelation Space novels. Also similarly, The Prefect is an isolated one-off novel with a fresh cast, and so avoids the flaws of the main sequence of his Revelation Space series. Structurally, the novels have less in common: The Prefect is more conventional than the time-split narrative of Chasm City, and instead has a simple, forward time-stream broken into a small number of strands that follow major characters.

By its setting at a much earlier point in the history of Revelation Space, The Prefect allows us to see the Glitter Band at its highest point, completely free of the Melding Plague that would later engulf it. Reynolds writes the Glitter Band as a democratic but anarchic mixture of societies, one that includes habitats where occupants can volunteer to be enslaved or fatally hunted. That such places exist in the Glitter Band allows Reynolds to explore just how far democracy can and should go, while also providing one of his antagonists with a defensible motive for the "sensible" actions that he takes.

The setting also allows Reynolds to have some fun with technologies that the Melding Plague would later render extinct because of their dangerous limitations. The most obvious of these is so-called Quickmatter, a nanotech material that can quasi-intelligently organise and repair itself, and from which even clothing is made. Reynolds also directly tackles his Alpha- and Beta-level simulations of people by featuring three as major characters. That Tom Dreyfus is, at least initially, sceptical of the sentience of Beta-levels allows some digression into this aspect of Glitter Band technology.

Overall, another worthy addition to Reynolds' canon. Both entertaining in its own right and, much like Chasm City, fitting in nicely with the rest of Revelation Space.

Use of Revelations

Another visit to the Revelation Space universe, this time with Alastair Reynolds' novel Chasm City.



Tanner Mirabel is out for revenge. As a security operative on the war-torn world of Sky's Edge he protected Cahuella, a merciless arms dealer, and his wife, Gitta. But when Reivich, a victim of Cahuella's trading, comes calling for revenge, Mirabel is unable to save Cahuella, and accidentally causes the death of Gitta. In pursuit of Reivich, Mirabel leaves Sky's Edge and heads for the distant planet of Yellowstone, a shining jewel of human achievement. However, before he gets there, Yellowstone is struck by the Melding Plague, a nanotechnological scourge that mutates its infrastructure, cripples its economy and creates an ugly society of haves and have-nots. Worse, when Mirabel arrives, he discovers that he has been infected by a virus spreading a religious cult formed around Sky Haussmann, the notorious Machiavellian founder of Sky's Edge, and must periodically succumb to flashbacks from Haussman's life. Penniless, and losing Reivich's trail, Mirabel throws himself into the underworld and overlords of Yellowstone's capital city, Chasm City. Along the way he encounters aristocrats hunting paupers, a drug craze related to the Melding Plague, and the suspicion that his Haussman flashbacks are telling him a lot more than the Sky's Edge history books do.

Structurally, the novel is divided into three narrative strands. The first is the (relatively) straightforward tale of Mirabel's pursuit of Reivich from Sky's Edge to Yellowstone and Chasm City. The second stream follows the events on Sky's Edge leading up to the deaths of Cahuella and Gitta. The third, which occurs as apparent flashbacks for Mirabel, replays sections from the life of Sky Haussmann as he travels from Earth to the world later known as Sky's Edge. While the third strand at first appears separate and distinct from the other two, it becomes clear that none of the strands are quite what they appear, and the relationships between them are gradually revealed as the novel unfolds. By the end of the novel, the reader's expectations have been completely overturned not once but twice, as various revelatory events occur. While both make for an exciting rollercoaster ride, the second of these is extreme and the novel rather glosses over the implications of it (see the "spoiler" section below for further discussion).

Although part of the Revelation Space universe, and involving some of the larger scale elements from the main sequence of novels (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap), Chasm City is fairly self-contained, with no obvious groundwork for direct sequels. Reynolds does a good job of integrating the places, events and characters of the other novels into this one, such that Revelation Space veterans can derive a lot of added value from this novel, but without introducing elements that would be confusing to a novice reader. I was really quite impressed in places at the dovetailing between footnotes from the main sequence of novels and the events described here.

Overall, another worthy addition to Reynolds' canon. Although set firmly within his well-established future history, it benefits greatly from being standalone and not simply being part of the main sequence of Revelation Space novels. This allows Reynolds to exploit his existing Revelation Space creation, but do what he's best at: the set-up. Reynolds' next novel in the series, The Prefect, similarly avoids the main sequence, so I've high hopes for that too (of which, more in the future).

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Spoiler warning

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As I've hinted above, Chasm City contains a number of revelations that undercut the reader's expectations in this novel. The identity of the protagonist goes through two significant revisions, the latter of which, in particular, casts a long shadow over the protagonist. The first revelation, that Tanner Mirabel is actually Cahuella, is not irrecoverable, since Cahuella, while not a nice man, is not appalling. The second revelation, that Cahuella is actually Haussmann, doesn't stand up to the same scrutiny.

