Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Rating:
Summary: well written Revelation Universe tale
Review: Diamond Dogs. On the lifeless planet Golgotha lays an artifact the Blood Spire that has left humanity wondering about its secrets. One crew brutally died trying to uncover the mystery of this machine. Others clamor for the opportunity. Doctor Trintignant puts together a strong crew including Richard Swift and Roland Childe. These and other mercenaries on the team plan to enter the tower that waits enigmatically with math riddles that must be solved in a timely response or die. This exhilarating first person account outer space caper feels more like a gothic planetary noir with fabulous amoral mercenary antiheroes trying to solve a "locked door" puzzler.

Turquoise Days. Naqi Okpik has spent her life learning about the aquatic Pattern Jugglers of planet Turquoise; currently she heads the largest scientific study of the Jugglers ever attempted. Her obsession has been driven by the Jugglers absorbing the body of her older sister Mina like some form of a sponge. Mina's human memories have become part of the Juggler collective. There are off-world scientists with outrageous personal and study demands that if implemented could destroy the sentient life-forms on the planet. This exciting outer space thriller hooks the audience who obsess as strongly as Naqi has in a need to know the truth about the Jugglers even if it means readers swim into their collective.

Though quite different in theme and narration, the prime link between the tales is Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Universe. The well written stories keep the audience locked into one sitting completions as both fabulous novellas contain strong casts to include the tower and the jugglers within a sense of doom story lines.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Reinolds Is One Of The Few Talents Left In This Field
Review: Let's Begin By Saying I'm A Great SCI-FI Fan For Many Years.

Unfortunately, I'm Finding Myself In The Latest Years Finding Less And Less Good Reading Material, And I Find Myself Ditching Or Skimming The Books I Try To Read.

One Of The Exceptions Were "Chasm City" And "Diamond Dogs / Turquoise Days" By Alastair Reynolds.

The Reasons For That I Think Are 3.

1. Alastair Reynolds Is A Good Writer, Nor The "SCI-FI Fan" Type, Nor "The Scientist That Like To Expand Our Knowledge" Type , Or The "I'm A Failure Writing Fiction Stories, So I Will Write SCI-FI Instead" Type, But Actual Writer.
2. Alastair Reynolds Knows How To Tell A story That Will Entice You, The Reader, Like Stephan King Does.
3. Alastair Reynolds Can Still Imagine And Innovate In This Almost Dead And Berried Genre.

This 2 Stories Are A Great Example Of It's Complex Work : They Are All Happen In Is Chasm City Universe - The First "Diamond
Dogs" Is Sort Of "The CUBE" Movie Style Plot Combined With Biomechanical And Advanced SCI-FI Technology.
The Other Is More Related To Is Chasm City, And Tells A Story About The Mysterious Pattern Jugglers.

One Of The Uniqueness About Reinolds Creation Is It Ability To Create A Very Rich Universe In Which Everything Is In Big Proportions, And Every Thing Is Posible : Advanced Technology, Aliens, Mutations, hundred Of Space ships, Ghotic And Gigantic Cities, Killing Dieseases, Endless Chases, Secrets Waiting To Be Explored Below Ground, Below Oceans, In Space, In Remote Planets, Really Every Thing Can Happen In Every Given Moment, And Whole Is Woven TiTightly In A Convincing Way.

I Think This Is Worthwhile Purchase, And It Is Also Come In Hard Cover !
I Also Believe That Reinolds Is Very Talented Writer, And We Will Hear More About Him In The Future !

Rating:
Summary: Indiana Jones, "Cube", and Reynolds' particular seasonings
Review: Mercenaries travel to an isolated world to unravel the secrets of a deadly, living, alien tower.

I'll recommend this only for those who loved Revelation Space and/or Chasm City, as it works as a slightly off-key counterpoint to those two larger, better, wonderful novels.

At 111 pages, this short story can easily be read in a sitting, which makes it seem almost a trifle. Adding to that feeling, it also seems not quite as polished as Revelation Space or Chasm City.

Take the old "Indiana Jones" spirit of a quest to find something of unimaginable importance, throw in the premise of the indie flick "Cube" (in which several characters travel from room to room in a massive building, facing one deadly obstacle after the next), add in Reynolds' rather unique style of building a tale from his Revelation universe, and you've got an hour or two of fast, fun reading while you wait for his next, Redemption Ark (available for quite awhile in the UK, but not yet in the States 'till June).

The UK version of this comes w/ a 2nd short story called Turquoise Days, offering a nice tale w/ more information about the Pattern Jugglers. I'd actually recommend getting _that_ version...since T.D. is a better story than D.D.

Rating:
Summary: A small sideshow in a grand space opera
Review: This is an excellent book by one of the leading authors in the Space Opera rennaissance. The story is taut, gritty, & intellectual. The writing is clear and unpretentious.

Reynolds and Stephen King are not in the same category. Stephen King writes mass market potboiler horror. Reynolds writes interesting science fiction with novel storyline. Reynolds needs to work on characterization, but his thin characters are better than the montage of cliches that King frequently relies on.

Rating:
Summary: A small sideshow in a grand space opera
Review: This is an excellent book by one of the leading authors in the Space Opera rennaissance. The story is taut, gritty, & intellectual. The writing is clear and unpretentious.

Reynolds and Stephen King are not in the same category. Stephen King writes mass market potboiler horror. Reynolds writes interesting science fiction with novel storyline. Reynolds needs to work on characterization, but his thin characters are better than the montage of cliches that King frequently relies on.