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26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
Great SF/detective/war story, 13 Jul 2007
Despite having published a string of heavyweight SF novels totalling thousands of pages, Alastair Reynolds is still experimenting. The tetralogy that made his name - Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap - are huge, sprawling riots of technology populated by dozens of characters who are not always clearly delineated. They open a window on a masterfully depicted future universe whose sheer weight of high-tech detail leaves scant room for character development - in other words, classic hard SF of a kind to delight lovers of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Herbert, Niven and the like. Then, in a departure that pleased some readers and infuriated others, Reynolds swerved into an original blend of hard SF and alternate-universe film noir with Century Rain, before returning to the world of spaceships, nanotechnology, AI, and aliens with Pushing Ice and Galactic North.
In "The Prefect", he modulates perceptibly towards the detective genre, while bowing in the direction of the Tom Clancy school of war novelists and dropping in a little quiet horror that Stephen King would be proud of. The result is a much pacier, focused book with a clear and straightforward plot - although Reynolds still gives us a plentiful dose of technological thrills on the side.
"The Prefect" is set in the Yellowstone system, shortly after the events described in "Revelation Space". The system contains three contrasting human societies, which trade with each other at arm's length: Chasm City, the only major human outpost on the planet Yellowstone; the Parking Swarm, where the spacegoing Ultras dock their vast lighthugger starships; and the Glitter band, a variegated "asteroid belt" of 10,000 human habitats. Each habitat is self-contained and self-governed, with powers of life and death over its citizens. That leaves the Prefects, based on their orbiting citadel Panoply, with little to do except regulate the automated voting system through which all Glitter Band citizens continually express their will. Unless authorized by a vote, for instance, the Prefects are not even allowed heavy weaponry - although the "whiphounds" they carry are not to be trifled with.
Tom Dreyfus, the prefect of the title, is an experienced field operative nearing retirement age. Years ago, he was involved in the disastrous episode of the Clockmaker, a malign artificial intelligence that had to be destroyed after it suddenly began killing people in hideously creative ways, but whose evil legacy still persists. Starting with an apparently routine investigation into voting fraud, Dreyfus and his team find themselves confronted by a rapidly escalating series of threats. No matter what they do, they always seem to be a step behind their unseen adversaries, who might be anyone from scheming habitat owners to Ultra crews, the alien-seeming Conjoiner "spiders" with their group mentality, or even a mysterious software entity hiding somewhere in the Glitter band's network. As the story develops, it seems that no one can be trusted.
Compared to most of Reynolds' previous novels, "The Prefect" rates higher for unputdownability and dramatic tension. On the other hand, it is rather less panoramic and introduces fewer technical innovations - if only because most of them have already appeared in other books. There is some inconsistency in the handling of technology - perhaps the worst example being when a senior Ultra requests blood dialysis because "My ship's having trouble purging my fatigue poisons. I think the filters need changing..." That's 20th century technology in an era when computers can hold conscious representations of human beings in storage, and nanotech "medichines" swarm through bodies, fixing or rebuilding them from inside.
Small flaws like this notwithstanding, I think "The Prefect" is Reynolds' best book so far in terms of focused excitement. Purists may dislike the compromises this entails, but it should reach a wider audience than his previous work.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Reynolds has learnt some new tricks..., 5 Jun 2007
For me this is without a doubt Reynolds' best work to date. It has the same gritty-space-operate flavour as previous Revelation Space novels, but the pace of the plot is considerably higher and there is less time spent on long introspectives. The Glitter Band pre-melding-plague is a great setting for those who know the series, and the book follows mainly just two plot-strands tracking Dreyfus and his deputy Thalia, so there's not too much to keep tabs on. Overall it reminds me a little of Ian Banks' Player of Games or David Brin's Startide Rising, which is a high standard indeed.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Solid entry to the series, possibly a good place for beginners..., 7 May 2007
It is the year 2427. The place is the Glitter Band, ten thousand space habitats circling the planet Yellowstone, the golden heart of human space where a multitude of different cultures meet and trade, and a waystop for huge lighthuggers as they slowly traverse the distances between the stars at speeds just below that of light. This is the universe of Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds' critically-acclaimed gothic space opera which has now extended across five novels, two novellas and a short story collection. The Prefect is a stand-alone addition to this excellently-realised future history, taking place approximately a century before the events of Chasm City and Revelation Space itself.
Whilst the planet Yellowstone and its biggest settlement, Chasm City, deal with their own affairs, it falls to the prefects of Panoply to police the vast Glitter Band and its 100 million citizens, who practice the ultimate form of democracy, Demarchism. Every minute dozens of decisions, large and small, are put to the public vote and the people of the Glitter Band spend much of their time engrossed in politics, employing a form of VR known as Abstraction to talk to one another, or choosing to lose themselves in fantastical reflections of the real world. The greatest crime in the Glitter Band is an attempt to deny the will of the people. [...][...]And, as this is a mystery novel, to say any more of the plot would threaten to indulge in spoilers. Suffice to say that the links between The Prefect and the other Revelation Space novels are subtle and numerous. The Prefect in fact occupies a position within its larger series framework similar to the position Steven Erikson's novel Midnight Tides occupies in his Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence: generally a standalone novel, but with equal arguments in favour of reading the book before the others (events in the other novels are clarified by information provided in The Prefect) or afterwards (when the reader understands exactly what will become of this society in the future).
Reynolds is on good form here, although arguably he fails to recapture the immediacy of his finest work, Chasm City. The Prefect is a somewhat more straightforward novel. Although there are several startling, late revelations and plot twists, the reader is in possession of most of the facts reasonably early in the book. Tom Dreyfus also remains a somewhat less complex protagonist then regular Reynolds readers may be used to, but as usual the author has a few aces up his sleeve which force the reader to reassess the character during the novel's conclusion.
In The Prefect Alastair Reynolds executes an enjoyable and extremely fast-paced return to the universe that made his name. The story develops nicely and explodes into a furious page-turning pace in its second half that barely lets up. At the same time Reynolds' ability to conjure up vivid imagery remains intact (one plotline is not for the squeamish or for anyone with a fear of knives), as does his assured grasp of his universe and the remarkable cultures and ideas that make it up. The book is not without its flaws - in particular, those who have already read Absolution Gap and know of Reynolds' fondness for ambiguous endings may be better-prepared for the conclusion than others - and there is perhaps a feeling that we are being set up for a sequel at the end, but these are fairly minor concerns. The Prefect is Reynolds' best novel since at least Redemption Ark, and is an engrossing read.
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