- Yellowstone, the teeming hub of a human interstellar empire spanning many worlds. His current case: investigating a murderous attack against one of the habitats that left 900 people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus.

Alastair Reynolds’ latest is a space opera set in the early days of his Revelation Space universe. The story outline and concept is a fairly simple one, certainly compared with some of his earlier work. It is, in essence, a space-police-detective novel. Set in the year 2427 it follows Tom Dreyfus, a Prefect (see definition 1, above) who works for the law-enforcement agency of Panoply. His jurisdiction is the thousands of habitats above the planet of Yellowstone, referred to as the Glitter Band. The story starts quickly with Dreyfus and his team (made up of a young, intelligent and inexperienced new recruit called Thalia Ng and a uplifted-pig/human called Sparver) investigating what seems to be a fairly simple tale of habitat destruction: albeit one which costs over nine hundred and sixty lives.





The immediate culprit seems to be clear: the drive from a Delta spaceship, deliberately turned onto the habitat, causing a major rift in the habitat’s structure and instant decompression. It is rather expected that Dreyfus will have this case quickly sorted. However the simple solution soon becomes more complicated as the original main suspect may not be as guilty as it seemed at the start. Instead, the emergence of an alpha-intelligence from the galaxy’s past leads to secrets from the past being uncovered, the destruction of a number of habitats, difficult life-changing decisions and potentially bigger consequences – the subjugation of all humans and the destruction of the Glitter Band itself…