From the start of the novel to its end, the protagonist is painted in a relatively sympathetic light, and it's clear that Reynolds wants the reader to empathise with him. But the transformation from Haussmann to Cahuella is tacked on too briefly at the end of the novel, so there's no sense that Haussmann realises the error of his ways and reforms himself. The plot device that Reynolds seems to be using to achieve this is simply amnesia: Mirabel-Cahuella-Haussmann has edited his memories so extensively, he's no longer any of these people, but is actually someone much better. But there's no suggestion that this has been a conscious decision, or that it forms part of Haussmann's redemption.

Almost the same idea was used in Iain Banks' much superior Culture novel Use of Weapons. However, in Banks' novel, the redemption, or attempted redemption, of the central character is a fundamental component of the narrative, even if the reader is not aware of this until the end of the novel. In Chasm City, we're expected to make a similar jump unassisted. That we're supposed to do this (i.e. perhaps Reynolds instead wants a despotic character?) is clear from the support Mirabel receives from other characters even after his true identity is revealed. In passing, Banks' novel additionally handles the revelations more successfully. By relying on a stronger narrative structure (one narrative runs forwards, the other backwards), Banks avoids Reynolds' clumsily explicit device of memory alteration to pull off the same trick.

Still, not many novels are as successful as Use of Weapons, so I'm being a bit hard on Chasm City here.

Novellas, or long short stories?

In what seems like more of a marketing thing than anything else, two "novellas" of Alastair Reynolds are bundled together in Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days. A rather unimaginative title for the collection given that it merely incorporates the titles of the two Revelation Space-set novellas. Anyway, they seem just like long short stories to me, but ...


The first novella, Diamond Dogs, follows a group of adventurers brought together under mysterious circumstances by an evasive renegade, Childe. He takes them to an unexplored world, devoid of any interesting features bar an artificial tower. The tower's origins are unknown and it communicates to visitors solely by setting them mathematical puzzles. If they get these correct, they are allowed to proceed further into the tower. If they get them wrong, the tower exacts a punishment. At first the puzzles are straightforward and the punishments mild, but as the team advances through and up the tower, things take a turn for the macabre. Gradually, the team is whittled down until abandoning the quest seems the only sane response, but Childe is never giving up.

This is one of those stories where you're expecting one sort of payoff (an explanation about the tower), but get quite another one (why the team has been assembled). It's not an entirely satisfying trade, and though the novella is constructed well and draws you in, ultimately it is something of a frustrating experience.

The second novella, Turquoise Days, is set on one of the worlds that harbour the so-called Pattern Jugglers, massive seaweed-like colonies that interface, and can change, minds that swim among them. These have been described in several of Reynolds' other novels, but the novella takes in a detailed journey with them. The story involves two sisters who study the Jugglers, and the visit to their world by a team of scientists from a distant colony. When this visit is first announced, several years before it actually arrives, the sisters undertake an ill-advised swim with the Jugglers. Both have swum before, but both have become infected by their contact with the Jugglers. This is often a sign that a person is of particular interest to the Jugglers, and on this occasion one of the sisters, Mina, does not return. Naqi, the other sister, does return and, though nursing grief at the loss of her sister, continues with her studies of the Jugglers, becoming involved in a project to attempt to isolate a sub-colony of the Juggler biomass. Eventually the visitors arrive, but they are not what they first appear to be and instigate chaos on the planet. Threatening the very well-being of the Jugglers, Naqi must again commune with them to attempt to contact her lost sister.

The parameters of this novella are somewhat more straightfoward, and there's no sense of disappointment in how it unfurls. It's actually quite good to finally meet the aliens that one has only heard snippets about in Reynolds novels. Well, "meet" in a special sense. The Jugglers remain mysterious, but their mode of interaction with visitors is now much clearer. I suspect that Reynolds is saving further revelations about them for later works.

Overall, while both novellas are perfectly acceptable stories, they feel like they should be part of a larger collection, and neither is satisfying enough to make this collection worthwhile. A marketing decision indeed. Still, for a primer on the Pattern Jugglers, the collection is worth reading.

Shorter is better

More Alastair Reynolds. But short stories rather than a novel this time, Galactic North. All set within his Revelation Space universe, but only some with direct connections to existing narratives set there. However, those that aren't directly connected usually shed light on parts of this future history that have hitherto only been hinted at.


Short stories are definitely a strong point for science fiction. They allow the author to explore an interesting idea without the expectation of character development. Several of the stories here go one step further in a way by allowing the author to dispense even further with characterisation since several of the characters are known to readers already (though this does create potentially interesting trade-offs between new and familiar readers). Anyway, the stories here represent excellent examples of the short story form while additionally being satisfying for readers already familiar with Reynolds' Revelation Space.

