/lit/ - Literature

>>20376142
The Prefect/Aurora Rising, Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #1/Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (2008)

The Prefect, later published as Aurora Rising, is set at the height of the Belle Époque era, the golden age of humanity. In terms of chronology this is the earliest set novel, though not the earliest story. None of the characters are in other books outside this subseries as far as I'm aware, aside from a stray mention in a later book. The setting is the planet Yellowstone, more specifically almost exclusively the Glitter Band, the 10,000 habitats that orbit the planet. In terms of scale, this is easily the least epic of the Revelation Space books. The closest comparison is Chasm City. The three viewpoint characters form a thriller trinity: investigative, survival, and conspiracy. This is also the most straightforward of the series. Everything and everyone is almost exactly what it appears to be. There weren't any plot twists that were significant.

As compared to the other books there's relatively little exploration of science and technology. Most of what there is used to explore the various possible expressions of human societies among the habitats. There's instead far more effort and time spent instead on politics, governance, and ethics. One of the primary worries is voter fraud and election manipulation, which carries severe penalties. There are several other contemporary concerns represented as well, almost all of which relate back to three previously mentioned subjects.

As someone who doesn't particularly enjoy the Revelation Space series because of the issues mentioned in what I've written about the relevant books, all of the above is for the better for me personally. I've mostly read for/with others in this series. Many of those issues weren't present here and when they were, they weren't as severe. Most notably there isn't any statements of off-page condensed action where a lot is skipped, which often irks me. For the majority of the time, the characters act like people, but closer to the end they become plot pawns and some of the conversations become rather unfortunate in how heavily they lean on thriller tropes.

In terms of my personal enjoyment this had the least amount of stuff in the series that bothered me, but also didn't have much that going for it either. There were parts in the other books that I enjoyed much more, but they also had so many more problems. This is now my highest rated book in the series, but that's more an indictment of the other books rather than praise for this one.

Rating: 3.5/5

>>20377339
Elysium Fire, Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #2/Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (2018)

Ten years later Reynolds wrote a follow-up novel. I have to wonder whether this and the previous novel were more for personal reasons than anything else. In terms of lore it added a new ability which felt out of place, but then I remembered the other nigh-magical stuff there was. A notable location from Chasm City, the book, was included as well. The scope was still entirely within Yellowstone and its orbit.

As with the first book, this was a thriller of mystery, investigation, survival, and conspiracy. The primary themes continued to be about ethics, governance, and politics. Unlike the first though, the point of view here was more diffuse, and followed the action more than the characters. Whichever character was most involved in the relevant action was the point of view, at least that's how it felt to me. The characters and plot were more in line with rest of the series as well, because it seems almost mandatory that at one least character has major memory and/or identity issues. The plot had twists this time, which I didn't care for as part of the narrative, but they were amusing for what I interpreted them as meaning.

I'm glad that I read this now rather when it came out because that allowed for me to appreciate it more. There were events whose seeming real-life counterparts had yet to occur and I didn't know if they were fictitious, a prediction, or based on prior events. Brexit seemed to be especially influential on the narrative. There was also irresponsible extrapolation of exponentials, which if this had been written a couple years later I'd have thought it was about COVID, but instead was probably a critique of sensationalism and catastrophizing. In another bit of prognostication, there was a scene that really seemed like it was about the storming of the US capitol.

Although this resumed a few of the problems that I have with Reynolds and quite possibly was an unnecessary sequel, there wasn't that much I disliked about it, but I also didn't like much about it either. If nothing else, it showed how committed Reynolds has been to his mosaic approach to the series, where he'll write about whatever he wants at whichever point in time he wants to.

Rating: 3/5

>>22979027
Machine Vendetta, Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #3 / Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (2024)

Six years have passed both in the real world and in-universe since the last book was published. From early on the characters begin referencing events from four years ago, a text search shows they directly do so twenty times throughout the book, and that confused me. Had I entirely forgotten what had happened and these characters? No, I hadn't, this was simply a case of Reynolds having a lot of stuff happen outside of the written story. The way it's presented though is as if the reader is already aware of everything. Usually when a book follows up from events that occurred it's something that happened in previous books. That's not the case here, as it's mostly a follow-up to the events of four years ago, which sought to resolve the Clockmaker and Aurora situation.

Tom Dreyfus and Thalia Ng are the two major perspectives, though there's a few other minor ones. This is probably one of the least convoluted books that Reynolds has written. It's almost entirely a straightforward investigation going from place to place and talking with people. Most of the thriller, survival, and action scenes are gone, as is much of the stuff from the wider Revelation Space series. Depending on your preferences this may be considered mundane, if not dull, because there isn't anything particularly exciting and certainly nothing epic. Yet, somehow it worked better for me than what the previous books did.

If you've read a few books from Reynolds before, you're aware that identity issues may be his favorite plot device. They're present here, but I think for first time Reynolds has a scene where he acknowledges and intervenes with the identity issues because he knows you're speculating about the identity of a character. The identity issues are eventually resolved in a way that could be considered divisive.

This is where I admit that I don't know what it is about this time, but for some reason I felt especially charitable about all the issues that would've otherwise bothered me. Others may feel the problems to be of greater severity, but unlike the previous books there wasn't anything here that lessened my enjoyment. There were several questionable narrative choices, but it seems I've become inured to them or maybe it was my mood.

I didn't notice it until I was doing text searches, but I realized whenever Ng is mentioned by itself I unconsciously replaced it with Thalia. This led to me wondering why she was always referred to by her first name while Dreyfus is almost always referred to by his last. Stuff like this has happened before.

The ending concludes Dreyfus's story and I'm satisfied with both that it has ended and how it has. It took some plot contrivances to get to this point, but apparently I don't mind.

Rating: 3.5/5 (4)

Previously in the series
>>/lit/?task=search2&search_text=Dreyfus+&search_tripcode=sffg&search_ord=old