Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

I first read Alastair Reynolds' début novel Revelation Space last year. At the time, I'll confess to being underwhelmed for much of the book's 500+ page duration. There was no doubt in my mind that Reynolds could write, but that he had a problem with his pacing. What's the point of an exhilarating last 100 pages or so when the 400 before are glacial to the point of sending the reader to sleep? Events were slow and carefully constructed, but it was almost as if that care had sucked the energy from it.

However, I'm a quite a fan of Reynolds' short fiction. Over the past 18 months I've come across half a dozen short stories and novelettes by the Welsh writer, each of which has entertained me. Reynolds' style suits the short form very well; it is very correct, with a satisfying brevity to it, but that brevity doesn't undermine some excellent evocations of fantastic environments.

Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days was my first foray into Reynolds' longer fiction since Revelation Space. It's a single volume containing two novellas, both set in the same universe as Revelation Space.

The first of those novellas, Diamond Dogs, is the better of the two (at least, it is for me). Anyone who's read Robert Browning's epic poem 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came' will instantly see the inspiration behind it. Through the eyes of Richard Swift we see an expedition under the leadership of Roland Childe to the uninhabitable world of Golgotha where there's a mysterious Blood Spire, complete with layers of challenges.

I may be spectacularly misreading this, but I read Diamond Dogs as being Alastair Reynolds' take on Browning's poem, just as The Dark Tower is Stephen King's. In each case there's an obsession about the object at the heart of the tale; in each case, that object is a tower of some description. Reynolds' take is wildly different from King's and Browning's in that the focus of the tale isn't so much the Blood Spire, but, rather, is the interactions going on around the setting. It's a bleak story, but one that's thoroughly worth reading.

The second novella is a little less impressive and a little more abstract. In fairness to it, it's actually a more complex tale than Diamond Dogs, but Turquoise Days just doesn't quite manage to do justice to the concept behind it. Had I more of an understanding of the Revelation Space universe I might appreciate it a little more, however, I can only work with what I've got. For that reason, a couple of the concepts - perhaps familiar to veterans of the series - were slightly lost on me.

Take the Pattern Jugglers. I understood what they were on a basic level - a form of collective waterborne life with a quasi-consciousness which have an alternative understanding of mathematics - but I needed to reference what I already knew about the series and its universe. A newcomer would struggle.

In all fairness, Turquoise Days would be a satisfyingly complex novella to a veteran of the series, containing subterfuge and subtleties suited to much longer books. And these two novellas have done much to re-ignite my interest in Alastair Reynolds' longer works. I have noticed that the difference between now and the time I read Revelation Space is that at the moment I'm not pre-occupied with work and I've got the chance to get my head round it a bit more, so it's probably a good time to give it a second chance.

So, if you're a veteran of the series, give Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days a spin. You'll enjoy it. If you're a newcomer, you might struggle with the latter story, but if you like dark, thoughtful space opera with a literary twist you'll enjoy Diamond Dogs.

The Ghost Brigades

Why did it take me so long to get round to reading The Ghost Brigades? Old Man's War was as good a military SF novel as I've ever read (even including The Forever War, but that stands apart on different grounds), with engaging characters, an interesting story and a well-realised universe.

On this evidence, John Scalzi could write the handbook on writing accessible, engaging, compelling SF in the twenty-first century. The Ghost Brigades continues on where Old Man's War left off, both in terms of the story and stylistically. Scalzi doesn't overcomplicate his language, and some would criticise him for perhaps not stretching his abilities as he should... but why would he do that when he writes crisp, clear English with just the right amount of quirk as it is? True, he's not going to win awards for use of poetic language, but it works just fine as it is, thank you very much. The result is that a casual reader would do well to pick up Scalzi's work as a gateway to modern SF.

Old Man's War introduced humanity's colonies, the CDF, and the ghost brigades themselves. I'm not going to go into too much depth about them - read the book to find out more (and you'll enjoy it, believe me). And now the world is nicely fleshed out we can progress deeper into its depths. Relatively speaking, Old Man's War was a simple tale of a man going to war; The Ghost Brigades goes several steps further, with a far more complex story, which also offers the humanity we've come to expect from Scalzi.

We have a traitor who has left his consciousness behind. In an attempt to get to the bottom of his treachery, Special Forces try to transfer the consciousness into a Special Forces soldier. It doesn't take, and so Jared Dirac (that's his name) ends up in the ghost brigades, fighting to defend humanity's interests in space.

