Prefect Tom Dreyfus returns for the second installment in Alastair Reynolds’s sci-fi noir Prefect series. This time around, Dreyfus and his fellow detectives of the Panoply are investigating a mysterious string of deaths — currently numbering in the fifties when we join them, and rising — that, should they continue at their current exponential rate, will wipe out the entire Glitter Band in just a few short years. The victims have little in common, save their neural implants mysteriously overheating and, if Dreyfus is correct, a propensity for engaging in risk-taking behavior. It’s a thin lead, but any other clues are few and far between. In case this potentially apocalyptic death spree weren’t bad enough, the various habitat worlds of the Glitter Band are growing weary of Panoply’s presence following the climax of the previous book, Aurora Rising, with a few already breaking away from the demarchist government for independence, urged on by the increasingly prominent advocate for secession, Devon Garlin.

Published in 2018, elements of Elysium Fire must have certainly felt prescient given a few global events that transpired in the wake of its publication. Certainly, issues surrounding Brexit feel like one element that must have been at the forefront of Reynolds’s mind given Garlin’s firebrand rhetoric, as well as the increasingly prominent anti-police schools of thought that have gained popularity in the US in the wake of numerous high-profile police-sanctioned murders of Black citizens. Garlin himself, at times, feels like a reflection of present-day political fops like Donald Trump or Boris Johnson with his “man of the people” schtick, despite being a moneyed elite whose motivations are hardly as transparent as he pretends.

In fact, Garlin is a member of Chasm City’s founding family, the Vois. It won’t take readers long to surmise that Reynold’s twisting plot threads are interlinked, of course, or to realize that the “melting” deaths are somehow related to the distant colony days buried deeply in the past. Garlin’s subplot, and the detours into the developing mastery of quickmatter by the Voi children, Julius and Caleb, are even somewhat reminiscent of Reynolds’s early work in 2001’s Chasm City.

Given that Elysium Fire is the second entry in the Prefect Dreyfus series, I wouldn’t recommend new readers start here, especially if you found yourself scrunching your eyebrows in confusion over some of the jargon used above. Reynolds has created an entire universe richly filled with future history, various human and transhuman factions, and politics that’s best experienced from the beginning by way of his Revelation Space series. Although Chasm City is a part of the overarching Revelation Space universe, it functions well enough as a stand-alone and makes for a great entry point prior to digging into Aurora Rising and then Elysium Fire.

Compared to the darker elements and more rigorous space-faring elements of the Revelation Space books, the Dreyfus serious is a much more grounded noir procedural set amidst plenty of science fiction trappings, with some really cool and unique world building. You’ll just want to have some degree of familiarity with the Glitter Band and things like Ursas and hyperpigs prior to jumping in, lest you get burned by Elysium Fire.

A very good novel. Offers readers everything they've come to expect from Alastair Reynolds: excellent, well-written and thoughtful science fiction. Recommended.

Negative boring parts. If you’re not familiar with that term, you should likely go and read my review of THE PREFECT, which was one of those Alastair Reynolds books that I just hadn’t gotten to when the release date for this sequel showed up in my email. I mean, yeah, I could just stop reading anything else altogether and go read all of his stuff that I haven’t been able to yet, and it would be awesome. But then EBR would suffer, and I just can’t justify that. Although, I don’t have to plan on catching up on anything before his next novel comes out. Of course, this means that I’ll remember that fact perfectly well the next time I have a hankering for some science fiction goodness instead of forgetting about it until it’s too late. The reason I won’t have to catch up on anything, is because his next two books are going to be direct follow-ups to REVENGER. But until those are available, there’s lots of currently-available goodness to be had from this author. This novel being a prime example.

