Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Preston Reynolds (born 13 March 1966) is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle University, where he studied physics and astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD in astrophysics from the University of St Andrews. In 1991, he moved to Noordwijk in the Netherlands where he met his wife Josette (who is from France). There, he worked for the European Space Research and Technology Centre (part of the European Space Agency) until 2004 when he left to pursue writing full-time. He returned to Wales in 2008 and lives near Cardiff.

Works

Reynolds wrote his first four published science fiction short stories while still a graduate student, in 1989–1991; they appeared in 1990–1992, his first sale being to '' Interzone''. In 1991 Reynolds graduated and moved from Scotland to the Netherlands to work at ESA. He then started spending much of his writing time on a first novel, which eventually turned into ''Revelation Space'', while the few short stories he submitted from 1991–1995 were rejected. This ended in 1995 when his story "Byrd Land Six" was published, which he says marked the beginning of a more serious phase of writing. he has published over forty shorter works and nine novels. His works are hard science fiction, typically in the sub-genres of space opera and noir, and reflect his professional expertise with physics and astronomy, included by extrapolating future technologies in terms that are consistent, for the most part, with current science. Reynolds has said he prefers to keep the science in his books to what he personally believes will be possible, and he does not believe faster-than-light travel will ever be possible, but that he adopts science he believes will be impossible when it is necessary for the story. Most of Reynolds's novels contain multiple storylines that originally appear to be completely unrelated, but merge later in the story.

Five of his novels and several of his short stories take place within one consistent future universe, usually now called the Revelation Space universe after the first novel published in it, although it was originally developed in short stories for several years before the first novel. Although most characters appear in more than one novel, the works set within this future timeline rarely have the same protagonists twice. Often the protagonists from one work belong to a group that is regarded with suspicion or enmity by the protagonists of another work. While a great deal of science fiction reflects either very optimistic or dystopian visions of the human future, Reynolds's future worlds are notable in that human societies have not departed to either positive or negative extremes, but instead are similar to those of today in terms of moral ambiguity and a mixture of cruelty and decency, corruption and opportunity, despite their technology being dramatically advanced.

The ''Revelation Space'' series includes six novels, seven novellas, and six short stories set over a span of several centuries, spanning approximately AD 2205 to 40 000, although the novels are all set in a 300-year period spanning from 2427 to 2727. In this universe, extraterrestrial sentience exists but is elusive, and interstellar travel is primarily undertaken by a class of vessel called a lighthugger which only approaches the speed of light ( faster than light travel is possible, but it is so dangerous that no race uses it). Fermi's paradox is explained as resulting from the activities of an inorganic alien race referred to by its victims as the Inhibitors, which exterminates sentient races if they proceed above a certain level of technology. The trilogy consisting of ''Revelation Space'', ''Redemption Ark'' and ''Absolution Gap'' (the Inhibitor trilogy) deals with humanity coming to the attention of the Inhibitors and the resultant war between them.

'' Century Rain'' takes place in a future universe independent of the ''Revelation Space'' universe and has different rules, such as faster-than-light travel being possible through a system of portals similar to wormholes. ''Century Rain'' also departs substantially from Reynolds's previous works, both in having a protagonist who is much closer to the perspective of our real world (in fact he is from a version of our past), serving as a proxy for the reader in confronting the unfamiliarity of the advanced science fiction aspects and in having a much more linear storytelling process. Reynolds's previous protagonists started out fully absorbed in the exoticisms of the future setting and his previous ''Revelation Space'' works have several interlinked story threads, not necessarily contemporaneous. According to Alastair himself, no sequel will ever be made on Century Rain.www.alastairreynolds.com
as retrieved in .

''Pushing Ice'' is also a standalone story, with characters from much less distant in the future than in any of his other novels, set into a framework storyline that extends much further into the future of humanity than any of his previous novels. It contains an alternative interpretation of the Fermi paradox: intelligent sentient life in this universe is extremely scarce. Reynolds states that he is "firmly intending" to return to the ''Pushing Ice'' setting to write a sequel.

'' The Prefect'' marked a return to the ''Revelation Space'' universe. Like '' Chasm City'', it is a stand-alone novel within that setting. It is set prior to any of the other ''Revelation Space'' novels, though still 200 years after the original human settlement is established on the planet Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system. It was published in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2007. Since its publication, the title of '' The Prefect'' has been changed to '' Aurora Rising'' to more align with the name of the sequel, '' Elysium Fire'', which was published in 2018, marking the first novel length return to the ''Revelation Space'' universe since 2007. This sub-series within the ''Revelation Space'' universe is now called ''The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies''. Reynolds states that he has "tentative plans for three more Dreyfus titles, with an arc that would eventually take him beyond Yellowstone, and then back again."

''House of Suns'' is a standalone novel set in the same universe as his novella "Thousandth Night" from the '' One Million A.D.'' anthology. It was released in the UK on 17 April 2008 and in the US on 2 June 2009. Reynolds described it as "Six million years in the future, starfaring clones, tensions between human and robot metacivilisations, King Crimson jokes." As with ''Pushing Ice'', Reynolds also states that he is "firmly intending" to return to the ''House of Suns'' setting to write a sequel.

'' Terminal World'', published in March 2010 was described by Reynolds as "a kind of steampunk-tinged planetary romance, set in the distant future". As with ''Century Rain'', Reynolds has said that he does not plan any further work in the universe of ''Terminal World''.

In June 2009 Reynolds signed a new deal, worth £1 million, with his British publishers for ten books to be published over the next ten years.

Between 2012 and 2015 Reynolds released three novels set in a new universe called ''Poseidon's Children'': Blue Remembered Earth (2012), On the Steel Breeze (2014), and Poseidon's Wake (2015). The novels comprise a hard science fiction trilogy dealing with the expansion of the human species into the solar system and beyond, and the emergence of Africa as a spacefaring, technological super-state.

His ''Doctor Who'' novel ''Harvest of Time'' was published in June 2013.

Awards and nominations

Reynolds's fiction has received three awards and several other nominations. His second novel ''Chasm City'' won the 2001 British Science Fiction Award for Best Novel. His short story "Weather" won the Japanese National Science Fiction Convention's Seiun Award for Best Translated Short Fiction. His novels ''Absolution Gap'' and ''The Prefect'' have also been nominated for previous BSFA awards. Reynolds has been nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award three times, for his novels ''Revelation Space'', ''Pushing Ice'' and ''House of Suns''. In 2010, he won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History for his short story "The Fixation". His novella ''Troika'' made the shortlist for the 2011 Hugo Awards. His Novel ''Revenger'' received the 2017 Locus Award for Best Young Adult Book. 

Adaptations

On 10 March 2019 Alastair Reynolds announced that his short stories "Zima Blue" and "Beyond the Aquila Rift" had been adapted as part of Netflix's animated anthology '' Love, Death & Robots''. These stories are the first of Reynolds's works to be adapted for TV or film.

Bibliography

Novels

Revelation Space Universe

''The Inhibitor Sequence:''
#''Revelation Space''. London: Gollancz, 2000.
#''Redemption Ark''. London: Gollancz, 2002.
#''Absolution Gap''. London: Gollancz, 2003.
#''Inhibitor Phase''. London: Gollancz, 2021.

''The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies:''
#'' The Prefect/Aurora Rising''. London: Gollancz, 2007,
#'' Elysium Fire''. London: Gollancz, 2018,

''Standalone:''
:*'' Chasm City''. London: Gollancz, 2001.

Poseidon's Children Universe

# '' Blue Remembered Earth''. London: Gollancz, 2012,
# '' On the Steel Breeze''. London: Gollancz, 2013,
# '' Poseidon's Wake''. London: Gollancz, 2015,

Revenger Universe

#'' Revenger''. London: Gollancz, 2016,
#'' Shadow Captain''. London: Gollancz, 2019,
#'' Bone Silence''. London: Gollancz, 2020,

Doctor Who (

Third Doctor)

* ''Harvest of Time''. BBC Books, 2013,

Other

* '' Century Rain''. London: Gollancz, 2004.
* ''Pushing Ice''. London: Gollancz, 2005.
* ''House of Suns''. London: Gollancz, 2008,
* '' Terminal World''. London: Gollancz, 2010,
* '' The Medusa Chronicles'' (with Stephen Baxter). London: Gollancz, 2016,
* ''Eversion''. London: Gollancz, 2022

Collections

* '' Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days''. London: Gollancz, 2003.
**''Diamond Dogs'' – Originally published as a chapbook from PS Publishing

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases