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

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...

Should we question science?

I was surprised recently by something Simon Singh put on X about Sabine Hossenfelder. I have huge admiration for Simon, but I also have a lot of respect for Sabine. She has written two excellent books and has been helpful to me with a number of physics queries - she also had a really interesting blog, and has now become particularly successful with her science videos. This is where I'm afraid she lost me as audience, as I find video a very unsatisfactory medium to take in information - but I know it has mass appeal. This meant I was concerned by Simon's tweet (or whatever we are supposed to call posts on X) saying 'The Problem With Sabine Hossenfelder: if you are a fan of SH... then this is worth watching.' He was referencing a video from 'Professor Dave Explains' - I'm not familiar with Professor Dave (aka Dave Farina, who apparently isn't a professor, which is perhaps a bit unfortunate for someone calling out fakes), but his videos are popular and he...

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...