The Prefect | Alastair Reynolds | A Takeover From Within

The Prefect | Alastair Reynolds | stands very well on its own

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The Prefect

	The Prefect Alastair Reynolds Ace Hardcover, 2008 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A full-length novel set in the Revelation Space universe that?s ?sublime entertainment? and ?gripping in the extreme.?( Locus)

Tom Dreyfus is a Prefect, a law enforcement officer with the Panoply. His beat is the multi-faceted utopian society of the Glitter Band, that vast swirl of space habitats orbiting the planet 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 leaves nine hundred people dead, a crime that appalls even a hardened cop like Dreyfus. But then his investigation uncovers something even more potentially dangerous?a covert plot by an enigmatic entity seeking nothing less than total control of the Glitter Band?

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A Takeover From Within

The Prefect (2007) is the fifth SF novel in the Revelation Space series, following Absolution Gap. From the internal chronology, this novel is actually a prequel to Chasm City and the rest of the series. It is set within the Glitter Band of Yellowstone in 2427, about a century before the Melding Plague.

The Glitter Band is thousands of habitats of all descriptions orbiting Yellowstone. It is governed by Demarchist principles, which are based on polling the populace on all political issues through the Abstraction network. These principles are enforced by Prefect headquarters on the Panoply habitat.

In this novel, Tom Dreyfus is a Field Prefect conducting an official visit to the House Perigal habitat. He arrives at the habitat in a Prefect cutter and asks to be taken to the Matriarch. Once in her presence, he announces a lockdown for a category-five infringement of the democratic process.

Thalia Ng is a Deputy Field Prefect specializing in data systems and the network. She is assigned to the team conducting the lockdown of House Perigal. Thalia retrieves three data packages from the polling core as evidence of the infringements and institutes the lockdown.

Sparver Bancal is a hyperpig and the senior DFP in Dreyfus's team. He accompanies Thalia to the polling core while she retrieves the evidence. Sparver is about due for promotions to Field Perfect.

The Clockmaker was an alpha-level artificial intelligence. Apparently it was designed and built by the Sylveste Institute for Artificial Mentation. Eleven year previously, it started killing people on the SIAM habitat. The Prefects boarded the habitat, rescued some hostages, and then nuked the facility.

Jane Aumonier is the Supreme Prefect, commanding all Prefect resources. She is also a victim of the Clockmaker. She has a machine attached to the back of her neck and connected to her spine. She is capable of functioning as the head of the organization, but her thoughts are monitored by the scarab and her activities are curtailed.

Doctor Demikhov is head of the medical team supporting Jane. Since the scarab will kill her if she sleeps, they have been keeping her awake for the entire eleven years. They are also working on ways to remove the deadly machine. Their task is further complicated by the threat of death to their patient if anyone approaches too closely.

Aurora Nerval-Lermontov was a young woman fifty-five years ago. She was one the Eighty who underwent destructive scanning and upload of her memory patterns into a computer by Calvin Sylveste. At first this process was considered a means of achieving eternal life, but things soon started to go wrong with the Eighty and now Aurora is thought to be dead. But she had fled her computer environment and hid within the Abstraction network.

Sheridan Gaffney is Senior Field Prefect in charge of internal security within Panoply. He is also part of the council managing the Prefect organization. However, Gaffney is a traitor working with Aurora to undermine and sabotage the Perfect organization.

In this story, Dreyfus is summoned to the Supreme's office as soon as he returns to Panoply. Jane has another problem for him. The Ruskin-Sartorious habitat has been hulled and depressurized. Later information indicates that the engines of the Ultra vessel Accompaniment of Shadows had burned through the hull of the habitat.

Dreyfus first checks out the damaged habitat. Everybody onboard is dead either from the heat of the engine exhaust or the loss of pressure. The Prefects do find a dozen beta-level simulations of the residents and return them to Panoply for reconstruction.

Dreyfus then heads toward the Parking Swarm of Ultra ships. Harbormaster Seraphim meets him outside the Swarm and Dreyfus tells him about the loss of Ruskin-Sartorious. The harbormaster states that something will be done about the matter.

