To The Last Page

Even though it is set in the Revelation Space universe there is a sense in The Prefect that this is Reynolds in sci-fi pulp form rather than the hard literary science-fiction and expansive scale of the other books in the series or of the remarkable Pushing Ice . It does at least mean that the book is certainly more accessible, rarely faltering in pace and managing to hold the reader throughout. The plot is not an intricate one, although it does initially start out as one kind of police investigation by the Prefect Dreyfus of Panoply (the law-enforcement system or at least the authorities in charge of the upholding of the democratic process of the ten thousand habitats of the Glitter Band), looking into the destruction of one of the habitats and over 900 people and finding that behind it there is a threat on another scale entirely. With megalomaniacal computer entities, killer robots, invading forces threatening to sweep across the whole of the Glitter Band, internal rivalry, espionage...

The short story format isn’t where Alastair Reynolds can be seen at his best. The stories in the Galactic North collection all feel like minor episodes in his Revelation Space universe, lacking the complexity and scope of his novels. Only the title story Galactic North attempts to cover the epic scope of eons and history, but it suffers from compression into the short story format. Moreover, since there is a necessity for them to be read standalone, most of the stories tend to fall back on recognisable plotlines with sci-fi horror twists and shock endings that show their influences much more obviously than the authors extended works. (An interesting postscript by the author is quite open and forthcoming about this). On the positive side, the stories are all very readable, showing the variation that Reynolds is capable of, and his strengths with characterisation and exciting, dynamic plots. Anyone familiar with Reynolds’ work will recognise many of those characters and situations from...

In a seemingly a rather straightforward procedural, Maigret investigates the death of an unknown woman found beaten to death and left in a public square in Montmartre.  The actual procedural, the results of the autopsy, the reporting of the incident in the newspapers, the following up on leads, the interviewing of people who all knew the woman but did not know her well and did not for various reasons come forward, all make the revelations about the mysterious woman intriguing, but Simenon makes it much more than this. Maigret’s investigation runs in parallel with another dour and indefatigable inspector known as Malgracieux, who through sheer persistence and old-school methods always seems to be one step ahead of Maigret - right up until the final revelations.  There it’s Maigret’s experience and his ability to put himself in the place of the victim (here as often a young person who has come to the big city from the country like Maigret) and his sense of intuition that show th...