A Son of the Rock

Gollancz, 2006

Galactic North is a series of shorter works (up to novella length) set in Reynolds’s Conjoiner/Demarchist/Ultra universe usually called Revelation Space; all galaxy-spanning hard SF tales with space operatic flourishes.

Aside:- Reynolds’s Conjoiners are humans enhanced by nanomachinery so that they are linked together (at shortish distances) in a hive mind. One of the problems I have with this idea is that they do not seem to behave appreciably differently from normal humans. I understand that to convey the essence of such people to Reynolds’s readers has great difficulties but they are not differentiated enough for me.

The stories in Galactic North are ordered to follow the chronology of the Revelation Space future not that of original publication. Unusually for a book of short stories the dates of their previous appearance are not given.

As is endemic to a lot of hard SF there is a good deal of info dumping and here we are also too often told things rather than shown them. The title story itself is particularly prone to this and could possibly have been expanded into a novel. It feels far too cramped in its allotted length. Also noticeable was that several of the plots involved quests of some kind.

A Spy In Europa, Grafenwalder’s Bestiary and Nightingale were more focused on character than the others in the book but all three verged rather too much into horror at their denouements.

Reynolds can spin a yarn and is capable of the gosh-wow, sense of wonder moment which SF aficionados like so much but too often in Galactic North the idea behind the story is its driver and the characters are there merely to illustrate it.

Reynolds is capable of reining in this tendency – he does so in the novels Century Rain and Pushing Ice and the reading experience is more satisfying as a result.

If you like Space Opera for its plots I’d recommend this book. If you prefer stories based more on character it’s not for you. Try Century Rain or Pushing Ice instead.