ELYSIUM FIRE is the second book in the Prefect Dreyfus Emergency series written by one of my favorite science fiction authors, Alastair Reynolds. For anyone picking this book up off the shelf, let me first give a suggestion. The first two pages you’ll find in the book contain a summary of what happened in THE PREFECT, just in case you aren’t familiar with the story. Here’s my advice: don’t read these page. Instead, go read the actual book. It is so good. 🙂

This book’s characters are mostly all those from the first book in the series, although the main players are a bit more focused with respect to POV time that we get. These include: Senior Prefect Tom Dreyfus, Field Prefect Thalia Ng, Supreme Prefect Jane Aumonier, and Julius Devon Garlin Voi, a young boy of a noble house.

The three Prefects of Panoply are in the middle of crisis, and not sure how to handle it. Across the expanse of the ten thousand habitats of the Glitter Band, random citizens are dying. Going about their lives, nothing out of the ordinary, when suddenly the neural implants with their heads rapidly overheat and fry their brains like so much meat. These “melters”, as they are unofficially referred to by the prefects, are few and far-enough between that the prefects have essentially no chance of catching one in medias res, let alone before the people are completely cooked. The bad news is that the cases are increasing in frequency, and Panoply has no idea where to even start to solve this mystery.

At the same time, Panoply is also dealing with the fallout of their decisions that occurred in THE PREFECT. Their citizens are not happy with the outcome, regardless of the supposed lack of choices Panoply had available when deciding how to deal with the emergency, to the point that several habitats have begun to secede from the Glitter Band and thus Panoply authority, as is their right. One voice in particular stands out in protest against the powers that Panoply has had to use in the recent past: Julius Devon Garlin Voi. But he’s not just another voice. He seems to know a lot. Too much, in fact. And neither Jane Aumonier nor Tom Dreyfus are particularly happy about that.

This timeline alternates with one when Julius Voi is a young boy, growing up with his brother and parents on their estate near Chasm City. As they grow, they are being trained for something important. In association with this, they are given access to certain “mental powers” that aren’t available to all. The ability to change the shape of quickmatter to their liking. The ability to affect the field of view of another. The two young boys use these powers to their benefit, enjoyment, and learning. But all is not as it seems, and we become privy to more and more of their secrets as the story proceeds.

Yeesh. Never ceases to amaze me just how long my “simplified synopsis” of nearly every Alastair Reynolds book is. And yet, literally, I haven’t told you anything here that you don’t find out about in the first 25 pages or so. Seriously crazy-busy stories from this guy.

The book starts out with its feet on the ground and running hard. I was kind of surprised at just HOW quickly it started into action and movement. And yet, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I was totally there with Thalia as she catches the call to drop everything and proceed to a given location within the habitat whereupon she has to remove a man’s head from his body and place it into a carrying case meant exactly (unbeknownst to her) for that purpose. Caught my attention uber quick. I was also caught up in Dreyfus’s storyline as he’s the one that interfaces with Julius Voi the most. The guy’s a prig and has no basis to stand on, and yet he’s in the limelight and therefore has everyone’s ear. Dreyfus hates him and I did too. Completely sympathetic. Even the time spent with Julius as a young boy, although it sounds as if it could be slow and boring, was intriguing and insightful as he interacts with his older, stronger, and mentally-superior brother, Caleb.

Throughout the book, a high level of tension, and frustration, and almost anger permeated the pages. Everyone seemed to be getting on everyone else’s nerves, and that lent itself to keeping me wondering just what was going to happen next. So, as I mentioned before (twice, in fact) there was no point in the entirety of this novel where I found myself wanting to put the book down. In fact, I ended up coming back to work late from lunch multiple times because I needed to read just those few more pages, squeeze em in, and oh my goodness maybe just one or two more, so where is the next chapter/section break again?

And, as is the case with most Alastair Reynolds’s stories, his characterization and attention to character detail was point on. Jane deals with the strain of the choices she has to make and deciding to only color within the lines. Thalia deals with issues of friendship and loyalty and finding out that sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong can sometimes lead to being hit with more than you can handle. Dreyfus continues his conflict when dealing with beta-level intelligences (which they collect in droves in this novel, what with all the corpses that are piling up), and his interactions with his wife now that’s he’s aware of her once more. The guy just knows character. He sees how important it is, and I can’t emphasize that enough.

