I tried, i really did, but i just can’t take any more and i’ve given up on this stupid trilogy.   It’s all too much young adult for me and, worse than that, it’s not even very good young adult.   It’s just totally unbelievable nonsense.

A child is playing silly games with grown ups, the grown ups know the child is playing silly games with them but they keep letting the child have its way even though the child is probably going to get them killed.   Yeah, right!

Alastair should stick with what he does best, sci-fi for intelligent grown ups.

So, unfortunately, my quest to read everything by Alastair Reynolds has come to an end.   I’m not reading the rest of this trilogy unless someone pays me £1000.

So, skipping ahead, the next book in Alastair’s literary arsenal is Permafrost.   Let’s hope he’s back to normal and it’s as good as his usual stuff.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Not the greatest story Alastair has ever told.   It’s all very young adult-ish stuff, and it’s really not anything like what i love about Alastair’s usual sci-fi.

But, i suppose, every writer may wish to have a try at some YA stuff occasionally.   I just really hope that Alastair doesn’t ever do it again, thank you.

I mean, let’s be serious, a child who isn’t even old enough to leave home, escapes and takes on the system’s most feared and devastating pirate?   Really?   And adults just fall over themselves to do her bidding?

But, as i’m committed to reading the whole of Alastair’s writings, i must continue with this farcical trilogy and see where it leads.

So next up it will be Shadow Captain.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

What happens when we finally become virtually immortal and we’ve done everything we wanted to do and we’ve gotten completely bored with life?   Play Russian roulette with portal doors, setting them for a 1 in 1000 random chance of them killing you when you use them.   And when you really get fed up you dial it up to a 1 in 10 chance of them killing you.

But maybe you have friends who don’t want you to die quite so soon, friends that want you to give life another chance.

Good story.

Next up from Alastair will be the Revenger Trilogy, beginning with Revenger.   But first i’m going to have to read a few other books from other writers.   Back with Alastair soon.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

A really good sleeper ship story.   The drive’s blown and there’s no way of slowing the ship down when it reaches its destination planet, they’re just going to sail right on past.

But then one of the crew has a great idea to find some purpose to the whole trip.   Except things just don’t turn out like they hoped they would have.

Next up from Alastair is Death’s Door.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories and The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Vol 4.

Another of Alastairs proxy body stories.   This time a caretaker is stranded on an automated sailing ship and needs help.   It comes in the form of a proxy robot, and the caretaker isn’t too taken with it’s driver’s attitude.

But, more is soon revealed as we go through the story and attitudes change.

A really good little story.   And maybe a good reminder to all of us not to judge people on their first impressions, sometimes you can be very wrong.

Next up from Alastair in Providence.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories and The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Vol 3.

Really good. If you enjoyed The Medusa Chronicles for it’s wonderful exploration of the Jovian atmosphere and it’s ecosystem, then you’ll really enjoy this as well.

It’s also got a nice hint of Enemy Mine sprinkled in with it.

Next up is Different Seas.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

This is quite impossible to do a review of without loads of spoilers.   So i’ll just say it’s a really good little story and well worth a read.

Next up from Alastair will be Holdfast.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Tales from the Edge: Escalation.

A little story that Alastair wrote for the Maelstom’s Edge Universe.

You don’t need to know anything about the Universe other than a maelstrom of energy is travelling up the spiral arm of the galaxy wiping out everything in its path.   Systems are being evacuated and there’s lots of different factions with different views as to how to deal with things.

This story covers a journey back to one of the evacuated planets.

Rather good.

Next up from Alastair is Visiting Hours.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

Kamala Chatterjee is defending her PHD paper in front of three judges, with sixteen questions to get through.

This really isn’t Alastair’s finest work.   I think it’s another one of those stories of his that just didn’t work out but he threw it into a collection to fill the pages with.

You mileage may vary though.

Rolling on through Alastair’s books, next up is Remainers.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

Not one of Alastair’s best stories, i’m left at the end not really understanding what is happening in the outside world and therefore why any of this research is being done.   But if you enjoy a good murmuration of starlings then you might enjoy it just for the good descriptive writing of such things.

Let’s hope The Medusa Chronicles is better.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

At the end of a major war, the worse of the worse, from both sides (known as the Dregs by the crew), are put onto a sleeper ship and sent off to a far flung corner of the galaxy.

