The Prefect (Revelation Space)

Tom Dreyfus is a prefect. As part of Panoply (think Federal Elections Commission melded with FBI), it is Dreyfus's duty to protect the voting rights of the people that live on the ten thousand habitats that comprise the Glitter Band in orbit around the planet Yellowstone. The Glitter Band is a Demarchist society. As such, there is no centralized authority -- each habitat is its own city-state. But in matters that concern the entire orbital community, every citizen has the right to vote on matters big and small (often dozens of times a day) directly through neural implants and a central hub in each habitat known as a polling core. When a minor coding error is found within the voting system, one of Dreyfus's deputies -- Thalia Ng -- is sent in to manually fix the error in four of the habitats...if the fix is successful for the four habitats it will be transmitted throughout the entire Glitter Band. While Thalia is occupied with her work on the polling cores, Dreyfus and his other deputy -- a hyperpig named Sparver Bancal -- begin to investigate a horrible crime. Someone destroyed an entire habitat -- and killed nearly a thousand people in the process. As Dreyfus and Sparver begin to probe this atrocity, they soon realize that not all is at it seems. Now, Dreyfus, Sparver, Thalia, and all of Panoply are about to be pulled into a series of events that will push their mandate from the people to serve as the voting police to the very edge. Events that may wind up tarnishing the Glitter Band forever... Alastair Reynolds's The Prefect is a superb addition to his Revelation Space universe. Reynolds's depiction of Chasm City's Rust Belt pre-plague (i.e. the Glitter Band) is interesting to say the least. The Prefect more than carries its own weight as a great novel, but as a bonus the depiction of the splendors of the Glitter Band serves as a counterpoint to the post-plague horrors depicted in Chasm City. Not only that, but The Prefect is awash with everything fans of this series have come to expect -- futuristic societies, advanced technologies, and strong, character-driven plots. This novel is highly recommended to those who have read the other tales in this series.

Earlier this year, Alastair Reynolds' latest novel, ELYSIUM FIRE, was published. ELYSIUM FIRE is a sequel to Reynolds' 2007 novel THE PREFECT. As I am a fan of the works of Alastair Reynolds, and I wanted to read ELYSIUM FIRE, it seemed to me to be high time that I finally got around to reading THE PREFECT. THE PREFECT takes place in Reynolds' Revelation Space universe, and in fact take place before the novel REVELATION SPACE, the first novel published in the universe. It's not really a prequel per se, but one of the drawbacks is that the novel gives the feeling that the reader should have already read the other Revelation Space novels, as most of the entities, aliens, constructs, and terms of the universe are assumed to be known. There is some explanation of terms, but this explanation is minimal. On the one hand, that can be irritating to readers new to the Revelation Space universe, but on the other hand it is somewhat refreshing that readers are allowed to puzzle out what some of these things are. The setting is the Glitter Band, a group of 10,000 habitats that orbit the planet Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system. Those who have read other Revelation Space novels will recall that the Glitter Band was devastated by something called the "melding plague". The prefect of the title of the novel, Tom Dreyfus, is a law enforcement/police officer with an organization called The Panoply, a group charged with protecting the residents of the Glitter Band (the odd thing about this is that early on in the novel high ranking prefects claim that the group is not a police force, but in reality they are just that). The Glitter Band is run as what appears to be the closest thing to a true democracy, as all decisions affecting residents of the Glitter Band are voted upon using a device called a polling core, a computer of sorts that transmits the queries to the populace and tallies the votes. The majority wins. Until it doesn't. Dreyfus has just returned from a mission to one of the habitats wherein he and his deputy prefect Thalia Ng were investigating a voting fraud crime when he's sent to investigate the destruction of one of the habitats of the Glitter Band and the 900+ people that live there. What he finds there are more questions to be answered than he was originally prepared to ask. Meanwhile, a bug in the polling core software has been discovered. Thalia, being an expert in such things, codes and tests the fix herself, and plans to test the implementation by hand installing the fix on four of the most problematic habitats, after which, if all goes well, she'll go back to Panoply and patch the remaining 10,000 or so polling cores remotely. The two seemingly different and unrelated set of events end up pointing to a sinister plot to take over the Glitter Band by an enigmatic entity that isn't even alive in the sense that we know it. Dreyfus and the rest of the prefects on Panoply must race to stop this takeover from happening. THE PREFECT is the kind of novel a lot of us grew up reading, the kind of novel with big ideas, interesting and somewhat way out there technologies, some altered reality in the form of something called the abstraction, which also allows people to communicate. It is huges sense of wonder stuff with some big ideas in a space opera setting; like I said, the kind of novel a lot of us grew up reading. Which tends to mean, and it certainly means it here, that this isn't a character based story. Rather, the characters are there to advance the plot and showcase what the future could be like. That's certainly contrary to the way a good deal of award winning and critically acclaimed science fiction is written today, but...it's comfortable and entertaining. You're not going to fall in love with any of these characters, but that's not the point of a novel like this. If you like big ideas and complex plots, then this will be right up your alley. It certainly was right up mine. Speaking of comfortable, I became captivated with John Lee's voice while listening to a number of Peter F. Hamilton novels that he narrated. I normally don't check the narrator of an audio book until the end when I'm preparing to write a review. Lee's voice sounded familiar enough that I had to check on where I'd heard it before. I enjoyed Lee's narration on the Hamilton books, and I certainly enjoyed it here. The combination of the the comfort food of a good space opera with the comfort food of a narrator I like from another set of novels by a different author - something I hadn't encountered before - made this a thoroughly enjoyable listen.

