Skip to main content

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (SF) - Alastair Reynolds ***

Every author is allowed a title that isn't up to their usual quality, and for me this book is a low point in the output of the usually reliable Alastair Reynolds. The reasonably slim volume contains two novellas from 2003, set in the Revelation Space universe.

The first of the song-title named pieces, Diamond Dogs describes an exercise in futility, when two former friends and a number of mercenaries attempt to get through a deadly inverted escape room known as the Blood Spire. This 250-metre high structure consists of room after room - hundreds in all - each separated by a metal door with a mathematical puzzle to unlock it. These start simple and grow increasingly complex. Solve the puzzle and you get to the next room. Fail and there's a punishment that initially has the potential to maim and later to kill.

The motley crew set off to attempt to get to the summit of the spire. This seems mostly 'because it's there', though legend has it that there is something of immense technological value at the top. I have three problems with this. The action is too limited, rapidly becoming repetitive. It's hard to imagine why anyone would risk almost certain death with no guarantee of there being any benefit. And while most of the mathematical puzzles are far too obscure to be comprehensible, the first is simply wrong.

I know people have put themselves through extreme effort and considerable risk, say, to be first to the South Pole. But this is way beyond any such challenge. There are just too many, too difficult problems. To make matters worse, the doors get smaller and smaller, so continuing requires extreme body modification. Nothing's worth what the participants go through... and then the novella just ends with no real outcome. As for that dodgy puzzle, it involves prime numbers. We are told the first four primes are 'one, three, five and seven.' Unfortunately, they are two, three, five and seven. We're then told that eleven 'is the next one in the sequence. Thirteen's one prime too high...' So there's a prime between eleven and thirteen? Hmm.

The second part, Turquoise Days is significantly better. There's only one minor reference that links the two novellas - this one is set on one of the Pattern Juggler planets, where the ocean has been taken over by an alien structure that archives people's minds and can sometimes change a swimmer's brain to add capabilities from others. The narrative has a very slow start, but the second half picks up pace and is a genuinely interesting addition to the Revelation Space canon as Pattern Jugglers are frequently referenced, but are rarely given a deep dive (if you'll pardon the pun).

Revelation Space lovers will welcome any trifle that adds to the overall picture, but for everyone else it's only so-so.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Meteorite Hunters - Joshua Howgego *****

This is an extremely engaging read on a subject that everyone is aware of, but few of us know much detail about. Usually, if I'm honest, geology tends to be one of the least entertaining scientific subjects but here (I suppose, given that geo- refers to the Earth it ought to be astrology... but that might be a touch misleading). Here, though, there is plenty of opportunity to capture our interest. The first part of the book takes us both to see meteorites and to hear stories of meteorite hunters, whose exploits vary from erudite science trips to something more like an Indiana Jones outing. Joshua Howgego takes us back to the earliest observations and discoveries of meteorites and the initial doubt that they could have extraterrestrial sources, through to explorations of deserts and the Antarctic - both locations where it tends to be easier to find them. I, certainly, had no idea about the use of camera networks to track incoming meteors, which not only try to estimate where they wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Against the Odds - John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin ****

The number of women working in STEM subjects has expanded dramatically, but as John and Mary Gribbin make clear, in the history of science this is a very recent occurrence. Here, they bring us the stories of 12 women, from Eunice Newton Foote, born in 1819, to Vera Rubin, born in 1928 - effectively covering nearly 200 years in that Rubin died as recently as 2016. There are some names that will already be familiar from popular science histories (and deservedly so). You will find, for instance, Dorothy Hodgkin and Rosalind Franklin represented. But there are plenty like Foote that few will have come across, including Inge Lehmann, Chien-Sung Wu and Lucy Slater. While arguably Foote is there primarily to demonstrate the difficulties she faced (her discovery of an aspect of greenhouse gas behaviour was independently bettered within weeks), the rest have all made significant discoveries or developments against the odds and often missed out the recognition the deserved. The most prominent ob...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pagans (SF) - James Alistair Henry *****

There's a fascinating sub-genre of science fiction known as alternate history. The idea is that at some point in the past, history diverged from reality, resulting in a different present. Perhaps the most acclaimed of these books is Kingsley Amis's The Alteration , set in a modern England where there had not been a reformation - but James Alistair Henry arguably does even better by giving us a present where Britain is a third world country, still divided between Celts in the west and Saxons in the East. Neither the Normans nor Christianity have any significant impact. In itself this is a clever idea, but what makes it absolutely excellent is mixing in a police procedural murder mystery, where the investigation is being undertaken by a Celtic DI, Drustan, who has to work in London alongside Aedith, a Saxon reeve of equivalent rank, who also happens to be daughter of the Earl of Mercia. While you could argue about a few historical aspects, it's effectively done and has a plot...
Post a Comment
Read more