The Prefect

"Your skull is a stained-glass window, an open book revealing the processes of your mind": Nominally a kind of police procedural for those already familiar with Reynolds' Revelation Space setting (although it takes place during the Belle Epoque, long before the Machine Plague). Actually, it's something like an extended meditation on the possibility of democracy under conditions of extreme pluralism. It also explores the (unresolved, or perhaps unresolvable) tension between modes of democratic self-governance at a grand scale, on the one hand, and the blend of old aristocratism and new developments in machine intelligence, on the other hand. Can democracies of whatever scale survive their elites without a guardian class (the Prefects of show more the novel's original title)? Or maybe you really can't stop what's coming. show less

A multi-faceted space opera detective story. It's detailed and pretty exciting, but a lot of characters are introduced in the first 20 pages or so, and it's a little hard to keep track of who's who when you don't know who are going to be the important ones (clue: they all are).

The habitats of the Glitter Band (satellites around planet Yellowstone) are part of a libertarian demarchy (democratic anarchy), which means constant polls of everyone about everything. Paonoply is the organisation in charge of the polling cores in each habitat and general policing. Within that framework, each habitat can apply whatever system its citizens sign up for, including obscenely vile "voluntary tyrannies", hippy-esque idylls and others where everyone is show more in PVS or other forms of abstraction or virtual reality.

The story opens after a habitat (and nearly 1000 inhabitants) has been blown up, apparently in a dispute over the purchase of an artwork. It turns out that far more powerful forces are at work. Tom Dreyfus is the Panoply prefect in charge of investigating the case. Meanwhile, one of his deputies, Thalia Ng, visits four other habitats to install trial polling software upgrades. Their stories diverge for much of the book, which gives it breadth, even though you know there will be plenty of overlap between the two.

As befits the writing of a "proper" physicist, the future science is (mostly) plausible, but Reynolds doesn't fall into the trap of explaining too much at a time (which would be artificial and disrupt the story). In fact often things are mentioned and the reader is left wondering what on earth it is until there is the first hint of explanation several chapters later. It all adds to the suspense.

I have only minor criticisms plot-wise. Very early on, one of the prefects seems to have another agenda. I would have preferred it if that plotline had come later, or been vaguer in the early stages. The other niggles concern the end of Thalia's time on the last habitat she visits and the qualifications (and disqualifications) for being Supreme Prefect - rather too far-fetched for my liking.

Many different types of being/consciousness fill the pages, but whilst hints are dropped about racism against hyperpigs by baseline humans, the main themes of the book are much bigger: freedom, democracy and power; consciousness (of "live" beings, machines and hybrids thereof); the old quandary of whether the ends justify the means (whether a benevolent tyranny is better than anarchistic collapse, whether the police should be armed (you can tell he’s a British writer!)); machines going rogue, and whether revenge and justice can ever be the same thing. Fortunately, he lets the reader decide on these issues; there are plenty of shades of grey. For example, there is a degree of understanding for those that could easily be labelled bad, one time explicitly saying such a character is not "a bad man" but "a man who believes bad things".

If you prefer moral absolutes, or you’re particularly fond of clocks and clockmakers, this is probably not the book for you! show less

¿Es Alastair Reynolds el mejor escritor de ciencia ficción de la década? Posiblemente.

Su particular visión de un futuro lejano es única. Un futuro en el que los grandes avances tecnológicos permiten casi cualquier cosa, y en el que los seres humanos se dividen en diferentes razas dependiendo de cuál sea su nivel de dependencia por la tecnología. Y también están las máquinas, que forman una raza aparte. Pero lo que caracteriza a Reynolds es su manera de tratar estos temas. Alastair Reynolds no pretende otra cosa que entretenernos, y a fe mía que lo consigue. Para ello utiliza una prosa elegante y efectiva que nos atrapa desde la primera línea, creando unas atmósferas oscuras, siniestras, hipnóticas, de apabullantes ideas, show more y planteándonos escenarios plagados de acción y enigmas que se van desvelando paulatinamente.