Everything was in order. Beautiful book.

Very Good Novel with lot of new ideas..

The Prefect was my first foray into the realm of Revelation Space and reading out of sequence doesn't seem to have had an impact on my understanding and enjoyment one bit. The book has bags of pace and focuses on a small set of characters which helps keep the narrative punchy and uncluttered. This is a much better book than 'Century Rain' ( a non-Revelation Space work ), hanging together more satisfyingly. Fundamentally, The Prefect is a Detective story set in space, overlain with a rich tapestry of interesting technological and philosophical threads. The narrative centres around Field Prefect Tom Dreyfus ( a kind of cop ) who works for Panoply, an emasculated pseudo police force that protects the voting rights of the residents of the Glitter Band ( a collection of ten thousand habitats which orbit the planet Yellowstone four hundred years or so in the future ). The story kicks of when a habitat is attacked resulting in the death of all of its inhabitants. Panoply sends one of their best agents to investigate and in classic detective tradition, Tom Dreyfus refuses to rest until the mystery is solved and the Glitter Band is saved from what seems to be inevitable destruction. Although set in a fantastical future, Reynolds encourages us to build allegiances with the citizens of the Glitter Band ( the democracy fixated Demarchists ) to such an extent that he is able to portray the enigmatic Conjoiners as the exotic "aliens". The book didn't take long to read at all, but before I'd reached halfway I went and ordered a batch of Reynolds's other work. In terms of scope and ideational innovation, comparisons with Banks are valid, however, Reynolds is far more accessible, far less literary - this is in turn, both for the better and for the worse. I'd sooner read Reynolds on a beach, but Banks will satisfy the inner literary snob more completely. There are a couple of one dimensional characters such as Senior Prefect Gaffney, a classic misguided "bad guy" who might have been "good" under other circumstances, but I can forgive the lack of convincing character development and exposition of motive because of the basic, old fashioned entertainment factor. Likewise, the artificial intelligences don't grip the imagination and elicit sympathy like Jane in Orson Scott Card's Enders series for example, but this weakness is made up for by the more modern treatment. Indeed, as a programmer, the ending made me chuckle a little inappropriately ( in a way only a geek can ). Remember, the first law of distributed programming is don't distribute!

Dies war mein erstes Buch von Reynolds, und ich hatte wohl zu hohe Erwartungen. The Prefect ist kein Hard-SF, sondern eher Space Opera. Das Glitter-Band Universum ist facettenreich und Reynolds hat eine ganze Menge interessante und ausgefallene Ideen in petto. Die Story allerdings lässt zu wünschen übrig. Die Entwicklungen sind einfach zu seicht, man spürt förmlich den Autor denken "Oh, jetzt wird es Zeit dass die Guten einen auf den Deckel bekommen" und schon bricht der Schurke aus, nimmt sich ohne Probleme eine Wunderwaffe und wendet das Blatt. Bis 50 Seiten danach der Gegenstreich kommt. Wie schon ein voriger Rezensent sagt, sehr gutes Popcorn-Kino, aber keine hohe Literatur.

An enjoyable romp typical of Reynolds. I love his concepts and his characters, and the Revelation Space universe is so interesting, with all the disparate groups of humanoids and AIs. I don't always like how he treats his characters, but nothing to complain about really this time. The Clockmaker was great; more terrifying than the Aurora persona. I hope it comes up again sometime. The main bad guy was a bit cliched, but other than that, very satisfying.