You’ll find this in Deep Navigation.

It seems that someone’s been leaking top secret information from a top secret facility in a different reality and a detective is sent to investigate.   The only problem being that the only way to get there is to have his consciousness uploaded and sent by signal and then put into a new body at the other end: exactly like in Altered Carbon.   But for some reason the detective finds himself re-sleeved into a bit cat’s body: hence the title Tiger, Burning.

Really good, Alastair at his best, as usual.

Next up in Alastair’s timeline will be Signal to Noise, from 2006.

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You’ll find this in the collection, Deep Navigation.

Reading this, one wonders if Alastair once had an academic paper rejected and that this is somehow a therapy session.   There doesn’t seem to be much more to it.

Dyson spheres: a wonderful trope for story telling, but the idea that an actual intelligent society capable of such feats would go to all that trouble simply because they can’t control their urges to continually fuck up the front hole, producing ever expanding colonies of the results of the misguided sexual desires, just because a few seriously backward thinking Homo sapiens can’t see beyond their own retarded thinking and retarded sexual desires, is preposterous.

And the idea that we should be judging the amount — and level — of intelligent species in the galaxy on the amount of Dyson spheres we can detect is even more preposterous.   Just one more example of the arrogance of Homo sapiens.

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Another one of those super long 10000+ Loc point novels that Alastair seems to enjoy writing.

The story starts with an ice pusher, named Rockhopper. Rockhopper is a big space ship that finds valuable comets, etc., around the solar system, attaches big mass drivers to them and pushes them wherever they’re needed in the solar system for their materials: ergo “Pushing Ice”. It just so happens that Rockhopper ends up as the only space ship owned by the big corporations that is capable of catching up with one of Saturn’s moons that has just decided to fly away from Saturn and the rest of the solar system.

And thus begins the big chase, with mutinies, murders, aliens, and all kinds of other mayhem thrown in for good measure: did i mention there’s 10000+ Loc points of this?

It does begin fairly slow going but as you go along it all picks up speed as the stakes become higher and higher and by the last third of the book i was in couldn’t-put-it-down mode, turning pages at any brief opportunity life presented.

Super good, and it’s also left very well open for another episode should Alastair ever wish to let us have some more: please can we have some more, Alastair?

And next book on the Alastair time line will be Feeling Rejected, from 2005.

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You’ll find this in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories.

This is one of those “many-worlds interpretation” stories.   To be honest, i place this sort of nonsense firmly in the same box as flat earth twaddle and god grovelling.

I take from this story that Alastair also thinks “many-worlds interpretation” is a load of nonsense as well and if you truly believe in it then get a gun and keep playing Russian roulette, because obviously one of you keeps surviving so you can’t really die.

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It’s the real story about the first person to land on Mars.

A reporter gets a message from Mars that she believes can only have come from the person that were first to land there, the person who has been missing ever since.   So off she goes to meet them to get the story of the decade.

Super good writing with a really well done take on Dissociative Identity Disorder, and a wonderful base jumping experience that’s not to be missed out on.

After Fresco, which i felt was well below par for Alastair, this was definitely back to his usual high standards of sci-fi.

If ya wanna read you’ll find this in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories.

Next up in Alastair’s bibliography is Century Rain from 2004: his very first super length novel.

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You’ll find this in the collection, Deep Navigation.

A rather brief short story about an observatory near Jupiter that listens to broadcasts from other galaxies.

I get the idea that this should be a prequel to something: not sure what the point is being on its own.   Ho hum.

Next in the timeline from Alastair, it’s The Real Story from 2002.

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The fourth book in Alastair’s Merlin Series, and should be read immediately after The Iron Tactician.

Leaving his previous hitch-hiker behind, Merlin then finds another to join him on his quest to find the ultimate weapon against the Huskers.   Will they find it?   Will Merlin finally get to use it?   Will there be some ultimate act of betrayal?

You’ll have to read it yourself to find out.

Great ending though.

Sadly, for now at least, this is the fourth and final book in this short but very enjoyable tetralogy.

You’ll find this in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories.

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The third book in Alastair’s Merlin Series, and should be read immediately after Minla’s Flowers.

More shenanigans as Merlin finds another system to play fixer in, this time it’s because he needs a new syrinx and this system happens to have one the cohort sold them.   Merlin knows this because he picks up a hitch-hiker along the way, who is the only surviving member of the Cohort ship who sold the syrinx.

So it’s all big war things and all that sort of stuff.

Next book — and final book — in this enjoyable little tetralogy will be Merlin’s Gun.   I wonder if the title gives away the fact that he finally found it? We shall soon find out: at least, i shall.

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This is the second book in Alastair’s Merlin Series, and should be read immediately after Hideaway.

We left off with Merlin leaving the cohort to find a fabled super weapon that he’ll then use to defeat the cyborgs known as Huskers.   During one transit Merlin’s ship, Tyrant, is thrown rather violently out of the Waynet.   It transpires that this is due to a kink in the Waynet as it passes a star named Calliope, and he urgently needs to stop at one of its planets, Lecythus, for repairs and refuelling.   While on the planet Merlin meets Minla and her people.

Unfortunately, Merlin realises that the kink in the Waynet that caused his problems is being caused by the Waynet being pulled towards Calliope, and once the Waynet line reaches the Calliope’s core then it’s pretty much all over for the whole system and everyone in it.   This then leads to all kinds of problems when he tells his new found friends on Lecythus that they’ve only got 70 years left . . .

. . . but it also leads to a rather good story as well.

Definitely some food-for-thought for those who enjoy all those wonderful philosophical debates about Star Fleet’s First Directive.

All told, i’m really enjoying this series and am diving straight into The Iron Tactician for Merlin’s next adventure.

It’s available in, Beyond the Aquila Rift, Zima Blue and Other Stories and The New Space Opera.

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The first book in the Merlin Series tetralogy.

There’s just a handful of humans left with a galaxy full of nasty cyborgs hunting them down to extinction, so it’s time to find a place to “hideaway”.   But one person, Merlin, doesn’t want to “hideaway”, instead he wants to go and find a weapon to fight back with.

All the usual best from Alastair.   It’s great to have a break from the shorts as i’m working through his whole back catalogue and get into something a bit bigger: this is looking to be a really good series.

Next up is Minla’s Flowers.

You’ll find Hideaway in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories, or in Interzone.

Bye for now.

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