Century Rain (Gollancz)

I've never read anything quite like Alistair Reynolds's astonishing "Century Rain." A noir whodunnit that turns into a spy chase that turns into a space opera of epic proportions, it's set several centuries from now, where the Earth has suffered some sort of biological castrophe instigated by the law of unintended consequences. It features two competing human factions, the Threshers (essentially preservationists) and the Slashers (the techies--themselves divided into two factions) who are at odds. At first, most of the action takes place on an alternate earth, E2 (one of the characters speculates it's a backup of our earth), preserved in quantum amber, that diverged from our earth in 1940, when Hitler's invasion of France was stopped by the French (Hitler is seen briefly as a sick wheelchair-bound aging prisoner). As a result, the technological advances instigated by WWII never happened here, where it is now a technologically stagnant 1959. The first quarter or so of the book is told from two different points of view in alternate chapters. In one sequence, we follow Thresher Verity Auger, who's sent via wormhole transport to this E2 in order to learn what happened to one of their agents, Susan White. We know, however, that she has either fallen or been pushed off a balcony. We know this because: The other POV is that of a local private eye named Wendell Floyd, who moonlights as a jazz musician. He takes the case after the Paris police seem uninterested in learning whether White jumped or was pushed, but her landlord-friend is, and hires Floyd to investigate. Finally, Auger and Floyd meet, the POVs merge, and the story tumbles off. Mr. Reynolds, whose Revelation Space series speculated brilliantly on a high-tech future, this time tries to re-create a mid-20th-century space opera (maybe you'll have fun figuring out where John W. Campbell would have placed the "continued next month" break if he'd serialized this in "Analog") all the while riffing on scientific knowledge of today. The craft that goes through the wormhole, for example, features pistons and analog dials that glow red when what they measure is dangerous, and green when they're safe. And the Threshers communicate via p-mail--printed paper sent via pneumatic tubes (eventually you'll learn why). After Auger and Floyd meet, there's much snappy noir dialogue, and various secrets are revealed during a chase sequence. (There are many chase sequences.) It's great fun; it's meant to be enjoyed, but probably not analyzed. This is a standalone, but there are enough loose ends for a sequel, if Mr. Reynolds is so inclined.

Century Rain (2004) is a standalone SF novel. Nanotechnology has invested the atmosphere of Earth, overcoming its programming, then burying the surface in ice and attacking unprotected organisms. Only those few people in space survived the Furies. The Slashers want to try to correct the condition with better nanites and recover the Earth, but the Threshers want to avoid making the situation worse. The Slashers have discovered an abandoned alien portal that leads to a vast number of places within the galaxy and maybe beyond. The Threshers are allowed access to the hyperweb only with Slasher escorts. Naturally, the Threshers try to learn as much about the network as possible. The Slashers are not monolithic, for the moderates are supporting the Thresher cause to some extent. Slasher moderates and extremists are engaged in a shooting war within the Solar System. Of course, a few Threshers are collateral casualties. In this novel, Wendell Floyd and his partner Andre Custine are underemployed jazz musicians within Paris in 1959. To supplement their income, they run a detective agency. One day, Monsieur Blanchard hires them to investigate the fatal fall of a tenant, Susan White, from his apartment building. Blanchard is convinced that it is murder, but the police magistrate has declared that it is suicide or misadventure. Verity Auger is an archaeologist excavating Paris in 2266. She works for the Antiquities Board of the United States of Near Earth, a maze of interconnected satellites around the planet. Her latest dig has led to a tragedy and political opponents are trying to destroy her career. However, she is contacted by the mythical Contingencies Board and briefed on Anomalous Large Structures. Then she is sent to Mars. On Phobos, she travels through a hyperweb tunnel to another Earth that is younger -- circa 1959 -- but strangely different -- the German attack on France was defeated before it reached Paris -- yet with problems of its own. While the Contingencies Board believes the Slashers know nothing of the portal on Phobos, Auger finds evidence of genetically modified human weapons on Earth 2. On E2, Auger pretends to be the sister of Susan White in order to retrieve a biscuit tin of documents. The tin includes a letter to a German metalworking firm concerning a contract to produce three aluminum spheres and a map showing circles around Berlin, Paris and Milan, with distances noted in kilometers. The tin also includes a postcard with two words underlined: Silver and Rain. There is also a ticket to Berlin for the day after her death. This story has some of the aspects of time travel and crosstime stories, but is neither. Earth 2 is apparently a "snapshot" of Earth taken around 1940 and then preserved in the ALS. The Slasher extremists have not only infiltrated E2, but seem to be building some kind of measuring instrument there, probably to locate its position within the galaxy. Highly recommended for Reynolds fans a

