Alastair Reynolds “Slow
Bullets” (Tachyon, 2015)
When you hear the name Alastair Reynolds, who thinks of
tightly plotted novellas? A lean, mean, storytelling machine? Show of
hands? Yeah. Me too.
I think of big doorstopper space opera.
Complex plots with lots of characters, advanced tech.
Well Slow Bullets
is a tightly plotted novella, that basically takes place in a single ship. Rather than the expansive feelings that I
expect from space opera, this enclosed story felt more claustrophobic.
Technically, this novella was great; just as I would expect
from Reynolds. But the setting &
what felt like a dark grim tone set me off this basically from the beginning. When the novella opens, our protagonist is a
POW & is being tortured. I found I
just couldn’t recover tonally from that place.
So yes, well done, but just not for me.
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