Galactic North [collection]

This very solid set of hard-SF stories demonstrates that Reynolds really does write short fiction well. The structures are tight and the plots open as they go rather than all-at-once, the pacing varies as needed but seldom drags, and his characters are really credible, even the trans-human. The big caveat with this anthology is that it is of his Revelation Space universe, and not an intro to it either; a reader really should read Reynolds' RS novels before hitting this for full enjoyment.

Not that the stories are all of equal strength. "Glacial" and "Weather" are crisp, brilliant, and truly entertaining: superior short fiction. "Great Wall of Mars" is an essential piece of RS backstory, and would make a neat stand-alone Netflix movie. show more However, "Nightingale" drags and, unless you're an unrepentant horror-story buff, doesn't really offer up much originality; Reynolds claims in the Afterword that "Dilation Sleep" is the earliest published of the stories and it shows in its infodumps, technobabble, and window-dressing that he was just getting his sea-legs. The final, title story was most problematic to me: it reaches too far and comes across as a truly nihilistic take on Anderson's _Tau Zero_, but your mileage may vary.

If you've read _Revelation Space_ (and if you have not, please do!) and want some more in bite-size pieces before tackling another thick novel, start here. These are good stuff. show less

Galactic North is a collection of eight very well written short stories that offer a unique glimpse into the Revelation Space universe that Alastair Reynolds has crafted. They are presented in chronological order and, in the case of its namesake novella, spans several millenia. For the sake of brevity, I'll only outline the first three short stories.

In "Great Wall of Mars", the nature of the three main factions - the Coalition, the Demarchists, and the Conjoiners, are outlined, as well as the nature of the relationship between them. We also meet Nevil Clavain, a high-ranking member of the Coalition, as he sets foot on the surface of Mars, which houses the Great Wall, a facility built by the Demarchists but has since been used as a show more Conjoiner nest, with Galiana as the leader. However, once on the planet, Clavain and his parter Sandra Voi are attacked by gigantic worms, war machines developed during the last war between the Coalition and the Conjoiners. While Clavain survives, Voi is killed by one of the worms. Once inside the facility, Galiana gives Clavain a tour of the nest and he meets Felka, an experiment which, according to the Conjoiners, has gone horribly wrong, as she seems completely uninterested in the world beyond the game she seems to be playing. While negotiations are underway, Clavain's brother Warren attacks the nest, and the human diplomat is severely injured in the skirmish. He and Galiana, along with Felka and many more Conjoiners manage to escape with the help of decoys, but not without a price.

"Glacial" is set not too long after the events of "Great Wall of Mars", as Clavain, Galiana and Felka set foot on a planet called Diadem, once home to an American scientific colony, but is now deserted, as everyone has died. As Clavain and Galiana go out to investigate, they discover a corpse at the bottom of a crevasse, with the letters "IVF" written on one of the walls, which turn out to be the first letters of the name of a man known as Iverson, as Clavain issues the hypothesis that the person who wrote those letters died before completing his message. As the two partners investigate further, they find a man who in a state of reefersleep, and after much consideration, they decide to wake him up. The man in question claims to be Iverson, and take a special interest in Felka, but we knows nothing is ever what it seems to be, right?

"A Spy in Europa" is set on the moon Europa, which is under Demarchist control. Economic power has shifted from Earth of the moons of Jupiter, and while the Europa Demarchy has control of Europa and Io, Gilgamesh Isis, yet another faction, controls Ganymede and Callisto, and both are vying for complete economical dominance. Marius Vargovic is a Gilgamesh agent sent to Europa to meet a sleeper agent known as Cholok, who has come into possession of something that could threaten the cities on that particular moon. As he arrives on Cadmus-Asterius, a city built in Europa's ocean, Cholok reveals that she possesses a piece of hyperdiamond, a substance so strong that a single molecule can span hundreds of meters, and many can be found in the ocean. If Gilgamesh could find a way to tamper with those molecules, they could cause the fall of Europa. Before he can be operated on so he breathe underwater, he asks about the "Denizens", an experimental cross-breed of fish and human to create the perfect underwater worker, and Cholok denies their existence. After the procedure is complete, Marius kills her and leaves the city and swims towards his extraction point, which he learns has been compromised. However, there is another one thirty kilometers south of him, but the Demarchy is on his trail. Let's hope he swims fast.