_Century Rain_ by Alastair Reynolds is one of the most intriguing science fiction novels I have read in quite a while, one I would highly recommend to anyone. The first chapter of the book introduces the reader to two jazz musicians/private detectives by the names of Andre Custine and Wendell Floyd. They live and work (when work is available) in Paris, France in the year 1959. Having trouble getting gigs as musicians, still recovering from the loss of one of the members of their musical group (a woman by the name of Greta Auerbach, also a former lover of Floyd's), and not finding a lot of work as detectives, they feel very lucky to have an apartment landlord calling them with a possible case. One of the client's tenants had become a friend of his, a young American woman by the name of Susan White, and had died when she fell off of her balcony onto the pavement in front of her building. The police ruled it a suicide - perhaps not as keen to delve into the particulars in part because White was a foreigner - but Blanchard (the landlord) thought she was murdered. Reluctant at first, Floyd and Custine agree to take the case. The second chapter is still set in Paris but this about it as far as common threads go, at least at first. It is the year 2266 and we meet Verity Auger, an archaeologist probing some ruins, ruins that happen to be the entire city of Paris. Or make that the entire world. The planet Earth is completely uninhabitable by any organism, including bacteria, due to a conflagration that happened in the mid-21st century called the Nanocaust, an unspeakably horrid event in which billions of tiny (generally microscopic) machines that had been released into the atmosphere and waters to control a runaway climate (or later to control defective and malfunctioning earlier machines) suddenly digested every living thing on the Earth's surface, atmosphere, waters, and even underground. All of humanity in Auger's time resides in space; descendents of humans who were offworld at the time of the Nanocaust (as no one escaped from Earth). Auger lives in a vast, tremendously complex space station called Tanglewood, located in Earth orbit, and is a citizen of the United States of Near Earth. These two chapters, settings, characters, and backstories seem completely and utterly unconnected. I first wondered if Custine, Floyd, Blanchard, and the rest were in the past and if time travel was involved in some way. As the novel progressed though it became apparent, quite subtly at first, that Floyd's Paris is not the same Paris of Auger's past, that there were differences in the history of their respective worlds. At that point the reader would naturally conclude that Floyd lived in a parallel universe or alternate dimension of some sort. I really don't want to give too much away but neither time travel nor parallel universes are involved. Floyd's Paris and Auger's Paris (and their Earths) exist at the same time and in the same universe. Unfortunately for

I'm not exactly sure the exact reason for the negative reviews. Such items as book length, insufficient sci-fi purity and jokes are the main culprits. I appreciate the wit and inside jokes from the author - at least it's not Turtledove with his absurd alternate histories where the same leaders star despite the changes in events. In its own way, it is just as superb as Redemption Ark or Chaos City. WARNING: This is NOT a science fiction only book; it is not a space opera as are Chaos City and the Redemption Series; it is not a "time travel" story. It has noir mystery, actions, imagination and the author balances the two stories that eventually merge. Reynolds excells in characterization, particularly romance - a talent that few science fiction writers share. And if we're talking romance what better setting than Paris with its cafes, jazz bars and beauty. There are science fiction (space) aspects but in reality this is a 1930's film noir mystery. Add time travel and you get a rollicking, fun, story that is slightly over the top but in sci-fi terms, well integrated and plausible. There is no need to repeat the plot as the chapters alternate between a Paris of 1959 with a detective investigating a suspicious suicide and and an archeologist exploring a destroyed Paris 300 years later. The author has invented an entire future history and culture for mankind where humans have split over the use of nanotechnology (the book contains awesome descriptions of such wonders). It's all there - the politics, intrigue, war, action and that most important of human emotions, love. The book had a cinematic quality - the fog, furtive meetings in tunnels, an edge-if-the-seat action and old-fashioned romance. Even the ending contains hope though unbeknownst to our intrepid hero. I give it a solid "A".

My first surprise on reading this novel was that it isn't connected to any of Reynolds' earlier works. I then came to realise that the author has taken some standard SF components and refashioned them into something really really good. You have a disaster - "the Nanocaust" - that has wiped out all life on earth and left the remnants of humanity surviving in various places around the solar system. You have a form of faster than light travel that seems as grittily convincing as anything I've read. Above all, you have a massive structure that rivals Niven's Ringworld , Baxter's Ring and Shaw's Orbitsville for sheer mystery and has something really peculiar inside. The two main characters are well-drawn and believable. Wendell Floyd is an American jazz musician and private detective who lives in 1950s Paris. Verity Auger is an archaeologist for the United States of Near Earth who is diverted from her exploration of barren, unhabitable Paris on to a mission to a very strange part of the galaxy indeed. They are going to meet up and find themselves solving a mystery , fighting revolting little soldiers , fleeing corrupt French policemen and trying to stop a monstrous crime. I found the book easy to read - a bit easier than some of Reynolds earlier work. I was afraid the ending would be a bit of an anti-climax - but I was pleasantly surprised. All in all, it's a great book, Go and buy it!