Available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.
Definitely not Alastair’s greatest literary moment.
It just all seems a bit cobbled together out of various random sci-fi tropes. He even managed to shoe horn some dragons into this awful dystopia.
Ho hum, the greatest writers don’t always write great things.
Next up on Alastair’s list is Lune and the Red Empress.
This is quite like Alastair’s previous story, Sleepover, in that it’s a collision of various genres tightly packed together into a novella: shaken, stirred, blended, and any other means necessary to squash them in.
Where it’s different to Sleepover, is that this novella actually works. Maybe Liz Williams’ co-writing helped.
I liked it anyway.
Alastair’s next story in the timeline of publishing is At Budokan.
Great new film putting out the truth about animal agriculture.
Please watch wherever you can, and then have a good long think before buying supporting animal agriculture ever again.
This is in Lightspeed: Year One.
Another brilliant little short story from the master of sci-fi shorts.
So the Earth has been attacked by a reptilian enemy, and the young are marshalled to go and fight, but where does it take them and what is the true form of that enemy.
Next story in Alastair’s chronology is Cardiff Afterlife.
Available in Deep Navigation.
I’d never thought Alastair would write something none sci-fi, but he has and this is it.
While it contains a fair bit of artistic license about Vaughan Williams, it’s not a bad read all in all. I quite enjoyed it.
So, next up in Alastair publishings will be Scales.
Available in Deep Navigation.
Another of Alastair’s superb short stories.
Plenty of food for thought for those who wish to outrun the singularity. 
Next on the Alastair list is The Receivers
Being one of the sci-fi classics with “SF Masterworks” status, this has been in my too-read pile for ages, and now i’ve finally got around to reading it.
It’s a little bizarre, giant cat people and three legged, two headed aliens as well. It all seems like Larry felt that to make it more sci-fi-ish he had to make the strangest aliens he could imagine: very Seventies kitch stylee. And the ending is woeful. We go through all this adventure with our group of four with so much detail and depth and when we get to the ending and the leaving of the Ringworld we are left with nothing but vagueness.
But . . .
. . . other than the weird Seventies kitsch aliens and the woeful ending, it’s very good. One can’t help but be blown away by the concept of the Ringworld and it’s size and complexity: is this what the future may hold for us?
One thing’s for certain, i’m diving straight into The Ringworld Engineers, which is the much needed sequel to this book.
You can find this in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories
Sadly, i lost the review of this book when my old website died. But rest assured it’s great, as is the rest of the trilogy.
This follows Thousandth Night and is before Belladonna Nights in the trilogy.
One word: genius.
This book is superb from beginning to end, and it also leaves it open for a good follow on at some time in the future if Alastair feels like continuing the series at some point. I certainly hope he does.
Not only does this book demonstrate Alastair’s knowledge as a physicist, but it also demonstrates his incredible imagination and writing skills.
If you want a taster of Alastair at his best and you don’t want to go through all of Revelation Space just yet, then i suggest reading the House of Suns trilogy, sci-fi fans won’t be disappointed.
Originally published in One Million A.D., and also available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.
It soooo good to be back from all that multi-universe nonsense and into some real sci-fi from Alastair once again.
This story is superb. Essentially, it’s fracture yourself into one thousand clones, known collectively as a “line”, and send them off on a trip around the galaxy to see what they can discover. At the end of the trip all the clones meet up a pre-determined place and time and download each other’s holiday journal, known as a “thread”, into their own minds. Whoever is determined the best thread gets to decide on the location and setting of the next reunion after the next trip around the galaxy.
There’s quite a few rules and a fair bit of etiquette to all this to keep things interesting and sensible, but when some people don’t appear to be playing by the rules and conforming to the etiquette, others start to have suspicions.
I really like the idea of this and if you do too you’ll be happy to know that House of Suns is next in the trilogy with Belladonna Nights straight afterwards, so there’s plenty more still to come.