One by one the Dregs awaken: and find that something has gone horribly wrong with the ship.   With it’s systems failing, the ship has ended up where it should have been but a very long time in the future.

A really good story with the Dregs having to learn to put their differences aside and work together to survive, but some differences need settling first.

Next up in Alastair’s list is A Murmuration.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

An interesting look at how future AI’s will view primitive machines: plenty of food for thought.

Next up is Slow Bullets.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Another AI story.

This time an AI turns up around Kapteyn’s Star, a red dwarf a very long way away from Earth.

Basically the whole story is the AI’s transmission back to Earth, which i won’t go into because it would spoil the punch line at the end.

Really good.   Maybe one day only the AI’s that we’ve sent out into the galaxy will be all that’s left of us, and i wonder what other species will make of them.

Next up on Alastair’s list is Wrecking Party.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.

Another story from Alastair featuring a genetically modified Tyrannosaurus rex, but unlike At Budokan where the T. Rex was a rock star, this time it’s a chat show host.

The main premise of the the story is that an AI, named Vincent, that’s been out mapping the solar system implanted in a space ship is now back on Earth implanted in a humanoid body doing the chat show round and other public appearances to publicise its exploits.

But another corporation had it’s own AI out and it’s just returned with some rather contradicting information from Vincent.

I do enjoy Alastair’s AI stories, they’re usually excellent.

Next up is Sad Kapteyn.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

A rather interesting idea exploring transhumanism in the context of living on Mercury: specifically a group of transhumanists who make art for the sake of it.

A fixer is sent to Mercury to contact one of the transhumanist artists to make them an offer, but finds something rather different than what he expected to find.

Next up in Alastair’s timeline is, In Babelsberg.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.

A bit of a weird one from Alastair.   A couple of oddballs take some strange drug and start seeing things that may or may not be as it seems to people not on drugs.

I’m not sure what Alastair’s point is with this one.

Anyway, moving on, it’s A Map of Mercury next

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Another super good read in this excellent trilogy, but Alastair left the ending wide open for a good follow-up story or three.

I do hope Alastair comes back to this universe, it’s a rather good place to read about and after getting to the end of this trilogy it’s rather clear that it’s a really good place for Alastair to write lots more about.

Bring it on, please, Alastair.

Next up in Alastair’s list is The Lobby.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

This is the second book in the Poseidon’s Children trilogy and a great follow on from Blue Remembered Earth.

Skipping quite a few years into the future there’s been some cloning and big ship building to take us to Crucible, the planet that Ocular discovered.

This story is mostly about the shenanigans of the first caravan of “holoships” that are well on their way, and also the shenanigans going on back in the solar system, and what good shenanigans they are too.

Super well written and totally captivating, as usual with Alastair, and a wonderful second episode in this trilogy.

Now i can’t wait to get my reading teeth into the final book in the trilogy, which is Poseidon’s Wake.   Bring it on!

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

This follows on quite nicely from the future Earth setting of The Water Thief, albeit this story is about a family who made their fortune during the times of climate collapse, whereas The Water Thief is about a family dumped an all but forgotten in a climate refugee camp.

So definitely read The Water Thief before diving into this, it may give you a bit of perspective as to the what the world went through outside of the Akinya family.

But, i digress, what about this story?   Well, this story is the first in a trilogy that is another of Alastair’s super long narrations that he so wonderfully excels at.

The matriarch of the family dies and the family is set spinning down a trail of clues left behind by said matriarch, all while tearing itself apart along old lines of enmity.

And it’s a great paperchase of clues.

Slow starting, but stick with it, you’ll be well rewarded.

And now i’m diving straight into the second book of this trilogy, On the Steel Breeze.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.

An interesting look at the post climate apocalyptic future, that we’re now facing, when people have been moved into massive refugee camps because the earth is in such a bad state.   Work is scarce and only available through a VR kind of thing.   This story is about one of these VR workers in a camp.

In a way this is a good little forerunner for Blue Remembered Earth, which feels like its set further into the future that’s described in this story.   Only difference is that Blue Remembered Earth is centred around a wealthy corporate family who made their fortune out of the apocalypse (let’s face it, a lot of people are going to get very wealthy out of it).

Anyway, a good little story that’ll get you in the mood for Blue Remembered Earth.

This is the last of Alastair’s shorts, for now.   Next up, we’re diving back into the long stuff with the aforementioned, Blue Remembered Earth.

Bye for now.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds