Elysium Fire

by Alastair Reynolds

Overview

Elysium Fire is a smoldering tale of murderers, secret cultists, tampered memories, and unthinkable power, of bottomless corruption and overpowering idealism from the king of modern space opera.

Ten thousand city-state habitats orbit the planet Yellowstone, forming a near-perfect democratic human paradise.

But even utopia needs a police force. For the citizens of the Glitter Band that organization is Panoply, and the prefects are its operatives.

Prefect Tom Dreyfus has a new emergency on his hands. Across the habitats and their hundred million citizens, people are dying suddenly and randomly, victims of a bizarre and unprecedented malfunction of their neural implants. And these "melters" leave no clues behind as to the cause of their deaths. . .

As panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band and form their own independent colonies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316555678
Publisher:	Orbit
Publication date:	01/23/2018
Series:	The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies , #2
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	145,564
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St. Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. he stopped working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency to become a full-time writer. Revelation Space and Pushing Ice were shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Revelation Space, Absolution Gap, Diamond Dogs, and Century Rain were shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Award, and Chasm City won the British Science Fiction Award.

Editorial Reviews

★ 01/01/2018
Reynolds has been building his Revelation Space universe for decades in a series of stories and novels; this one is a direct sequel to 2007’s The Prefect, reprinted in 2017 as Aurora Rising, and it’s even fresher and smarter than its predecessors. Chasm City’s 10,000 habitats have existed in relative harmony for years, but an accelerating series of brain-frying deaths cast doubt on the ability of Panoply, the city’s law enforcement agency, to keep citizens safe. Panoply prefect Tom Dreyfus; his protégé, Thalia Ng; and a sardonic hyperpig, Sparver Bancal, attempt to stop the murders while shutting down a rabble-rousing provocateur. This novel’s ideas are mind-stretching, including a limbo where copies of the dead can be kept and interrogated, and a chillingly mischievous AI that tempts and mocks Dreyfus. Familiarity with the earlier novel might help readers sort out the multiple plot threads. The big concepts and complex story effectively pull readers into intriguing speculation about human identity and potential. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"This novel's ideas are mind-stretching, including a limbo where copies of the dead can be kept and interrogated, and a chillingly mischievous AI that tempts and mocks Dreyfus. The big concepts and complex story effectively pull readers into intriguing speculation about human identity and potential."—Publishers Weekly

"Reynolds combines depth in characterization and dazzling hard-science applications to keep the reader turning pages."—Booklist

"Elysium Fire is a tremendously assured read, a fast-paced page-turner that delivers a well thought out story and characters you'll come to care about."—The Guardian (UK)

"A swashbuckling thriller—Pirates of the Caribbean meets Firefly—that nevertheless combines the author's trademark hard SF with effective, coming-of-age characterization."—The Guardian on Revenger

"Revenger is classic Reynolds-that is to say, top of the line science fiction, where characters are matched beautifully with ideas and have to find their place in a complex future. More!"—Greg Bear on Revenger

"A leading light of the new British space opera."
—Los Angeles Review of Books on Alastair Reynolds

"One of the giants of the new British space opera."
—io9 on Alastair Reynolds

"[Reynolds is] a mastersinger of the space opera."
—The Times (UK) on Blue Remembered Earth

"Heir to writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, Reynolds keeps up the tradition of forward thinking... An immensely thrilling, mind-bending piece of work."
—AV Club on House of Suns

"[Reynolds] is the most gifted hard SF writers working today."
—Publishers Weekly on Beyond the Aquila Rift

From the Publisher

In this sequel to THE PREFECT, narrator John Lee draws listeners back to the 25th century just in time for a new crisis. In clipped, authoritative tones, Lee brings the Panoply police force prefects to life as they investigate malfunctions in brain implants that are causing unexpected deaths across multiple worlds. Lee’s steady pacing and autocratic inflection enhance this galactic police procedural, particularly the magnitude of the moral decisions that must be made to save as many lives as possible. Unexpected plot revelations and the possible future repercussions of current events will have listeners eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series. J.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2018 - AudioFile

In this sequel to THE PREFECT, narrator John Lee draws listeners back to the 25th century just in time for a new crisis. In clipped, authoritative tones, Lee brings the Panoply police force prefects to life as they investigate malfunctions in brain implants that are causing unexpected deaths across multiple worlds. Lee’s steady pacing and autocratic inflection enhance this galactic police procedural, particularly the magnitude of the moral decisions that must be made to save as many lives as possible. Unexpected plot revelations and the possible future repercussions of current events will have listeners eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series. J.M. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2018 - AudioFile