Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Dos novelas cortas de Alastair Reynolds, sin duda uno de los escritores de ciencia ficción actuales más interesantes. Es una pena que las editoriales españolas lleven años y años sin traducir ningún libro de este autor, salvo algún relato suelto.

Diamond Dogs. Roland Childe recluta a varios especialistas, unos por la recompensa, otros por la emoción, para una misión muy especial: explorar una extraña estructura en el planeta Golgotha. Todo apunta a que se trate de algo alienígena, lo que supondría algo extraordinario. Los compañeros de Childe son: Richard, antiguo amigo de Roland; Celestine, ex mujer de Richard, que fue sometida a experimentos por los Malabaristas, lo que convierte su mente en especialista en enigmas show more matemáticos; Hirz, especialista en infiltraciones; el doctor Trintignant, cuya mala fama con sus experimentos en injertos mecánicos vendrá de maravilla para el proyecto; y Forqueray, un ultra que provee de nave y trajes especiales. Lo que se encontrarán en el planeta va más allá del horror. Gadgets, acertijos, horror cósmico, lo convierten en una gran novela corta.

Turquoise Days. Dos hermanas viven en el planeta Turquesa, explorando los océanos en busca de los Malabaristas y sus extrañas habilidades. No está mal, pero no es de lo mejor del autor. show less

Two really fascinating novellas here.

Diamond Dogs is the ULTIMATE in grizzly puzzle-solving dungeon hacking. Just add alien tech, deadly puzzle rooms, and a rag-tag team of transhumanist and alien-modded humans who are monsters in their own right, and set them to work at the problem. :)

I mean, it FEELS like a heist. But a super hard-SF heist.

Turquoise Days really sets us in an alien landscape that pushes the boundaries. Swimming in an ocean of alien minds? Getting transformed so that you become an uber-genius when it comes to math? And it has heart. Totally recommend.

Two very interesting novellas.

First one is for all means and purposes story of obsessive compulsive behavior. When two old friends, adventurers with quite a renown, encounter a series of deadly puzzles they just start obsessing over it. Nebulous prize awaits them, but losses suffered seem to indicate that prize might not be worth it.Or at least sane people would see this from the beginning. Story old as human race, quest for the Holy Grail, with assumed prize, wealth, glory, immortality - assumed...... what if the prize is one of the mentioned things but with the unexpected twist (like that knight from Indiana Jones story that is immortal but cannot move anywhere, so what is the point, living forever in cave alone)?

Story is very much show more inline with the cyber-bio-punk motives from Revelation Space series. Story is straight forward, with several twists and very very cinematic in presentation.

Second story (Turquoise Days) is more relaxed one, told from the perspective of one of the scientist on rather isolated human colony. Colony is known as a place where Pattern Jugglers, remainders of ancient civilization, cover and spread through entire seas and even grow so large that they come to surface and form atolls. Due to saturation of atmosphere and waters with the alien microorganisms local human colonists have very deep knowledge and experience of melding their minds with these entities that some suspect are nothing more than biological data storage. So when unexpected visitors pop up, with agenda of their own and parties within them start to release destructive alien pathogens our protagonist will find herself not only being chased by past but also witnessing rise of something strange, monstrous even, thing of legends, necessary repellent to outside attack. How one can come to terms with alien mindset that is so old, that for it human colonists are nothing more than passing entertainment?

Ending is little bit melancholic, poetic, but considering the state of affairs I do not see how it could end any other way.

All in all very interesting collection, two very different novellas, linked with possibly aeons between them, showing how universe is very very dark and ultimately unfriendly (or better yet in general not caring). Vast Terra Incognita that humanity can only learn about in small, ridiculously small steps lasting centuries.

Recommended to fans of SF adventure and mystery. show less

I ought to be a big Alastair Reynolds fan. PHe has physics and astronomy training, writes a lot of space opera, with nanotech, ancient civilizations, and kilometers-long relativistic spacecraft crossing between stars; just my thing.

This volume collects two novellas set in his Revelation Space series. In "Diamond Dogs" the protagonist is tempted by an old friend/rival to meet the challenge of a fantastic structure on a distant planet. Progress through the serially arranged rooms of the Blood Spire is achieved by solving increasing tough mathematical problems. Choosing the right solution opens the door to the next room. The wrong solution draws attack from hidden weapons. The expedition members must repeatedly retreat to their spacecraft show more to replace missing body parts with prosthetics, before they can go back in. As the explorers' bodies become increasingly artificial, the protagonist wonders just why he is doing this.

