What begins as a war-criminal hunt slowly turns more and more strange and out of control for our intrepid party of hunters.

I really enjoyed this super good novella.   It was nice of Alastair to throw a delicious little shorty between Revelation Space and Redemption Ark: both the size of trilogies in their own right.

And the ending is brilliant.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

Next up in the series is Redemption Ark

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This one has call backs to A Spy in Europa, Diamond Dogs, and Chasm City, so if you missed reading any of those then you really need to go and read them first.

And it’s such a good short, like, really good.   The ending is brilliant.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

And now, finally, at long last, we get onto the title work, Revelation Space.   Yes peoples, it’s finally the big books’ time to be read, so it may be a while between future reviews.

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In this book we go off to the planet Turquoise, so named because it’s an ocean planet covered in turquoise oceans.

Within the oceans are the Pattern Jugglers that got a mention in Diamond Dogs, and in this book we get a much deeper introduction to them.

So yeah, a really enjoyable novella adding yet another alien layer onto the growing alien layers of the Revelation Space universe.

Available in the duology, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days.

And the next book in the series is Grafenwalder’s Bestiary.

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The Lachrimosa is an Ultra vessel whose captain has bought some information which he believes will make him a lot of profit.   And so the ship ends up at a planet exploring a place the crew really don’t want to explore.

This has hints of the wars between the maggots and the machines that was mentioned in Chasm City, and it seems we’re getting info dumped for the big books at the end of the series.   Info dumping aside, it’s an enjoyable novella to whizz through in a day or so.

Available in the collection, Beyond the Aquila Rift.

This is folllowed by Turquoise Days.

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Wow, now that was an epic sci-fi journey.   My Kindle showed it at 11495 Loc points, which makes it easily longer than some trilogies, and it’s all just one book: great value for money.

In this book we begin by following a character, Tanner Mirabel, who is a mercenary of sorts.   Tanner seems to have been infected with an indoctrination virus that gives him a historical/religious figure’s memories as dreams and flash backs.   On top of this Tanner has also wound up leaving the planet he was on, Sky’s Edge, and gone off on a lighthugger to Yellowstone, not realising the Melding Plague has destroyed everything.   Then, to add insult to injury, Tanner is also suffering reefer-sleep amnesia, although he does remember some things, like the fact that he came to Yellowstone to kill the man who killed his boss’ girlfriend.

But everything is not quite as it seems, people are waiting for Tanner, people are hunting Tanner, and some people just want to kill Tanner — or whoever he might be.

Brilliant!   This book has so many twists and turns as a fucked-up Tanner takes us on a fucked-up guided tour around Yellowstone’s Chasm City, a post Melding Plague Chasm City that’s just totally fucked-up.   Alastair does the most amazing writing job.

Scores on the doors: to quote from Spinal Tap, “Look, right across the board… 11, 11, 11…”

Next up is The Last Log of the Lachrimosa.

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So we continue with the same theme from Monkey Suit, in that we’re on an lighthugger running away from Yellowstone and the Melding Plague.

This enjoyable little short introduces us to the real science of time dilation, wherein the nearer one gets to the speed of light, the faster time passes in the outside universe in relation to those on the space ship.

And if we take this idea and put those on the space ship in reefer-sleep, where their bodies and brains are taken down into hibernation state — so hardly ageing at all — and then send them close to light speed for a few years, decades can pass in the outside universe while these people age a few weeks or months: thus being known as dilation sleep.

Then if we look at the situation that is occurring on Yellowstone and consider that rich refugees can afford to pay Ultras to go on a trip around the galaxy in dilation sleep for a few years while hopefully everything back home gets sorted out, and that is where we are in this book.

Except that one of the crew has been awakened by the ship because something has gone wrong and needs fixing.

Good stuff.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

And the next book in the Revelation Space series is Chasm City, which most definitely isn’t a short: more like a whole trilogy under one cover.

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The Ultras are running away from Yellowstone and the Glitter Band after a virus, The Melding Plague, has destroyed everything by attacking all nano-machinery and implants.   In this story we join a ship of Ultras and their hull-monkeys who are having some issues.

A short little story, but plenty good enough, giving us a bit more insight into the lives of the Ultras on their light-hugging ships.

Available in the collection, Deep Navigation.

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This is brilliant, yet so gruesome and twisted, you just have no idea how it’s going to end until you get to the end.

One imagines that Alastair really enjoyed watching The Cube and decided to shoe horn something similar — but alien and way more fucked up — into the Revelation Space Universe.   And what a great job he did of it too.

This book is available in the collections, Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days and Beyond the Aquila Rift.

Enjoy!

Next in line is Monkey Suit.

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