'El prefecto', quinta novela de la serie 'Espacio Revelación', es ante todo un thriller de suspense, y se aleja de las anteriores novelas de la saga, aunque comparte su universo. Tom Dreyfus es un prefecto, una especie de policía, de Panoplia, uno de los diez mil hábitats que forman el Anillo Brillante, que rodea el planeta Yellowstone. Dreyfus tiene una nueva misión: investigar la destrucción de Ruskin-Sartorious, uno de estos hábitats, que a primera vista parece obra de los ultras. Para ello contará con la ayuda de sus dos ayudantes, ambos observados con aprensión por el resto de sus compañeros: Thalia Ng, que busca ser la mejor prefecto posible para redimir la traición de su padre, antiguo prefecto, y Sparver, un hipercerdo, apartado del grupo por razones obvias.

Pero detrás de lo que parece una trama de asesinato múltiple, se esconden fuerzas más poderosas, entre ellas Aurora, que se encuentra más allá de la humanidad y que busca la inmortalidad a toda costa.

Tom Dreyfus también tiene sus propios fantasmas. Su mujer fue asesinada por el Relojero, una enigmática figura que construía artilugios mecánicos capaces de las más crueles y terribles muertes..., o algo peor que la muerte, como le sucedió a la prefecto supremo Jane Aumonier, en cuya nuca el Relojero instaló un escarabajo que impide a Jane ser tocada e incluso dormir, a riesgo de morir inmediatamente.

'El prefecto' es un libro de aventuras y suspense, que aunque no llega al nivel del anterior, 'El desfiladero de la absolución', en cuanto a despliegue de ideas, si resulta igual de original y ameno de leer. show less

I really enjoyed the [b:Revelation Space|89187|Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1)|Alastair Reynolds|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1405532042l/89187._SY75_.jpg|219037] series and therefore grabbed this unfamiliar Alastair Reynolds novel when I saw it in the library. I'd forgotten how brilliant the world of that series and [b:Chasm City|89185|Chasm City|Alastair Reynolds|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1309203334l/89185._SY75_.jpg|2926628] was, so found 'The Prefect' even better than I hoped. Technically it's a police procedural about a space cop, but 400 years in the future crime and policing are sufficiently different as to be fascinating. Moreover, there show more are themes of what role and powers the police should have, whether they should be armed, and to what extent their ends should justify their means. The setting is the Glitter Band, ten thousand orbital habitats with wildly varying political and social structures.

While the peril of the plot was highly compelling, I also really enjoyed learning about the democratic processes of the Glitter Band. The main role of the police force is to safeguard these processes by fixing any errors in the complex polling software running in every habitat. Before disaster really strikes, I loved Thalia's exhausting work trip to run patches in four habitats. One is a voluntary tyranny gone wrong, one a whimsical fairyland of flying horses and panda-people, in another everyone is fully immersed in VR and retains only the vestiges of a physical body, and the last, House Aubusson, is an arcadian direct democracy with a particularly intriguing export: influence on polls. The polling system doesn't just record one vote per person, it analyses how 'correct' that person's past votes were and adjusts the weighting of their future votes. To live on House Aubusson, your judgement has to be good enough to retain a vote-weighting above 1.25. As a lot of my recent work has been survey weighting, the implications of this are of particular interest to me. There is no mention of truly extreme weights, just a few individuals at 3 or just above, so amid millions of people a few individuals couldn't hugely bias poll results. Nonetheless, I'm curious about the effect this weighting would have over time.

All the world-building in 'The Prefect' was excellent. Strange enough to make this future vivid, yet smoothly integrated into the narrative and quick to become familiar. There are plenty of clever and amusing details. It made me smile that in a future where sleep could be prevented for over a decade using drugs, most still drink coffee. It's such a delicious stimulant and has been popular for two hundred years now, so why not! Rather than having to make your own, though, any wall will dispense a coffee then recycle the receptacle once you've finished with it. The varying levels of network connectivity ('abstraction') used in different parts of the Glitter Band were neatly shown, as was the importance of trade internally and externally.

