Wonderful story collection indeed ( )

.... The first edition of this Zima Blue and Other Stories was published in 2006 by Night Shade Books. In 2009 an expanded British edition appeared from Gollancz. I have read the Gollancz version of the collection which includes four additional stories. The stories in this collection are all set outside his Revelation Space universe. Most of the short fiction in that universe can be found in the collections Galactic North (2006) and Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003). Several of the stories are linked though. The collection contains the three Merlin stories for instance, as well as two stories featuring the character Carrie Clay and two stories set in a many worlds interpretation of Cardiff....

Full Random Comments ( )

A collection of Reynold's short stories written over many years inbetween his work in the Revelation Space novels. None of these stories are set in that Universe. The content varies from deep dark space opera, to almost lighthearted themes sometimes set in the very near future. Each story has an afterword from Reynolds, descriing how he came to write it, or what he was thinking at the time.

As always with such a collection some stories work better than others. There are several looking at death in various forms that work quite well, leaving you somethign to ponder. Some however, particularly when Reynolds attempts to come to grips with the complexities of Quantum Mechanics fail to properly engage the reader - I'm also not quite sure that Reynolds' grasp of QM is quite correct. Many of these stories have been published elsewhere, in various SF magazines such as Interzone, but this is, as far as I'm aware, the first publication in book form.

A few characters re-occur in sucessive stories. These Reynolds notes may oneday become the basis for further Space Opera novels, and especially those of Carrie the reporter in the title named story Zima Blue (which comes last in this collection) will be interesting to read.

Reynolds' attempts at writng near Future SF - which is a very different beast from his normal Space opera, still work very well. If he can find a full length novel in this vein it will prove to be very interesting indeed. ( )

The real story

After the first landing on Mars, a one-way, one-man, privately run mission, alien technology was later discovered there potentially enabling travel to the stars. A reporter is on Mars after the real story of that first man on Mars and, in a bar high up a rift valley wall, she meets someone claiming to be him. She finds out more about that first mission than she expects and a neat twist propagates a pattern.

Beyond the Aquila Rift

Thom is captain of the Blue Goose, an ordinary cargo ship that routinely uses the network of discarded alien jump gates to get around a volume of space that includes Earth. For this jump though, things go wrong for Thom in small ways and then in more significant ways. A delightfully Dickian tale of increasing estrangements...

Enola

Enola is an artificial intelligence, a powerful killing machine, and a survivor of a catastrophic global war. She keeps herself going by assimilating both machines and human memories. As she runs down, her final act bequeaths a future for the humans left alive.

Signal to noise

Curiously flat tale about love and alternate realities in an improbable near future. Mick loses his estranged wife Andrea in a road accident but, since connections with other realities are possible via a quantum device, as well as the ability to borrow bodies in those realities, he gets to reminisce with an alternate version of Andrea.

Cardiff afterlife

Using the same setting as Signal to noise, something nasty happens to Cardiff and the dark side of access to alternate realities is revealed. A weak, one-idea story, very uncharacteristic for this author.

Hideaway

The remnants of humanity are fleeing an implacable foe, the cyborg race the Huskers. They flee following The Way, a galactic transit device, which they lack the knowledge to use, although one man, Merlin, is trying to solve its puzzle. The discovery of Huskers up ahead necessitates a new plan. The main force will continue and try to escape, while a breakaway force will hide at a nearby system, whose sun is known as Bright Boy. Investigating a hollowed out planet and its gas giant, anomalies are found...

Minlas's flowers

This follows on from Hideway. Merlin has discovered how to use the Way. However, spaceship problems force him to land and intervene in a war between descendants of human colonists. Merlin discovers that the solar system is doomed through a future collision with the Way. Minla, who is a little girl when she first meets Merlin who give her flowers, eventually becomes leader of her people and is tasked with saving them. Not quite as exciting as usual but still has story twists.

Merlin's gun

The final story following on from Hideaway and Merlin's Gun. Merlin seems to have discovered a superweapon, built by the Way creators. He rescues Sora who teams up with him but is suspicious, as he appears not to have aged. It all leads up to a confrontation with the Huskers and lots of revelations and the usual mind-boggling technologies.

Angels of ashes

The Kiwidinok are aliens who arrived on Earth bearing the gift of a new religion, based around quantum physics, as they can perceive realities branching. On Mars, a disciple of this religion has a fateful meeting with its human founder, who has a lot to reveal about the real truth of the religion.

Spirey and the Queen

A war is being fought between two human factions in the Fomalhaut system. Spirey is crew on the Mouser, which is on a hunter-killer mission chasing a crippled enemy ship. Both sides are using semi-intelligent machines known as Wasps to help in the war, while genetic engineering has been used to modify humans: Yarrow, Mouser's pilot has a mermaid tail instead of legs. What looks like a routine mission escalates as the real war is gradually revealed. A classic.

Understanding space and time

Story moves through a number of distinct phases: the last man on Mars (and possibly anywhere, because of an out-of-control virus on Earth), seeks solace and wisdom from a hologram of an extravagantly-dressed piano-playing pop star. Then it flips into amazing speculation about the universe, and then ends up back on Mars, in the far future.

Digital to analogue

An unnamed clubber is kidnapped and examined to see if he is infected with a,new form of disease, that lives and spreads via special sounds in music.

Everlasting

Moira visits an old friend, Ian, fearing he has a dangerous new plan for life extension. After a risky drive on a dark, snowy night she hears out his latest idea involving quantum physics. Things work out extremely ironically.

Zima blue

A special shade of blue has gradually taken over the works produced by the artist Zima, who has moved his consciousness into an indestructible cyborg body, so he can experience lethal environments for his art. After moving up to planet-sized creations in his trademark colour, his final work is announced as involving a small swimming pool. A story about self-discovery. ( )

Review by Stuart Mayne

This companion volume to Galactic North showcases Alastair Reynolds’ short fiction writing. Fifteen years of short work ranging from near future to deep time and space. In Reynolds’ universes there may be wars, there may be catastrophes and cosmic errors, but something human will still survive.

I loved Galactic North and was keen to compare Zima Blue with Reynolds’ other short fiction. This first thing that struck me was the near future brace of stories; one of which, ‘Cardiff Afterlife’, is new to this edition, having first been published in The Big Issue Cymru. That’s the Welsh edition btw. These two stories are a departure from the usual Reynolds’ fare, dealing with parallel worlds, and are an interesting counter point to his middle future work.

Also added to this edition are the story ‘Minla’s Flowers’ which first saw light of day in The New Space Operaanthology in 2007 and ‘Everlasting’, which is a story from Interzone 2004.

You want to write science fiction short fiction of the highest calibre? Then use Zima Blue or Galactic North as your inspiration. Alastair Reynolds is a master of the short fiction form and an aspiring science fiction writer will do worse than deconstructing his story structure.