All of the short stories and novellas are fascinating and depict a certain aspect of the Revelation Space universe. And while the Coalition, the Conjoiners and the Demarchists are the three main factions, Ultras, which are spacefaring human-robot hybrids, make for yet another interesting faction, with characteristics of their own. And I quite enjoyed his breed of science-fiction: dark and bloody, full of suspense, rivalry, and plots against one another. And it is evident throughout the book there is almost no trust between the different groups, especially towards the Conjoiners, who have embraced the joining of minds through brain implants as a way of life.

This evidently isn't utopian science-fiction. This is raw, where people are depicted at their best and at their worst, where conflicts continue on and where humanity is as fractional as ever, even though it has spread throughout the solar system and beyond. Reynold's universe is dark, bloody and turbulent, and even though these stories are mere glimpses into that world, they give a good idea as to what it could really look like. Looking forward to reading his full-scale novels.

4.5/5 show less

These eight short stories are set in the Revelation Space universe and are presented chronologically. Many of the characters and events referenced in the Revelation Space novels are fleshed out in these stories.

The first story, Great Wall of Mars, covers the early years of the Conjoiner “race” and the conflict between the Conjoiners and Coalition forces, set within the Martian Wall. It includes Galiana, Clavain and Felka, all major characters in the Revelation Space novels as well as the Demarchists. This short story is magnificent, a perfect ten.

The second story, Glacial, follows the star hopping Conjoiners to a nearby system where they discover the remains of a century old human colony, wiped out with the exception of one show more survivor, in cryogenic suspension. What killed the other colonists? Who is the survivor and how did he survive. This story focuses on the investigatory skills of Clavain, an interstellar mystery. This is a solid story, but not the equal of its predecessor; eight out of ten.

I found the third story, A Spy in Europa, to be something of a dud. Taking place on a colony on the Jovian moon, Europa, an agent for a colonial faction goes undercover to retrieve an artifact. I found the story to be pretty average, Six out of ten.

The fourth story, Weather, was excellent. An Ultra lighthugger is accosted by space pirates. The pirates are carrying a Conjoiner hostage who ends up on the Ultra ship. But the ship has been damaged and the Conjoiner engines are in need of repair, beyond the capabilities of the Ultras. Luckily, they have a Conjoiner on board, but can she be trusted? A solid nine.

Story number five, Dilation Sleep, is very short and involves a crew member wakened from reefer sleep in order to address a problem that has developed midway through a decades long journey. Reference is made to the Yellowstone system and the Melding Plague from Revelation Space. Good plot twist makes this an eight out of ten.

The fifth story, Grafenwelder’s Bestiary, focuses on a group of collectors based in the Rust Belt of the post-plague Yellowstone system. The collections consist of alien and unusual life forms and the competition is cut-throat. There is reference made to a distinctive character from the Reynolds novella Diamond Dogs. This is a good short story, eight out of ten.

Nightingale, story number six, is intriguing. The premise involves a prosecutor in Sky’s Edge, who is pursuing a war criminal. He assembles a team and they proceed to a point in space where a mysterious, sentient hospital ship (Nightingale) is thought to harboring the criminal. Good, not great, eight out of ten.

Galactic North, the final short story and title work, is something of a mess. A colony ship sustains damage on the way to the Yellowstone system and must make significant repairs. In the process of doing so, pirates raid the ship. The ship’s Captain pursues the pirates over a period of thousands of years. I honestly could not follow where this story was going and ultimately lost interest.

Thus, this volume ends with a whimper, after such a promising beginning. To me, Great Wall of Mars was by far the strongest story. Five of the others were very solid science fiction. Two were substandard, in my opinion.

