The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds

The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read this as preparation for reading Elysium Fire, second in this subseries. Now I really wish I had read Revelation Space first. But at this point I am used to joining series mid-stream, so was able to interpolate pretty well. This is pretty classic space opera, but the emphasis is really on the stoic Tom Dreyfus and the dedicated Space-FBI Panoply. The society is a pretty direct lift from 20th century Europe, and the technology pretty much assumes you are a veteran science fiction reader and don't really need to have an explanation of how the Glitter Band's space technology works. Or maybe that's in Revelation Space. In any case, it's a very competent story, with a good amount of excitement and mechanical know-how. We have a nod to racism in Tom's relationship with hyper-pig Sparber (no other examples of his kind, so we don't really know much about them), but it too is very 20th-century. Not sure yet if I'm going to back up to read the others or not. But this one is fine.



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The Descent of Monsters, by Jy Yang

The Descent of Monsters by J.Y.  Yang

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


You are reading this because I am finished. I finished the book, that is. This installment in the Tensorate series tells the story of horrifying experiments by the Tensorate and the Protectorate (in cahoots) that go wrong, through the letters and reports of the investigator assigned to the case. It can be an interesting device if done well, but this was just so-so. I don't feel like I learned much more about the Tensorate or the Protectorate (these tendencies were well-documented in the first two books). We get a little of Rider, the rebel who moves via Slack, but in general the limiting of the perspective to the investigator constrains the story too much. I'm guessing that the problem set up here gets more definition in the next installment, but I'm not sure I can justify going on. Meh.



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