Machine Vendetta: 3 (The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies)

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Every chapter reveals another layer to the far-reaching mystery, all the while building to a stunning crescendo in which characters old and new band together to face a long-dreaded scenario. In the third in the series Dreyfus has multiple emergencies on his hands including neural implants melting, attacks and two potentially war starting events involving his own colleagues.

Reynolds combines depth in characterization and dazzling hard-science applications to keep the reader turning pages. Four years ago, when an investigation linked to one of his most dangerous adversaries got a little too personal, Dreyfus arranged for Tench to continue the inquiry by proxy. I am dying to know what happens but I think I've already read a major spoiler for the series and I don't want to risk running into more! As his colleagues pick up the pieces following her death, Prefect Tom Dreyfus must face his conscience.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. You could read the book as a standalone, but a lot of the characters overlap from previous stories, so you'd be better advised to go in sequence. But 'cop' is not the correct term – it's more like they are the public safety monitors, trying to deal with any issues with a light touch but willing to bring in the heavy support as needed. As Tench’s mentor and friend, Tom Dreyfus is brought in to investigate her death and the events leading up to it – What was the reason for the trip? She tells him that another rogue AI, known as the Clockmaker, Aurora’s fierce enemy, is trying to capture her so that he can control the Yellowstone system without opposition.

Also Judge Dredd like, in that these are slightly more militaristic police units, but with an appreciation of the law, unlike the Judges. Prefect Tom Dreyfus is on his way and along with him his once archenemy Aurora, who has formed an uneasy alliance with him to each other’s benefit. Tom D refuse is a high-ranking prefect, a sort of policeman whose job it is to enforce the accords between the inhabitants of the glitter. The action, technology, character development, and scope of "Machine Vendetta" really worked for me.

I would say that it is similar to and Ed McBain 87th Precinct novel, with a cast of police agents investigating a serious of what look like random crimes, and finding that they are all the same. Insurrection is rising, and the destruction of part of a peaceful jungle-like habitat, Valsko-Venev, seems to have been instigated by Mizler Cranach, seemingly a rogue hyper-pig Prefect, an event which has created distrust towards the Prefects and inspired racist xenophobia as the act is seen as a racist attack. The big concepts and complex story effectively pull readers into intriguing speculation about human identity and potential. One can have ships move at hyperspace or travel wormholes, treating space like World War II fighters, or have lumbering near light transports taking years to get to their location.

A sequel to Elysium Fire, it is the eighth novel set in the Revelation Space universe, and the third in the A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency spinoff series. I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales.MACHINE VENDETTA is an enormously engrossing Hard SF Space Opera, third in Alastair Reynolds' PREFECT DREYFUS EMERGENCY (which Series includes the also exceptional AURORA RISING and ELYSIUM FIRE). A prefect who happens to be a hyperpig (an uplifted pig functioning alongside humans) has apparently betrayed his office and staged a suicide attack on one habitat. Depending on your preferences this may be considered mundane, if not dull, because there isn't anything particularly exciting and certainly nothing epic. How Alastair Reynolds creates not only a galaxy but a complex and multi prong plot that satisfies completely is beyond me! The relentless narrative momentum it employs simply underscores the pertinent urgency of that topic.