The characters are likewise appealing. Tom Dreyfus is much more than the jaded cop with a tragically-fridged wife that he might initially seem to be. I liked the rapport he had with both his superiors and his juniors. He shares narration duties with other prefects, which definitely contributes to how involving and well-paced the plot is. After initial intimations of approaching disaster, major catastrophe hits and the prefects must contend with a combination of threats that cannot easily be countered. It's notable that they make mistakes, acknowledge these, and learn from them, as well as admitting to fear and fallibility. This is not some super-macho police squad that shoots first and asks questions never. Giving Gaffney's point of view was powerful, as it shows how a seemingly exemplary prefect could be easily radicalised into authoritarianism. He makes a great primary antagonist as he forces his colleagues to reflect on their own beliefs about ends and means.

The twists and turns of the plot are executed brilliantly. Via different points of view, the reader sees both the wider strategic picture and microcosms of disaster. Throughout, Dreyfus doggedly investigates what the hell is going on, his boss attempts to protect the Glitter Band as a whole, and his subordinates do their best to save who they can. There are some spectacularly memorable scenes and ingenious revelations. Aumonier is a wonderful character, held hostage in her own body for more than a decade by mysterious tech attached to her spine yet relentlessly competent. The moment when she's abruptly decapitated to release her from this is extraordinary, followed by her severed head being taken hostage by Gaffrey! I also found Thalia's increasingly tense struggles to survive on House Aubusson suitably thrilling. Everything to do with the Clockmaker lived up to the ominous hints dropped at the beginning.

Although the ending was almost entirely satisfying, one thing I felt remained unresolved concerned the encroaching threat Aurora convinced Gaffney about, some kind of nonspecific apocalyptic plague. It seemed plausible to me that what Exordium foresaw was Aurora's takeover of the Glitter Band: by (allegedly) trying to prevent a plague she unleashed one in the form of weevil robots. I wondered if that was why Aurora was increasingly dissatisfied by what Exordium reported in their plague predictions? Amid these dramatic events, the narrative also considers big questions of what constitutes consciousness, how much should be sacrificed for security, and whether solidarity can be found with radically altered posthumans. This is exactly what I want from hard sci-fi. 'The Prefect' reminded me that carefully imagined and impeccably executed visions of the future are an absolute joy to read. show less

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Title: The Prefect
Series: Revelation Space #7
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 516
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, an officer in the Panoply, a police force that enforces the few laws of the Glitter Band that orbits the planet Yellowstone.

Things start off with a bang as an Ultra ship uses its engines to wipe out 1 of the 10,000 Habitats. Dreyfus is sent in to investigate by his boss, Jane Aumonier. show more Jane had a run-in several years ago with an entity named the Clockmaker and has a mechanical tick on neck that places all sorts of restrictions on her or it will kill her.

During Dreyfus's investigation it becomes apparent that the Ultra Captain was framed to cover something else up. While this investigation is going on, Dreyfus's newest underling, Thalia Ng, is sent out on a routine software patch update to 4 of the Habitats. Said patch closes a loophole that allowed those habitats to sway the voting in their habitats, which is strictly against the Law. Thalia installs the code but finds out that it hid some other code that allowed another entity to take over those Habitats.

Thus is revealed the Bad Guy, Aurora Nerval-Lermontov. She is the only surviving member of the 80, an experiment by the Sylveste's to truly digitize humans. She has been hiding and found a ship full of Conjoiners. Said conjoiners could see the future and saw the melding plague, which spells the end of the Glitter Band, and thus Aurora, as she would be destroyed by the melding plague. Aurora wants to prevent this plague but the only way she thinks is viable is to take over and control the entire Glitter Band, no matter how many people she has to kill.

Thalia must survive on the Habitat she is on while the rest of the Panoply tries to deal with Aurora, who has a traitor inside the Panoply. She uses the resources of the 4 Habitats she controls to create drones to spread her control code to other Habitats. Panoply ends up nuking several of them to contain the spread but realize they can't really stop Aurora.