In the Afterward, the author gives background on the origin of the stories. show less

I'm supremely happy to know that Reynolds as a short story writer is just as good as Reynolds as a novelist. Some of the stories were unabashedly nostalgic for me, but others, such as the last one, Galactic North, really bit deep into my subconscious and wouldn't let go. I wanted more and more of that one, but there were a few others that even verged on the mythical. I'm thinking of a certain medical ship, not to mention a fascination of worms.

Strangely enough, I got a lot out of the afterward, as well, when he explained his debts to other writers, and I think no less of him for adding such a long list. I suppose I'd do the same, in his shoes. But then again, I see no fear that he took too much from them, or made anything else less than show more stellar.
I'm very impressed and I enjoyed every story. show less

Reynolds' stories have yet to disappoint me and this good-size collection of eight novellas and longer short stories kept my impression intact. The collection includes an afterword by the author to add some perspective, inspirations, clues and tidbits to the stories. The stories were written at various times over the author's career, including new ones, and are part of his future history series generally referred to as "Revelation Space." The first story is set on Mars about 200 hundred years from now and the final one, the title story, covers a vast period of time into the far future. The topics are really varied and for science fiction fans who like challenging, interesting stuff, this is good. This is the kind of harder-edged modern show more "space opera" that I like. This type of story is not for a casual reader - this is not Ray Bradbury on Mars or elsewhere. The science is challenging. In a way these stories create an episodic novel that covers a vast amount of time and space. The impact of the stories is cumulative. There is also a dark streak that runs through most of these stories.

The included stories are:

1 Great Wall of Mars • (2000) • novelette
52 Glacial • (2001) • novella
104 A Spy in Europa • (1997) • shortstory
128 Weather • (2006) • novella
186 Dilation Sleep • (1990) • shortstory
203 Grafenwelder's Bestiary • (2006) • novelette
252 Nightingale • (2006) • novella
326 Galactic North • (1999) • novelette
368 Afterword • (2006) • essay by Alastair Reynolds

Every story in this collection is interesting. "Great Wall of Mars" certainly starts this off very well and whet my appetite for more. The novella "Weather" probably had the strongest emotional effect on me, and I think I'll call it my favorite here. The one story I didn't much care for was "Grafenwelder's Bestiary" because it was too dark and macabre for my personal tastes. The longer length of most of the stories really allowed some nice world building and atmosphere. Although written at various times, the stories are related and presented in a chronological order. Reynolds "Afterword" explains much about the stories and setup and was really interesting to me. I've enjoyed just about everything I've read by Reynolds and I'm looking forward to reading much more from this author. show less

A lot of short story collections have stories that range from meh to really good, but this collection holds pretty much only really amazing stories.

I put of reading this book because, as said, short story collections are often so much hit an miss. But not this one.

All the stories are in the Relevation Space universe and here and there you find some characters coming up that are also in the normal novels.

Highly recommended

Eight stories set in Reynold's shared universe. In his Afterword, Reynolds writes about how the concept of future history story arcs seized his imagination as a teenager. It seems that many writers go through this stage, only to abandon the concept when either their ideas no longer fit into the established story arc, or they require too much bending of the facts and action to make that happen. (The solution, which Iain Banks seems to have worked out, is to leave the historical and factual basis of his universe pretty loose, enabling him to write a range of different stories set in and around the Culture... but that's another matter altogether.)

Most of these stories set up features of Reynolds' future history, and reading them as an show more afterthought filled in a lot of details for me (although Reynolds himself acknowledges that some of the stories were written before his future universe was fully fleshed out; hence some of the details don't entirely gel with later stories.) Whether I would want to read them in advance of a re-read of the novel sequence is another question.

Of the stories, "Great Wall of Mars" and "Glacial" held my interest the best for filling in the back story of Nevil Clavain; whilst "Weather" was probably the most affecting story. "Grafenwalder's Bestiary" was rather reminiscent of George R.R. Martin's 1970s stories about Havilland Tuf (especially "A Beast for Norn"). but draws on the events of "A spy on Europa".

All in all, a strong collection that is essential reading for anyone already acquainted with Reynolds' 'Revelation Space' novels. show less