Fiction Reviews
Halcyon Years
(2025) Alastair Reynolds, Gollancz, £25, hrdbk, 326pp, ISBN 978-1-399-61176-3
To cut to the chase for Reynolds' fans, the man is on top form. So regulars can skip the rest of this review, just know his latest is out and go and get it.
This wide-screen (we are interstellar) space opera stars Yuri Gagarin, the Russian cosmonaut and first man in space, except this time he is not alone but with eight million others (but many are in suspended animation) on a 50 kilometre long generation ship, Halcyon; well, it is 56 kilometres long on the outside and it is gently spinning to provide artificial gravity on the inside.
They are travelling at 10% the speed of light on the way to Vanderdecken star some 40 light years distant from Earth.
Yuri died in an accident some 200 years before Halcyon's launch and boarded the starship as a Jack, in frozen suspended animation in Sleepy Hollow. He has been awake now for some years now and working as a private detective in shady part of Belt city taking on married partner cases of suspected infidelity and such like. Life is more or less boring for Yuri but he gets by. Then, one day he is approached by a lady who calls herself Ruby Blue who works for the company responsible for the starship's maintenance. She wants him to investigate two murders, one in each of the two rival families who effectively control society aboard the ship.
Normally, Yuri would not touch the case as murder investigations are for the police, but as the police have closed the cases – both were considered accidental deaths – Yuri is free to take them on and Ruby is paying handsomely as well as giving him a pass that will get him into most places on the starship.
He has barely started on the case when he visits a doctor at the hospital where one of the victims was being treated but who did not survive her injuries gained while on a trip outside the spacecraft. The doctor leaves the hospital shortly after Yuri has questioned him and Yuri follows. However, Yuri catches up with the doctor whose car has come off the road badly injuring him. It seems to Yuri as if this case is deadly.
Adding to his concerns, back at his office he meets another lady, called Ruby Red, who warns him off the case and who attempts to pay him off. But Yuri has his scruples and tells her that he cannot be bought and will continue to work for Ruby Blue…
By the way, book collectors may care to note that the UK edition inside front cover teaser reverses Ruby Red and Ruby Blue. I do not know if this will be corrected with future editions or if the US edition is different; if it is then this British first edition will be something of a curiosity.
I will not go further into the plot at the risk of giving spoilers, but suffice to say that it all somehow leads to the colonisation mission they are on.
Alastair Reynolds has in the past given us different takes on space opera in addition to his well known wide-screen 'Revelation Space' series of books. We have had the trilogy that began with Revenger (2016) which was a high-seas, pirate perspective on interplanetary travel with solar sail vessels. This time we have a cinematic noir take on the traditional detective story (though technically it is more neo-noir as it takes place on a giant starship).
The set up and, importantly, the pacing is good (there have been just a couple of occasions I have found Alastair Reynolds' books to be too busy with loads of concepts thrown). And then there is a solid Easter egg. I have kept my eye out for this, he does include them, as I was once wrong-footed in another novel by a mention of Martian landers which I mistakenly took to be a tip of the hat to the author's former astrophysics days and not plot relevant. But there is a doozy of an egg in Halcyon Years that is best not looked into unless you really are seeking a giveaway reveal.
Gollancz were hugely prudent in giving Reynolds a ten year, £1 million (US$1.62m) deal back in 2009 when Malcolm Edwards was cementing Gollancz's place as the premiere home for British SF. Though that deal is long since over, and sadly Edwards has retired, Reynolds has continued to supply Gollancz with books ever since.
This is another great one. It is not ostensibly part of the 'Revelation Space' sequence (for which the author is perhaps best known), though it could at a bit of a pinch fit in: 'Revelation Space' did see early colonisation attempts and if Halcyon Years was part of Revelation Space (even if a bit of a stretch) a sequel would be possible and another case for Yuri. However, I think this is going to be one of Reynolds' standalones and there is nothing at all wrong with that.
Jonathan Cowie
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