Dreyfus realizes that the first Habitat destroyed by the Ultra ship probably contained the Clockmaker and that Aurora was behind it, as the Clockmaker is the only entity Aurora truly fears. Dreyfus races against the traitor in their midst to find the Clockmaker and release it.

The Clockmaker and Aurora end up inhabiting the entire data band, which slows them down and makes them a non-threat for at least a century or two. The Panoply and the Ultra's get together to clean up the remnants of Aurora's forces and Dreyfus deals with the traitor, regains some memories he never knew he'd even lost and Life Goes On.

My Thoughts:

This was a decent end to my Revelation Space series read. Since I had already read about the melding plague and the glitter band, the situation presented to me wasn't completely outside what I could comprehend.

That being said, this was only a decent end to my Revelation Space series read. I enjoyed what I read but I was neither wowed or impressed nor disgusted.

Dreyfus came across as this careworn, stoic, tired man who could barely function. I didn't enjoy him as a character even while he wasn't boring. No character was boring though. Each and everyone was unique and made the story what it was. I didn't feel like anyone should have been cut out nor did I feel like I wanted “someone else”. But by the end of the book I realized that my time with Reynolds was over.

It feels kind of funny to be giving this 4stars and yet saying it wasn't good enough to keep me reading more Reynolds, but hey, thems the breaks! Reynold's style just never grabbed me like Neal Asher's writing did, so take from that what you may.

Glad I read this compendium of 7 books but I've had enough.

★★★★☆ show less

The Prefect starts slowly with the murder of just under 1000 people in one of the Glitter Band habitats in an apparent trade deal gone wrong. Dreyfus is a very special kind of cop, working for an agency called Panoply that focuses on existential threats to the Glitter Band: violations of democratic process, weapons of mass destruction, and conflicts between factions. The destruction of a habitat appears to be local Demarchists vs interstellar Ultras, but the situation smells.

A lot of this will be familiar to people who have read other books in the Revelation Space series. What's new is finally seeing Demarchist society at it's Belle Epoque height, before it was ravaged by the Melding Plague and the Inhibitors. The technology works with show more Clarkean magic and people are actually decent to each other.

Of course, this being Reynolds, things fall apart quickly. The destruction of the habitat is linked to the scheming of Aurora, an Alpha-level AI that somehow survived the Sylveste institute upload process who escaped into the net. Aurora can sense the Melding Plague coming, but is unable to figure out what it is or how to stop it. She's subverted the head of Panoply's internal security and is planning a take-over of the Glitter Band to make it safe for herself. As for all those pesky humans, well, they'll just have to go.

The only salvation is the Clockmaker, another machine intelligence that 11 years ago broke it's chains in a violent escape that killed several Panoply agents, including Dreyfus' wife, and placed a deadly device on the neck of the current head of Panoply which might kill her. The Clockmaker is a near mythical force of chaos, supposedly destroyed with nuclear weapons, but it's a devil that might not want humanity dead.

The setting is my favorite version of Revelation Space, and the action picks up fast in the last third, but this is yet another Reynolds' protagonist with a damaged memory and dangerous obsessions, and subplot around a group of ordinary citizens trapped in a museum with a Panoply deputy sets up some plot points, but is tedious and barely connected to the rest of the book. show less

I was wondering how the trilogy would hold up in comparison to a kind-of prequel, and was delighted to see a greater exploration of Aurora in the hey-day of humanity's triumph. Even more, I enjoyed seeing the stakes for what they were and the premonitions of things to come. As a police procedural, it was a much better book, in my humble opinion, than Chasm City, although both had their definite charms. The stakes are always high in these books, as is the body count. I've now got my Reynolds sweet tooth and have got to have more. I don't know what to expect next, and don't even know if he'll be remaining within the same universe as these other 5 books that I've devoured, but I'm in full-enjoyment mode, now.