What Scalzi does particularly well is create characters who at one level have to be identical, but on another, completely different, level need to be individuals, suited to different roles in the narrative. There is one character who comes into the book already well established in-universe, and Scalzi keeps her character consistent with what went before, but he creates another half-dozen or so well-drawn characters. Even those he doesn't go into depth with are left with distinct personality traits which mark them out as different.

It's possible to connect with those characters because they are well-written and distinct individuals. Moments that shock the characters are felt by the reader (well, by this reader, at least), and every triumph and defeat is met by an emotional response.

At its heart, The Ghost Brigades is a good old-fashioned adventure story set in space. In many ways it's what the Star Wars prequel trilogy should have been if it was literature and not a set of undercooked films with too many special effects. And I don't think I can pay it a higher compliment than that.

The Fall of Hyperion

After my gushing praise of Hyperion back in January, it's perhaps a surprise to many (well, both of my readers) to hear that it's taken me until now to get round to reading its sequel. This surprise will be compounded by the fact The Fall of Hyperion has been sat on my bookcase waiting to be picked up since May. Surely I'd want to know the ending while the events of Hyperion were fresh in my mind?

Well, yes, but there has been plenty to read in the mean time. The Scar. Iron Council. Helliconia. A Dance With Dragons. You get the picture. Besides, I didn't want to get to the end of The Fall of Hyperion and find I didn't like it. I was so emotionally connected to certain characters that I didn't want an unsatisfying end to their tales.

Whether the conclusions of those individual threads of narrative were satisfying or not is for you to find out. Read The Fall of Hyperion. Read it now. Rush out of the house without setting the alarm and camp outside Waterstones if you have to. (Or just buy it on the Kindle, which is easier and probably much cheaper). Because The Fall of Hyperion is a worthy successor to Hyperion.

The first thing to note is that the narrative structure is much-changed. The Canterbury Tales style of the first volume of the Hyperion Cantos served its time and was released in favour of a more conventional, linear style. The background tale has been told and from now on it's only forward, with events quickly unfolding.

The events of the first volume - not counting the prologue - covered around six days. The events of this volume last around a fortnight, by my reckoning. It's a fraught three weeks. This instalment introduces a cybrid of poet John Keats, who serves as the main narrator. It's through him that we hear the events unfolding which surround the Shrike pilgrims and the other events which plunge the Web into chaos in the face of war with the Ousters.

This is the volume where the action is. For the 471 pages of Hyperion we got back story, set-up, exposition - call it what you will. For the 535 pages of The Fall of Hyperion we get that back story placed into context, twisted, linked, like sand being melted into glass, with all becoming clear. Anyone who has only read the first volume should read it again and try to predict the twists which follow - they're unexpected, but work superbly. The pace of events is relentless, and Simmons does well to not get bogged down at times.

Simmons writes with clarity and sharpness. He's very technically correct, but his characters lose nothing for it. I criticised Alastair Reynolds' debut novel Revelation Space once upon a time for having excellent prose but very little character, but Simmons doesn't fall into that trap (and I'll be the first to admit to really liking Reynolds' short fiction, which doesn't have the same problem). There's still a pathos to each individual character. And one of the best things about them is that they're all different. Whilst there are one or two caricatures to be found in the minor characters (a la Iain M. Banks), by and large each character is well-rounded and human. They have motivations for everything they do and there aren't any moments I can think of where a character does something that has me asking 'why'. Their reasoning may be flawed... but it is at least reasoning and not irrationality.

And the ending? Did I find it satisfying? There were a few problems with it, to be honest. After 970 pages, the final 35 or so struggled with having to finish off the whole shebang. The climax had been reached already, the major revelations unveiled and all that was left to be done was the tying off of loose ends. It felt typically post-climactic and was frustrating in that regard. But considering that standard of what went before it's not perhaps too much of a surprise. Simmons made a rod for his own back with his own standards of storytelling.

So, what do we have? We have a space opera of the highest standard, vying for a place alongside Iain M. Banks' Use of Weapons in the SF hall of fame. Disappointing final few pages aside, it's as gripping a story as I've read all year. I'll be moving on to the second part of the Hyperion Cantos soon: roll on Endymion!