In the second story, the planet Turquoise is mostly covered by an ocean which hosts a complex ecology of organisms humans call Pattern Jugglers. Swimming among them allows telepathic contact. The human settlers comprise a scientific backwater, engaged in a slow paced research project into the Jugglers, until a spacecraft arrives with sweeping plans for change.

As with other Reynolds stories, I find these lacking. He is as inventive in this genre as one might want, but the vividness of his descriptions disappoints. It's had to pin down, exactly, but I've yet to be enthusiastic about any of his work. show less

Reynolds delivers two great novellas set in the “Revelation Space” universe, having very peripheral contact with events from the novels, both featuring reluctantly evolving protagonists. Leaving the more dramatically ripe themes of macro-history or MacGuffin origins aside, he instead presents two very personal stories of characters recovering from the loss of loved ones, determined to achieve something noble in order to fill the void left behind by their absence. The settings and shorthand used to describe several characters, such as ‘Ultras’, ‘The Mulch’, etc, don’t completely prevent an unfamiliar reader from enjoying these stories, although much confusion can be avoided by reading any one of the RS novels first. With or show more without that background, these two examples of alien exposition through contact with their left over artifacts is a fascinating one, and the uncertain endings of each leave the reader engaged in Reynold’s ideas long after finishing the stories. show less

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Title: Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
Series: Revelation Space #5
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 296
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

This book consists of the two Revelation Space novellas that make up the title of this book.

Diamond Dogs follows a man driven to explore a mysterious tower on a forsaken planet. The tower is made up of rooms with a puzzle in each room. Answer correctly and the door to the next room opens. show more Answer incorrectly and the Tower punishes you. This man gathers a group together and they begin the journey. They have a geneticist with them who helps change their bodies and minds to answer the various challenges. Along the way it is revealed that the man is actually a clone of the original man. Each clone is programmed with the memories of all those who came before and convinced that that particular clone CAN beat the tower. Eventually, only 2 other members of the group and the clone survive and the 2 remaining members turn back before they die. The clone continues on. Eventually one of the members can't resist the lure and the story ends with him sneaking off on a spaceship to return to the Tower.

Turquoise Days follows 2 sisters on a Pattern Juggler world. Pattern Jugglers are ocean wide remnants of a civilization. They take in the mind of anyone who swims in their oceans and sometimes rearrange the swimmer's mind and gives them a boost. The planet sees a spaceship coming and one night there is unprecedented Pattern Juggler activity. The sisters go swimming illegaly and one becomes one with the ocean and other has nothing happen to her. The spaceship arrives 2 years later with a contingent of scientists who want to study the Pattern Jugglers. Only it turns out they trying to revive a specific memory in the Pattern Jugglers and imprint it on all of their members. Said memory is of a Tyrant. The remaining sister convinces the Pattern Jugglers to resist the invaders and it does, agains all the humans on the planet. The book ends with the remaining sister giving herself to the ocean and the Pattern Jugglers destroying everything.

My Thoughts:

Cheery stories, eh? I'd read the first one in the book Beyond the Aquila Rift back in '16. I couldn't remember if that was the whole story or not. I enjoyed the story this time around too but my goodness, it was depressing. Not only the clones (all of them) megalomania but then the story ending with the other main character being drawn back by his own lust for knowledge. So good and evocative but I just groaned inside.
The second story was new to me so that made it quite fun to read. The ending wasn't quite what I was expecting but considering Reynolds' penchant for extinction events, once I thought about it it didn't really surprise me. Reynolds is definitely a gloomy gus of a guy so don't expect human exceptionalism to be part of the story. We don't get to pull a rabbit out of our collective hat and save the day.

I really liked that Reynolds didn't have 3 story plots going on that ever so slowly tied together. A good way to start the month out.

★★★★☆ show less

Unerringly well written. Both characters and plot in Diamond Dogs, I never really connected with.
Turquoise Days felt similarly humdrum until the concluding scenes, when my connection with the story escalated satisfyingly.
Worth reading, but not essential.