Just read this guy people. If you love the stuff we love, you’ll love the stuff he writes. Plain and simple. There’s so much more I could say about this book, but let’s keep it that way instead as well: plain and simple. Well, relatively.

First published in Great Britain in 2018; published by Orbit on January 23, 2018

Elysium Fire is a sequel to The Prefect, set in the universe known to Alastair Reynolds fans as Revelation Space (the title of the first novel set in that universe). Elysium Fire is basically a detective novel, but the detecting occurs in the detailed and intricate setting that consists of Chasm City (the title of the second novel in the Revelation Space universe) and the Glitter Band, orbiting habitats that have largely lapsed into decay. The Panoply, a law enforcement agency, maintains a sort of political and social order. Ordinary crime is left to local police agencies, but the Panoply addresses big issues, including preservation of the Athenian democracy that comes from letting inhabitants vote on just about everything that might concern them via implants in their brains.

Thalia Ng is a Prefect with the Panoply. With the help of her robotic whiphounds, she begins the novel by cutting off the head of a fellow who is apparently having a seizure. She isn’t told why she was given that order, but soon learns that people are dying, apparently due to overheated implants, and the only way to gather evidence is to preserve the head before the brain melts. The hope is to download memories that can be booted so the deceased can be quizzed about the circumstances that might have caused their implants to go haywire. That isn’t going well, and deaths (code-named Wildfire) seem to be increasing at an exponential rate, perhaps threatening everyone in Chasm City and the Glitter Band.

Thalia’s partner is a talking pig named Sparver Bancal. In the meanwhile, a senior investigator named Dreyfuss is questioning the backup memories (called betas) of the deceased about a white building called Elysium Heights that seems to link some of the deaths. Dreyfuss is additionally occupied with an antagonistic fellow named Devon Garlin, who views himself as a revolutionary. Dreyfuss also has an old nemesis on his hands, an Artificial Intelligence named Aurora who purports to seek an alliance for the purpose of battling Wildfire, although her real motivation involves a foe of her own, known as the Clockmaker.

Devon Garlin is part of the Voi family, which is responsible for the impenetrable system of wireless democracy by which Chasm City is governed. His exact role in that family is not immediately revealed. Flashbacks focus on two Voi children, Caleb and Julius, who are learning to manipulate quickmatter (from which nearly everything inorganic is now constructed) while being groomed for an oversight role regarding the machinery of democracy. The full background of Julius and Caleb is something of a mystery until the reader learns the truth about them, and about their connection to Devon Garlin.

As is always true of Reynolds, an enormous amount of thought went into Elysium Fire. The background details are just as interesting as the story. The primary characters (Thalia, Sparver, and Dreyfus) respond to conflicts in admirable ways, making them easy to like despite their faults. The younger members of the Voi family are portrayed in a way that makes it possible to understand and even sympathize with their feelings of alienation and anger. The plot works as a mystery, challenging the reader to piece together the novel’s various components to make sense of Wildfire, Elysium Heights, and the connection among the victims. The story also works as an action novel from time to time, although this is a cerebral story more than a shoot-’em-up space opera. The novel is long (as Reynolds’ novels tend to be) but the pace is steady and the tale is never dull. I’m giving Elysium Fire high marks as an entertaining entry in Reynolds’ fascinating Revelation Space universe.

RECOMMENDED

This book is an excellent example of what Alastair Reynolds does really well: he creates a technological world, then explores the possible social repercussions of that technology through the lens of a problem.

I am a big fan of the original Revelation Space series (of which the Prefect Dreyfus novels are a spinoff), but it has been several years since I read The Prefect, and many of the callbacks to earlier character beats were a little sketchy in my memory. That said, even with no prior knowledge of either series, this book would be exciting and enjoyable.

Elysium Fire is a well executed hard sci-fi/noir detective thriller. It starts slow and becomes a serious page turner in the last 20%.

It picks up the story of Prefect Tom Dreyfus some time after the Aurora crisis and pits him, Thalia Ng and Sparver against a new emergency.

