Alastair Reynolds "Galactic North" Collection

This collection of large-scale stories positively oozes out light years upon light years of space; magnificently, it drips with tremendous machines locked in tremendous conflicts between cultures and rival technologies. In other words, it's the best collection of "new space opera"/ space adventure material to come out in a long while. Highly recommended. ---------------------------------------------- Alastair Reynolds "Galactic North" (Revelation Space series) © Interzone, Jul 1999 --fiction : 2000 Interzone Poll /9 --short story : 2002 Seiun --novelette : 2000 Locus Poll --/ second place space sf story --/ adventure award --/ wonder award --/ idea award --/ style award --/ awesome scale Greenfly machines - terraforming gone bad - devour the bigger part of our Galaxy, while the unlikely survivors witness the event with little interest, more compelled to chase each other across millenia, driven by an all-consuming lust for revenge. The characters are shallow to the point of being shadows, immaterial players of a cosmological farce, a tragedy of ultimate futility, unfolding on the huge "space opera" stage. The sense of time/space progression is vast, imparted unto the reader with a vacuum-cold, neutron-heavy touch. The vistas are comparable to Asimov's "Last Question" unique story or to Stapledon's phantom visions of stellar civilizations. Reynolds pulls out all the stops here and achieves mind-boggling results, nested deeply in his "Revelation Space" universe ("Galactic North" provides much-needed sense of perspective to the whole series). The space piracy bit in the story's opening is pretty dramatic in itself, serving the same purpose: to inflame the powerful emotions that will burn their carnal fires across the multitude of incarnations, ages and space. Like someone said, "Reynolds is gazing into Infinity here". He does not flinch for a bit, but then again, this is purely imagined infinity, a tame fictional thing. All in all, this is an awesome sci-fi entertainment, published for the joy of all space adventure geeks like me. Here is also a good review of this and other stories from this collection. ---------------------------------------------- Alastair Reynolds "Weather" (Revelation Space series) ©Galactic North, 2006 --/ third place space sf story --/ adventure award --/ wonder award As straight-forward story as you can get: simple space piracy potboiler, with classic set pieces and predictable special effects. None of the above is a bad thing, though. Space pirate stories historically were frowned upon by all kinds of critics, dismissed as juvenile and unoriginal. Well, pirates are supposed to get a bad rap, unless they are of the kind that "don't do anything". Most often, though, pirates represent the most romantic environment that a writer can possibly come up with. The problem is, NONE of the great space piracy stories were properly reprinted, so they are virtually unknown as a result. Have you read (or even heard about) Edwin K. Sloat's "Beyond the Planetoids" (1932)? Or Edmond Hamilton's "The Three Planeteers"? I bet you did not... but now you can at least read this little "potboiler" to get a good taste of what piracy of the spaceways adventure is all about. Wonderfully simple storyline is all that is needed here - thrilling battles of the corsair's wits and space engines, with an added exotic (though not really romantic) interest and a geeky fascination with a huge unfathomable space drives - all very straight-forward and cute. Very pleasurable narrative from a writer who's not afraid to enter forbidden (deemed to be "cheesy") territories and to bring out cool cinematic adventures. Art copyright: Chris Foss ---------------------------------------------- CONTINUE TO PAGE 2 -> READ OTHER REVIEWS FOR THIS WRITER

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