beyond the aquila rift the best of alastair reynolds

Sure, there are occasional glitches, but interstellar travel is now as safe and reliable as airline travel is today. Although the run - and indeed, all of human civilisation - depends on the wormhole-like routes between stars that are assumed to be the remnants of some long-lost alien civilisation, the use of these routes has become pretty much taken for granted.

Thom is the captain of a small ship doing a routine cargo run, along with his two crewmates. There's a reason this is the title story! Great sci-fi! One crewman becomes her advocate, trying to protect her from his captain's seemingly irrational animosity toward the refugee. From their attacker's drifting hulk, the victors reluctantly rescue a young woman who's a 'Conjoiner' - a member of a borg-like, 'post-human' collective who are both feared and hated - even as they make the best starship engines to be found anywhere. Out in deep space, a stroke of luck allows a crew to repel a pirate attack.

'Weather' is in the same universe as 'Great Wall of Mars,' but set a few generations later. The other, a former POW, insists on going down for peace negotiations.Īn interesting entry into the transhumanist genre, and a nice introduction to this universe.ĭue to this book's formatting, I wasn't immediately certain I had started a new story. Two brothers are part of that larger force. We live surrounded by hills, woods and wildlife, and not too much excitement.Ī really complex scenario for a short story, but it works, with a good core narrative and glimpses of a coherent larger universe and history outside it.Ī small group of implant-enhanced humans is holed up in a Martian colony, under threat from a vastly larger force who view their actions - attempts to 'escape' - as military provocations. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales.

In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. I moved to the Netherlands to continue my science career and stayed there for a very long time, before eventually returning to Wales. I was born in Wales, but raised in Cornwall, and then spent time in the north of England and Scotland. Some of my books and stories are set in a consistent future named after Revelation Space, the first novel, but I've done a lot of other things as well and I like to keep things fresh between books. I write about a novel a year and try to write a few short stories as well. I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels. I'm Al, I used to be a space scientist, and now I'm a writer, although for a time the two careers ran in parallel.

Beyond the aquila rift the best of alastair reynolds