A Son of the Rock

Gollancz, 2018, 410 p.

The Glitter Band is an extensive collection of space habitats in orbit around the ochre and mustard clouded world of Yellowstone, forming a ring girdling the planet. It is an extensive democracy; votes being carried out in real time across the system due to a set of implants in people’s brains invented by Sandra Voi. The integrity of the system and its laws is watched over by a police force known as Panoply, administered by agents called Prefects. Their instrument of control is a device called a whiphound; semi-autonomous, sinuating AI creatures. This is the second of Reynolds’s novels featuring Prefect Tom Dreyfus, the first of which I reviewed here.

The immediate threat to public order here is a disease which Panoply has named wildfire, where people’s brains suddenly melt for no apparent reason. The occurrence of these deaths is on an exponential trajectory and there is no noticeable link connecting the victims. A secondary concern is the tendency of some of the habitats to seek independence from the rest of the Glitter Band. In this regard the activities of rabble-rousing populist Devon Garlin, making speeches contending that Panoply is a malign force, overbearing but at the same time unable to protect its citizens, who should therefore free themselves from its shackles.

Another strand features the adolescent brothers Julius and Caleb, being trained by Marlon and Aliya Voi to shape quickmatter and carry on the family tradition of safeguarding the Glitter Band’s democracy by subtly manipulating its data flows in undetectable ways. This is not a clear-cut process. The boys have recurring dreams of a massacre and their relationship to Marlon and Aliya is not as straightforward as they think.

In his investigations Dreyfus interrogates the beta-levels of wildfire’s victims. These are computer-held simulations of dead people’s brains, containing their memories. A strange white tree-like structure whose image appears in some of the victims’ backgrounds, along with the help of a shadowy character named Aurora who is able to communicate directly with Dreyfus but whose bargain with him Panoply would regard as treason leads him to a place named Elysium Heights, where the novel’s connections begin to untangle.

Aurora and her antagonist the Clockmaker both featured in that earlier novel, The Prefect, but the latter makes no appearance in this novel. Clearly there is more Reynolds intends to explore in his scenario.

Plenty of plot, then and also plenty of incident. Reynolds spins his yarn with facility. There’s certainly less well written and plotted Science Fiction knocking about.

Pedant’s corner:- The copy I read was an ARC (proof) so some of these may have been corrected before publication; “but even the tiniest of worlds might lay temporary claim to a ring system, if a moon or asteroid fell into their gravity well” (its gravity well,) epicentre (centre.) “‘In time you be privy’” (you may be privy.) “‘There doctor isn’t here’” (Their doctor.) “‘I I’ve had a lot of practice’” (has a superfluous ‘I’ at the start,) “laying over” (this really ought to be ‘lying over’,) “a note of insubordinance” (insubordination,) focussed (focused,) a missing comma before a piece of direct speech (x 2,) candelabra (used as singular; that’s a candelabrum.) “‘He doubt he was even aware’” (We doubt he was..,) Fuxin- Nymburk (elsewhere Fuxin-Nymburk,) a paragraph break in the middle of a sentence (x 2,) “‘the scale necessary to affect change’” (to effect change.) “He felt as if was being made to” (as if he was being made to.) “It was a like taking” (omit the ‘a’,) rabble-rowsing (rabble-rousing,) “None of the elevators were operational” (none …. was operational,) “‘tell them the specialists’” (omit ‘them’.) “Doctor Stasov emerged sooner after” (soon after,) “but now he decided to keep it to himself, at least for now” (has one ‘now’ too many,) unmistakeable (unmistakable.) “Malkmus twisted around to speak of them” (to speak to them,) “to offer more than a token effect” (token effort makes more sense,) “walking to a halt” (coming to a halt, surely?) “‘Only a few days I was beaten up’” (a few days ago I was,) a missing opening quotation mark. “The overgrowth had had only managed to push its tendrils” (only one ‘had’ needed,) “seemed to take this as challenge” (as a challenge,) “its arms dangling at its side” (sides.) “‘If one of us decided to withdrew’” (either ‘If one of us withdrew’ or ‘If one of us decided to withdraw’,) “each brother was using every means at their disposal” (at his disposal.) “‘It’s may be time’” (either ‘It’s maybe time’ or ‘It may be time’,) “had long ago learned recognise and trust” (learned to recognise.) “‘I told you she was in good hands, didn’t?’” (didn’t I?) “on at a time” (one at a time,) staunch (stanch,) “as he took into the bloody tableau” (as he took in,) “allowing to Lethe to rotate” (allowing Lethe to rotate,) sprung (sprang,) “‘whether you want to admit or not’” (to admit it or not.) “But a single shudder of ran through Marlon” (shudder of ??? Grief is the most plausible word missing,) “off-hand facility with quickmatter than any wealthy son might have had” (that any wealthy son) “who isn’t afraid the embrace the truth” (to embrace,) “almost as if were reaching into” (almost as if he were,) “as if were” (as if we were.)