The first two stories deal with the character Nevil Clavain and his "defection" to the Conjoiner faction of humanity. The stories slot nicely into gaps in Reynolds' novels and flesh out relationships between various characters. They're also good stories in their own right, particularly the second one which approximates a good whodunnit on an alien world. The final story in the collection, Galactic North, initially takes place during the Revelation Space novels but, through time dilation, takes in a much broader sweep of history. It reveals the long term outcome of the conflict between humanity, the Inhibitors and the human-made Greenfly. Possibly a mistake on Reynolds' part to lay out in some detail what might have made for a good novel down the line. Still, he's certainly left himself wriggle room, and I'm sure he's smart enough to milk his future history some more.

Other stories in the collection take the form of a love story set in Revelation Space, Weather; a spy story dealing with modified humans used as slaves in the oceans of Europa, A Spy In Europa; the undoing of a collector of rare and exotic animals, Grafenwalder's Bestiary; and an adventure aboard a ghost ship with a conscience, Nightingale.

For readers unfamiliar with Revelation Space, the stories will likely be particularly exciting since they draw, teasingly, on a rich and carefully thought-through history and geography. However, there's a lot here for readers, such as myself, who are more familiar with this universe. Being short, and not forced to create a grand narrative, they also avoid some of the problems of fatigue that Reynolds' novels suffer to a degree from (Pushing Ice being a notable exception). Avoiding detailed characterisation also works to Reynolds' advantage here (much as it has done for other science fiction authors like Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov).

Anyway, I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for further volumes like this one by Reynolds.

Something harder

While Neal Asher's science fiction owes something to the medium-hard (or medium-soft depending on one's personal science fiction "Mohs scale") work of Iain Banks, another recent discovery, Alastair Reynolds, is far more in the mold of harder writers like Arthur C. Clarke and Gregory Benford. Anyway, the books to be consigned to the charity shop are ...

Pushing Ice, Alastair Reynolds, 2005, science fiction
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds, 2000, science fiction
Redemption Ark, Alastair Reynolds, 2002, science fiction
Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds, 2003, science fiction

While Pushing Ice is a standalone novel, the other three novels are part of Reynolds Revelation Space series, and requires something more by way of description.

This series is (again) set several centuries into the future, and in neighbouring solar systems to that of Sol. The setting is a universe with plenty of evidence for alien civilizations, but a distinct absence of aliens (bar some odd phenomena that hint at hiding aliens). In Revelation Space, humanity has expanded from the Earth and, on a planet called Resurgam, is living alongside the ruins of an apparently "recently" extinguished species (only 1 million years dead). The novel follows the exploits of an archaeologist set on uncovering the truth behind this extinction regardless of the cost. Many other characters and subplots are brought it, but the crux of the novel is the gradual revealing of the fate of the previous inhabitants of Resurgam. The latter two novels explore the consequences of the revelations of the first. In essence, machinery put in place by early civilizations in deep time (early galactic history) acts to extinguish emerging civilizations to spare yet-to-come civilizations from a predicted future calamity. Humanity has been fortunate to arrive on the scene during a calm period, but its actions have triggered the emergence of the civilization-curtailing machines (one of whom even features as a character at one point).

As with many fictional series, the first novel is by far the best. The set up and gradual revealing of a carefully thought-through universe is always fun. Diminishing returns, however, set in relatively quickly here. Mostly, I think, because Reynolds forces his characters through some very odd contortions (I'm thinking of the enmity between Clavian and Skade here). These don't ring true, and distract from the wider events.

In keeping with many science fiction writers from the latter few decades of the 20th century, Reynolds tries to grant his characters plausible emotions and personal evolution (as set against earlier novelists who focused solely on plot or ideas). To my mind, however, he's not terribly successful on these points. Some characters work and their changes fit the events surrounding them; others seem unhinged or respond unconvincingly to events. Not enough to markedly damage the novels, but enough to somewhat strain credulity (always dangerous in science fiction, where credulity is routinely strained). Part of this stems from using more or less the same cast in the novels. I thought he might try the trick of completely switching cast each novel such that one gets to see the consequences of familiar events through new eyes (which allows gradual revelation as a plot device again), but unfortunately not.

Still, despite these negative remarks, the underlying science fiction is very exciting, and rather plausibly drawn (no faster-than-light travel, etc. here). As with Asher, I'll doubtless keep checking up on Reynolds, but Revelation Space isn't as captivating as The Culture, the Galactic Centre saga or the Eight Worlds.


Having said all of the above, I should add that Pushing Ice is a much, much better novel than any of the Revelation Space titles. It follows the fate of a single spacecraft and its crew after they are sent to check up on the strange behaviour of one of Saturn's moons. The "moon" turns out not to be a moon at all, and winds up taking the crew on an extraordinary journey. While somewhat similar to Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, the novel is populated with interesting and engaging characters that, this time, do seem plausible and behave that way. Interpersonal conflicts are set up, and they evolve in a believable way. And it's all set alongside a cracking plot that gradually reveals a very interesting universe, and some very engaging aliens. Like the original Rendezvous, the reader is left at the end with both a widened sense of perspective and a ton of questions still dangling (while a sequel would be gobbled up, it might not be for the best; c.f. Revelation Space).