Lune and the Red Empress — Alastair Reynolds

Lune and the Red Empress -- Alastair ReynoldsThis 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.

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Scales — Alastair Reynolds

Scales -- Alastair ReynoldsThis 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.

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House of Suns — Alastair Reynolds

House of Suns -- Alastair ReynoldsThis 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.

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Thousandth Night — Alastair Reynolds

Thousandth Night -- Alastair ReynoldsOriginally 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.

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The Fixation — Alastair Reynolds

The Six Directions of Space -- Alastair ReynoldsYou’ll find this in Deep Navigation.

Yet another one of Alastair’s parallel universe, ridicilous nonsense stories.   Utter rubbish, to put it mildly.

I live in hope that he will soon get over this bizarre phase in his bibliography.   Next up in the timeline is The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter, and i think i’ll throw my Kindle across the room if there’s even a hint on one single parallel universe, let alone an infinite number of them.

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The Six Directions of Space — Alastair Reynolds

The Six Directions of Space -- Alastair ReynoldsOriginally published in Galactic Empires

More of that parallel universe nonsense that Alastair is obviously having a thing for during this period of his writing: 2006/2007.   Fingers crossed it should be over soon and we can get back to some proper good sci-fi.

The next story from Alastair’s timeline will be The Fixation.

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