Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds

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Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds.
pub: Gollancz. 231 page hardback. Price: Ł 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 0-575-07526-0.

check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk

I like stories that take song lyrics as their titles. I'm not quite sure why, but I find them very evocative. Especially if I know the song they're taken from.

‘Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days’ is set in a time when the human race has spread out across the stars, and in doing so encountered (or clashed with) other species - or at least their residue.

‘Diamond Dogs’ (the Bowie song) I know well. The dark, post-apocalyptic flavour of the song - of the whole album - is mesmerising, in a somewhat twisted way. Much the same can be said of the first of the two novellas in this book.

‘Diamond Dogs’ (the Reynold story) deals with the discovery of and investigation into a strange alien artefact on a dry and hostile alien world - but this is no inscrutable monolith a’la 2001.

This is a living thing (I use the term 'living' very loosely here, since the definition of what constitutes 'life' in Reynold's book is rather wider and less clearly defined than the reader might expect).

Also a violent and demanding thing. Exploring 'Blood Spire', as its discoverer calls it, requires the solving of mathematical puzzles that become more and more abstruse and complex the further in (and up) the team advance.

Wrong answers are punished in the most painful and brutal manner. But there must be something at the top, in the last room, that makes all the agony and travail worth it. Mustn't there?

‘Turquoise Days’ (from a song by Echo and the Bunnymen) is a complete contrast. It's set on the water world of Turquoise, but despite the prettiness of the name this isn't a particularly pleasant planet.

The durability of physical objects is measured in hours and ceramics are the only materials with any staying power. The cities float, the inhabitants sport tapeworms and fungal infestations as a matter of course (and some pride).

But the ocean of Turquoise is also a home of the Pattern Jugglers, the remnants of an alien species that absorb and integrate the memories of those who swim with them. Until strangers arrive from outside, threatening to destroy the world.

I haven't read any of the other ‘Revelation Space’ stories but that didn't matter: the book can be read - and enjoyed - without the reader being familiar with the continuum in which it's set (always a plus!)

The characters are close enough to familiar humanity with recognisable human drives and desires, to be accessible and understandable, yet strange enough for the reader to feel slightly disorientated.

This is genuine Science Fiction, its premises logical and convincing, a believable - if distinctly disturbing - future presented in compelling prose. Despite the nastiness portrayed here, it's a very difficult book to put down.

I could have done without the holographic dust jacket though - it made my eyes ache!

Joules Taylor

http://www.wordwrights.co.uk

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