The characters are generally likeable but not especially complicated. Dreyfus is a nicely conflicted mentor type, Sparver is a loyal sidekick and Thalia is an overachieving protege. There’s not much more to them so far. They’re likeable though.

The plot is intriguing since it’s set in the Glitter Band in orbit around Yellowstone, one of many interesting places in the Revelation Space universe.

It’s a fun read. It could have been shorter though, hence the lukewarm score. I’m still looking forward to the next Prefect Dreyfus story!

Ten thousand orbiting artificial worlds comprise the Glitter Band with its one hundred million inhabitants. They are democracies and their citizens are constantly voting and responding to polls via neural implants. There is a very low crime rate so a small independent body of prefects was created to police the Glitter Band. The prefects, who reside on Panoply, are currently facing several problems. Confidence in the prefects is waning, a few habitats are seceding from the Glitter Band (encouraged by the rabble rouser Julius Devin Garlin Voi) and some citizens are dying due to neural implant failure. Prefect Tom Dreyfus is trying to solve the problem of the mysterious deaths while keeping the population from finding out about what may be an epidemic.

I haven't read either the first book in this science fiction detective series featuring Dreyfus or anything else by this author, so I'm sure I missed some details of the world and history of Yellowstone and its orbiting Glitter Band, but I still managed to follow the story in this book (until the ending which I found very confusing and had to read twice). I really liked the worldbuilding in this book, although I didn't get much of an idea of what life is like in the Glitter Band for most of the citizens. Some people can conjure objects, animals and even elaborate locales from quickmatter. One of the prefects is a hyperpig. The prefects are armed with whiphounds, autonomous robot whips that can be used to enforce, detain and gather evidence. People are dressed by clotheswalls : "...she stepped through a clotheswall , the wall forming her uniform around her...". One of the characters is a godlike artificial intelligence named Aurora who keeps out-maneuvering Dreyfus.

I enjoyed this book for its worIdbuilding and complex plot and some of the characters were interesting, although Dreyfus was probably the least interesting one. I did find the book was too long. There is a vote tampering side story that didn't really go anywhere. The author also has a habit of explaining things three or four times. However, I will probably read more by this author.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This one’s an unexpected surprise. Back in 2007 I reviewed The Prefect (now renamed Aurora Rising) with the hope that I would read more from the same setting. Over ten years later we return to the worlds of the Glitter Band, patrolled by the Panoply police force. It’s a magnificent humdinger of a sequel.
For many readers the good news is that these novels fit into Alastair’s grand scheme of Revelation Space, a Future History of rise and fall, ambition and decay, in the finest traditions of Iain M Banks’ Culture or even Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. In Alastair’s setting, these novels are prequels, happening before the events that are in his novels like Chasm City. The Melding Plague catastrophe that will befall the thousands of orbital habitats grouped together as The Glitter Band has not yet happened, although there are intriguing little snippets throughout these books that things are not going to end well.
In Elysium Fire it is now two years after the Aurora Event (told in Aurora Rising). The characters we met in the first book are back, older and wiser and still defending law and order when needs be. Deputy Tom Dreyfus is back as a Chief Prefect (detective), his boss, Supreme Prefect Jane Aumonier, and Dreyfus’s fellow officers to whom he is a mentor, Thalia Ng & a genetically enhanced ‘hyper pig’ Sparver Bancal.
Elysium Fire begins with a series of sudden deaths amongst the Glitter Band citizens. There seems to be no pattern and no motive. None of the victims seem to be connected and they are all from different walks of life and different habitats. Dreyfus and his team are brought into this situation when Thalia is asked to retrieve one of the victim’s bodies. Dreyfus is told that this isnot the first and there has been nearly fifty deaths so far. Worryingly, the incidents, referred to as “Wildfire”, are on the increase, with the time between each death shortening. Panoply has to try and determine cause and motive before the problem spreads across the Glitter Band and also stop it happening further.
As you can see, things have moved on since The Prefect, and not entirely for the better. The ‘Aurora Event’, and the way it was handled by Panoply, has led to a growing unease between the citizens and the law enforcement agency. We are seeing unrest across the Band, which Dreyfus and his team struggle to maintain control over. One of the most outspoken critics of Panoply is Devon Garlin, an evangelistic orator whose path keeps crossing with Dreyfus as he travels to different habitats. Dreyfus is convinced that Devon has something to do with Wildfire but cannot pin him down to anything specific.
Much of the novel is about this but there are subplots. One is about two twins, Caleb and Julius, whose mysterious upbringing has implications for the old families of the Band and will no doubt be connected to future events. We also have the return of Aurora, whose involvement in events is never simple.
This is being touted as a stand-alone novel. I am sure that it can be, but I appreciated re-reading Aurora Rising first. (In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I did something I rarely do these days and read two books in a series back-to-back.) This rereading showed me that with Elysium Fire how much Alastair has grown as a writer in the last decade. The characters here have grown in depth and complexity since The Prefect, and consequently our need to ‘see them right’ has grown with it. They are more fleshed out, more conflicted…. more human. As before, the setting is a wonderful conceit, all the more so when long-time readers know that eventually things will not be what they are here.
Elysium Fire hits the ground running and slowly and cleverly connects what seem to be disparate aspects of the novel. By the end the issues of the book resolve themselves and set things up nicely for future stories.
When I reviewed The Prefect I did say I would hope that there would be more in this series. Elysium Fire shows that it was right to return to this universe and that there is potential for more stories in Revelation Space. I hope that it’ll not be ten years before we see the next.

Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Prefect Tom Dreyfus is at the heart of this story. This is listed as Perfect Dreyfus Emergency #2. I did not read #1 but had no trouble following the story. I loved the world building. The Gilder Ring is made up of ten thousand city-state habitats that orbit the planet Yellowstone. On the surface is a large city under a lifesaving dome. This is a perfect world with a perfect democracy but something is going wrong. People are dying and the number is increasing. Drefus is the one who must find out who is next and why. This is a mystery with the solution found in both the present and the past. I loved the story, wished I had more of the back story from book one, and through the characters were as impressive as the plot.

I received a free copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds- A sequel to 2007's The Prefect, this a mystery wrapped in a tale of vengeance. Prefect Tom Dreyfuss is once again called to save the thousands of Demarchist settlements in the Glitter Band of habitats circling the harsh planet Yellowstone. People are dying, without any warning, their implants burning their brains. No obvious cause is apparent. Thalia Ng is there and has an idea and Sparver Bancal, the hyper-pig is along to do what he does best- staying alive. Things get progressively worse as hundreds die. Dryefuss is visited by the incorporeal being "Aurora", still alive from their last encounter, and he knows at once, things are going to hell. The Prefect is one of my all-time favorite books by Reynolds or anyone for that matter, and Elysium Fire has the smarts and the audacity to be able to stand next to it.

This was the best book that I've read in a while. This isn't normally what I'm used to reading but I thought I'd take a chance on it. I was sucked into to story from the beginning and didn't want it to end. This story follows quite a few different characters and at times does jump from present to past. I don't really want to give anything away but I will say that there are mysterious deaths throughout the book that really drive these characters to try and solve the mystery behind the deaths. I enjoyed the reveal of information towards the end of the book. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the galley.

A short review this time, as I didn't finish.

But wait, how can you review a book you didn't finish and why are you giving it so many stars?

To be honest, this is all on me. When I requested the book, I didn't realize it was a sequel. I just knew it was Alastair Reynolds and I had really liked some of his previous works. I dove in and soon realized I was missing a chunk of information, and though the book does an excellent job of parcelling it out in bits and pieces that feel digestible and don't interfere with the flow, the perfectionist in me demands I read the first as well. I don't actually think it's necessary; you can pick the series up at book two and be perfectly fine. But I loved the world Reynolds created and laid out on the pages, and I wanted to see more, and isn't that endorsement enough?

