This year has been so busy that I missed that Alastair Reynolds wrote a new book, Halcyon Years that came out in January! The good news about that is that I don't have a wait at the library and could download it and read it right away.
The story revolves around Yuri Gagarin (yes, that Russian Cosmonaut), who has been brought back to life aboard the generation starship the Halcyon. The ship is huge: 50km in a rotating cylinder (to provide gravity), and big enough to have parks, lakes, a complete ecosystem. We never find out how the ship is powered, but clearly several generations have already lived on this starship.
The resurrected Gagarin is a private detective in what looks like a 1920s noir fiction future, complete with corrupt cops, no cell phones but wired land-lines, and at one point in his investigation, Gagarin acquires a robot companion.
The case starts when a mysterious lady calling herself Ruby Blue shows up, and asks Gagarin to look into the mysterious death of a couple, Randall and Juliana (an obvious allusion to Romeo and Juliet). We get a quick introduction to the power elite on Halcyon, who they are, and what happens.
Obviously several questions come to mind, including why is the tech level aboard the ship so low. Well, rest assured, Reynolds has all the bases covered and given the mysteries and the rapid pace of action (the book was so good I finished it over 3 days), I'd be doing you a disfavor by spoiling the plot and big reveals (there are multiple!) to you.
In any case, I found the reveals and the endings satisfying, and can whole heartedly recommend this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment