Alastair Reynolds

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Alastair Reynolds (born in 1966 in Barry, South Wales) is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle, where he read Physics and Astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD from St Andrews, Scotland. 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.

Revelation Space	Chasm City
Redemption Ark	Absolution Gap
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days collection	Century Rain
Pushing Ice	Zima Blue collection
Galactic North collection	The Prefect

Contents 1 Works 2 Bibliography 2.1 Revelation Space 2.1.1 Novels and collections 2.2 Other works 2.3 Anthology appearances 2.4 Short works posted free on the Internet 3 External links 3.1 Interviews 4 See also

[edit] Works

Reynolds had his first science fiction short story published in 1990. Since then he has published over twenty shorter works and, as of 2007, six novels. His works are hard science fiction veiled behind space opera and noir toned stories, and reflect his professional expertise with physics and astronomy, included by extrapolating future technologies in terms that are consistent with current science. His first four novels and several of his previous 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. However, 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 stories set over a span of several centuries, spanning approximately 2050 to 2700. In this universe, interstellar travel is primarily undertaken by a rare class of vessel called a lighthugger which only approaches the speed of light. Extraterrestrial sentience exists but is elusive.

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 wormholes or star-gates. 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, 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 contemporaneously.

Pushing Ice is also a standalone story, with characters from much less distant in the future than in any of his other novels. Whether or not it is set in the same universe as Revelation Space is disputed.

His next novel, The Prefect, marks a return to the Revelation Space universe. Like Chasm City, it is a stand-alone novel within the Revelation Space universe. It will be published in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2007.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Revelation Space

1. Revelation Space. London: Gollancz, 2000. ISBN 0-575-06875-2
2. Chasm City. London: Gollancz, 2001. ISBN 0-575-06877-9
3. Redemption Ark. London: Gollancz, 2002. ISBN 0-575-06879-5
4. Absolution Gap. London: Gollancz, 2003. ISBN 0-575-07434-5
5. The Prefect. London: Gollancz, 2007, ISBN 0-575-07716-6

[edit] Novels and collections

• Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days. London: Gollancz, 2003. ISBN 0-575-07526-0
  • Diamond Dogs. Harrogate: PS Publishing, 2001. ISBN 1-902880-27-7
  • Turquoise Days. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2002. No ISBN
• Pushing Ice. London: Gollancz, 2005. ISBN 0-575-07438-8
• Galactic North. London: Gollancz, 2006. ISBN 0-575-07910-X

[edit] Other works

• Century Rain. London: Gollancz, 2004. ISBN 0-575-07436-1
• Zima Blue and Other Stories. San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2006. ISBN 1-59780-058-9

[edit] Anthology appearances

• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998, ISBN 0-312-19033-6), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "A Spy in Europa" by Reynolds
• Future War (1999, ISBN 0-441-00639-6), Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, eds., includes "Spirey and the Queen" by Reynolds
• The Ant Men of Tibet and Other Stories (2001, ISBN 1-903468-02-7), David Pringle, ed., includes "Byrd Land Six" by Reynolds
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000, ISBN 0-312-26417-8), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Galactic North" by Reynolds
  • Space Soldiers (2001, ISBN 0-441-00824-0), Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, eds., includes "Galactic North" by Reynolds
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection (2001, ISBN 0-312-27465-3), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Great Wall of Mars" by Reynolds
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002, ISBN 0-312-28879-4), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Glacial" by Reynolds
• Infinities (2002), Peter Crowther, ed., includes "Diamond Dogs" by Reynolds
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003, ISBN 0-312-30860-4), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Turquoise Days" by Reynolds
• One Million AD (2005), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Thousandth Night" by Reynolds
• Forbidden Planets (2006, ISBN 0-7564-0330-8), Peter Crowther, ed., includes "Tiger, Burning" by Reynolds
• The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006, ISBN 0-312-35334-0), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Beyond the Aquila Rift" and "Zima Blue" by Reynolds
• The Best of the Best Volume 2: 20 Years of the Best Short Science Fiction Novels (2007, ISBN-10: 0312363427), Gardner Dozois, ed., includes "Turquoise Days" by Reynolds

[edit] Short works posted free on the Internet

• "A Spy in Europa"
• "Spirey and the Queen"
• "Fresco"
• "Feeling Rejected"
• "The Big Hello"

[edit] External links

• Personal homepage
• Alastair Reynolds at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Alastair Reynolds' online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
• Golden Gryphon Press official site - About chapbook Turquoise Days
• Alastair Reynolds Bibliography
• List of Planets in Science Fiction

[edit] Interviews

• Interview conducted by Roger Deforest at HardSF.net (2006)

[edit] See also

• Transhumanism in fiction, which contains plot spoilers for Reynolds's œuvre.