After making it only about one hundred pages in, I was wholly on board with the world and the situation he had laid out. The characters felt open and honest, the world-building top notch as you would expect from Reynolds. I'm looking forward to this immensely, once I've gone back and read the first- cheers!

Thank you to NetGalley for the book.

Elysium Fire by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alastair Reynolds returns to the Revelation Space universe with the strongest novel *IMHO* since The Prefect. Of course, this is a direct follow-up to The Prefect.

Look, I know that's kinda a toss out statement, but it's still true. I loved The Prefect because it went wild with tech and even wilder political imagination, glorifying the Glitter Band before it became the Rust Belt. And of course, it was a really awesome mystery that went all out to become a nightmare destroying so much of the beautiful orbiting habitats around Yellowstone. That last book was a near-utopia under siege by a dead girl who had gotten really good with neural architecture and cloud-based systems. It was damn delicious and imaginative and detailed as hell. And the characters were pretty hardcore awesome, too.

Fast forward to an even more accomplished Reynolds with even better characterization, more fluid prose, and dialogue. Add the lingering effects of failed confidence in the Prefects from the previous events, talk of secession by demagogs, and a pretty awesome string of high-tech murders that can be directly linked to the events of other RS novels, and we've got an increasingly harrowing mystery on a shoestring budget even if the high tech gadgets are way beyond anything we've got.

I mean, just look at this tiny list: Beta-level intelligence simulations allowing the dead to keep on living, quick-matter constructs that can become anything just so long as the right price is paid, personal weapons that act like Swiss Army Knives of AI snakes, and a subset of humans who just don't give a crap about what they want to upgrade themselves with.

The mystery is almost the only thing that's normal, and we're dealing with cooked brains and a list of the dead reaching the thousands and it's all being used as political gain.

Really fun novel. Really Hard-SF.

But you know what I love most about this? Reynolds is connecting ALL the Revelation Space novels together even tighter in this one. I'm picking up future events in Chasm City, regular and awesome characters from Reynold's short fiction and the events after everything goes to hell following the Melding Plague and the alien menace, and of course, there's Aurora. I love, love, love Aurora. She's been a mainstay of godlike intelligence in the series and what a personality. :)

A word to the wise: I probably should have re-read The Prefect before picking this up, but it really wasn't that bad. This book was pretty brilliant without needing to revisit the other. BUT I was reminded just how brilliant the other was, too. :)

Another thing: Most of his standalone novels are just that... even if the connections and the timelines are there. The stories are readable in any order you wish. Even this one.

And that being said, Bravo! This really was a fantastic new Reynolds! Easily one of my favorites.

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC!

Prefect Tom Dreyfus, his protégé Thalia Ng, Prefect Sparver (a hyperpig) and others who debuted in The Prefect (2007) return in Alistair Reynolds new book in his Revelation Space universe. Following their adventures stopping an AI from taking control of the Glitter Band, a civilization of orbital habitats managing a pretty good democracy through neural implant consensus, Tom and his colleagues are faced with two new threats to the civilization they are sworn to protect. There’s an influential rabble rouser seeding dissent and urging habitats to secede on the one hand and a mysterious string of deaths spread across the worlds that defies analysis and seems to be increasing logarithmically. If the Glitter Band doesn’t dissolve in discontent, it might fail from mass pandemic unless Dreyfus and the agents of Panoply can find out who or what is behind the deaths and restore the public trust.

The notion of an ideal democracy may have seemed more plausible when the author first conceived of the social system of the Glitter Band, but it’s no surprise that themes like succession and voter manipulation should creep into the dialog now.

It’s excellent Space Opera, full of big ideas and well thought out tech all carried on the shoulders of well-developed characters and full of twists and turns. Thalia Ng comes into her own in this novel, and if the author makes her the lead character next time out, I wouldn’t mind. Spaver, the hyperpig, manages to steal the scene whenever he’s around, while Tom manages to brood his way through the whole thing the way chief inspectors often do. If I have any complaint, it’s that Panoply, which functions as a sort of federal police agency doesn’t seem to be more competent, and that things are resolved a bit to neatly in the end.