Review: Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds

Title: Elysium Fire
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Pages: 408
ISBN:9780575090590
Series: Prefect Dreyfus Emergency #2
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 15 January 2018
Genre: Science Fiction
Source: Review copy from publisher

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One citizen died a fortnight ago. Two a week ago. Four died yesterday . . . and unless the cause can be found - and stopped - within the next four months, everyone will be dead. For the Prefects, the hunt for a silent, hidden killer is on . . .

Alastair Reynolds has returned to the world of The Prefect for this stand-alone SF mystery in which no one is safe. The technological implants which connect every citizen to each other have become murder weapons, and no one knows who or what the killer is - or who the next targets will be. But their reach is spreading, and time is not on the Prefects' side.

After more than a decade Alastair Reynolds returns to the world of The Prefect and it's about damn time! Elysium Fire is set two years after the events of The Prefect (recently relaunched as Aurora Rising) and follows Prefect Dreyfus and his team Thalia Ng and Sparver Bancal as they face another threat to the stability of the Glitter Band. All across the ten thousand habitats citizens are dropping dead without warning. There is seemingly no connection between the victims, the rising death-toll threatens to push the already strained relations between the Prefects and the citizenry to the breaking point. It is up to Dreyfus and his team to figure out what is going on and to put a stop to it before it is too late.

All the familiar characters we've grown to love return for this second outing. The characters are older and wiser, scarred by their previous actions they are more conflicted and yet this makes them even more determined to carry out their mandate of upholding the tenets of the democracy that allows the Glitter Band to function.

Elysium Fire is a far more intimate story in scope, the relationships and interactions between Dreyfus and his team takes the forefront as they struggle to make sense of this newest emergency. While the first novel focused on a larger scale with ever-expanding implications, Elysium Fire takes a much more personal route. It is the actions of a few that puts the Glitter Band in jeopardy, but it is also the actions of the small team of Prefects willing to take a final stand that makes all the difference.

"And while a single one of us still breathes, you'll know there's still someone willing to make that final stand. Still Someone guarding the gates of utopia." (p 290) 

When I first read The Prefect I was amazed with the scope of it all and Elysium Fire takes that groundwork and sketches in even more intricate details.  Reynolds plays around with some truly breathtaking ideas - the machinery of governance and democracy, policing a society distributed throughout thousands of habitats, artificial intelligence, identity and the implications of altering memories. I could go on, but suffice it to say that there's a lot to unpack and the technologies underpinning it all are simply astounding.

As the mystery is slowly unraveled Dreyfus and his team manage to connect seemingly disparate clues and events to uncover the truth of an unexpected atrocity at the very center of everything. The ending ties up everything in a satisfying manner and it is heartening to see Dreyfus's compassion shining through at the end.

Elysium Fire was a great return to a world I never truly left behind. Having recently re-read The Prefect (Aurora Rising) it felt like coming home. Let's hope we don't have to wait another ten years for the next installment.I suddenly have the urge to read the entire Revelation Space series again...

The Verdict:
Elysium Fire is triumphant return for Alastair Reynolds to the world of Prefect Dreyfus. It takes a far more personal look at Dreyfus and the Prefects as they face the world in the aftermath of the Aurora event. The pacing is slower than the first novel, but it allows more time to engage with the characters on a deeper level. If you love big ideas, amazing technologies and concepts which will set your brain abuzz then Elysium Fire is highly recommended.

The Rating: 7.5/10 (Very Good)

Thanks to Charlene from Jonathan Ball Publishers for the review copy.

New Arrivals: Birthday Edition

While the plan is to cut back severely on my book purchases during the year to focus on titles I already own I decided to spoil myself somewhat during my birthday month. I picked up a few novels and  a couple of graphic novels. If you don't spoil yourself who will?

For Review

I was also fortunate enough to receive some review copies from the awesome folks at Jonathan Ball Publishers.

The titles I received were:
Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
Shroud of Eternity by Terry Goodkind
The Girl Who Takes An Eye For An Eye by David Lagercrantz
Hero At The Fall by Alwyn Hamilton

I've already finished Elysium Fire (a review will be up later this week), but since the rest are later titles in a series I'll first have to track down the rest of the series before I can consider getting to them.

Favourite Urban Fantasy Books

In the run-up to the BooktubeSFF Awards there are a bunch of interesting weekly topics, the BooktubeSFF Babbles, to get the SFF community at large discussing all things science fiction and fantasy. This week's topic is favourite urban fantasy books/series.

While there are quite a few mainstream urban fantasy series I could recommend, I'm going to wave my proudly South African flag around and highlight two urban fantasy books by South African authors.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

I'm sure Lauren Beukes needs no introduction. Zoo City won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke Award and put South African speculative fiction in the international spotlight. Lauren Beukes has an astonishing talent with words which she uses to conjure up astonishingly vibrant and fascinating worlds. Her work depicts real world problems that are still prevalent in South Africa – the homeless, drug abuse, xenophobia and discrimination and gives it a fantastical twist.

In Zoo City she creates a vivid version of contemporary Johannesburg. A Johannesburg where magic and muti is real and where Hillbrow (the Zoo City in the title) is a haven for ‘animalled’ people. The ‘animalled’ are people who due to their sinful deeds are magically tethered to an animal companion.

It is believed that the animal is a physical manifestation of their sins – their cross to bear for all the world to see. Separation from their animal companion causes extreme pain so they are forced to take the animal with them wherever they go.

The main character, Zinzi December, in one of the ‘animalled’ (a zoo in slang). She has a sloth on her back – literally! It isn’t all bad though, each ‘animalled’ has a special talent. In Zinzi’s case it’s the ability to find missing things. She uses this talent to make a living by finding lost items, charging a reasonable fee for their return. That’s of course when she isn’t busy running a 419 scam in order to pay off her drug debts. Read the full review.

Poison City by Paul Crilley

Paul Crilley is a Scotsman living in South Africa. His novel, Poison City, is the fantastical love child of Supernatural and a Lauren Beukes novel. Part urban fantasy, part crime novel this is a pure twisted reading delight.

Poison City is filled with a cast of memorable, snarky characters. Gideon Tau is not your typical hero. Haunted by the death of his daughter he is a broken man struggling to deal with loss; his only true purpose is his quest for justice. He sees ‘n job that needs doing and then simply does it. His spirit guide, Dog (just ‘Dog’) is the perverted spiritual successor to Discworld’s Gaspode - a quite literal boozehound. Dog loves nothing more than getting drunk and watching TV, only occasionally deigning to provide a helping paw. Oh, and he seems to love fire a bit too much... And lastly there’s Armitage, the no-nonsense head of the Delphic Division, with a wicked sense of humour she is overly protective of her domain and doesn’t suffer fools easily.

It soon becomes apparent that in this dark, morally corrupt world there are larger forces at play. Tau’s relentless search for his daughter’s killer drives him to a point where he has nothing left to lose. Utterly despondent, his choices lead the world to the brink of disaster. As a sharp counterpoint to those who wash away all memory of their wrongdoing through the services of sin-eaters, Tau takes responsibility for his actions and claws his way back from the dark abyss to redeem himself, but redemption always comes at a price. A price Tau might not be willing to pay...

The major theme in Poison City is corruption in all its forms. There are corrupt politicians and officials, the law is perverted for personal gain, even people's beliefs are corrupted and ultimately humanity itself proves to be a corrupted blight on the world. You’ll never be able to look at humanity in quite the same way again. It turns out that even in a world filled with supernatural creatures, humans are still the greatest monsters.

If you read it for no other reason, read it for Dog. He steals the show and makes this one kickass read! Read the full review.