Returning to Panoply, Dreyfus learns that only three beta-levels are capable of running their simulated personalities. He talks to the simulations of Anthony Theobald, Vernon Tregent and Delphine Ruskin-Sartorious. Naturally the beta-levels were not continuously downloaded with the latest information. Nonetheless, he learns a few things about the negotiations as well as more about the artistic talents and activities of Delphine.

Captain Dravidian of the Accompaniment of Shadows had just about completed negotiations with the habitat. Then a caller tells the Ruskin-Sartorious residents that the Ultras are offering much less than the value of the merchandise. So Ruskin-Sartorious breaks off the negotiations and the Ultra ship leaves the habitat.

Delphine had been working on a series of retrospectives about Philip Lascaille. Dreyfus remembers that Lascaille had been an unsuccessful explorer of the Shroud. Previous explorers had never returned from the Shroud, but Lascaille had come back to the Glitter Band with a damaged mind. Apparently he had drowned himself in an ornamental fish pond twenty-odd years ago.

This tale presents Dreyfus with a mystery. His initial investigations only deepen the mystery. After talking to Captain Dravidian, he is convinced that the Ultra ship was set up to take the blame. Things are not as they seem.

The novel presents more of the backstory of the milieu than previously available. Naturally, much of the background is familiar to anyone who has read the rest of the series and the collected tales. Yet some elements are clarified in this novel.

The tale is an intriguing mystery within a strange future. The twists and turns keep the reader interested and reluctant to set aside the book. It is also a good introduction to the series. Enjoy!

Highly recommended for Reynolds fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of murder mysteries, space adventures, and network intelligences.

-Arthur W. Jordin

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stands very well on its own

I have never read any of Alastair Reynolds previous novels. Even so, the novel stood very well on its own and was easy to follow. The charecters were well developed and the plot engaging.

Space opera meets John Rebus

Alastair Reynolds has been producing great space opera for several years now. This time he takes a somewhat different path. It's still great space opera, but he's added touches of Ian Rankin (the best current British mystery writer). Reynolds's main character -- Tom Drefyus, the Prefect of the title -- is very reminiscent of Rankin's John Rebus. He's a driven, cranky policeman, somewhat of an outcast despite his many years in the service. H is loyal to those who work for him, is sometimes at odds with his peers, and unwilling to give up when he gets his teeth into something. And of course he is brilliant at pulling together disparate elements.

I won't try to summarize the novel here. Several other reviews do a fine job with that. I'll just say that this is yet another very good novel from Reynolds. It may be his best, and is probably the one that I'd hand to anyone who hasn't read much SF but wants to find out what this "new space opera" stuff is all about. This will definitely be on my Hugo ballot next year.

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Excellent hard science fiction detective story

The Prefect is set in the "Revelation Space" universe of some of Reynold's earlier novels. While some understanding of this might be beneficial, it's definitely not essential and first time Reynolds readers will still have a great time with this book.

The two main characters are prefect Tom Dreyfus and his assistant Thalia Ng. The prefects are basically police officers that operate out of Panoply, one of the 10,000 space habitats in the "Glitter Band" orbiting Yellowstone, a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system. The prefects don't have much real power though and are mainly responsible for administering the complex vote recording apparatus that provides democracy throughout the Glitter Band.

While investigating the mysterious destruction of a habitat, Dreyfus becomes aware of a plot to take over the whole Glitter Band by a shadowy figure called Aurora. Aurora seems to believe that only she can protect the inhabitants of the Glitter Band from future catastrophe. Aurora's agenda is not so benign, however. Thalia unwittingly becomes involved when she unwittingly loads corrupted software into the vote recording machines in several habitats. The plot proceeds at breakneck speed as it becomes a race to locate the mysterious entity known as the Clockmaker who seems to hold the key to defeating Aurora. The end of the story, while relatively satisfying, is left fairly open so I expect that the Prefects and Panoply will feature again in future Reynolds novels.

As well as being a very good detective story, the book is just a great hard science fiction novel too. The technology is quite believable for the far future with some of the concepts being quite ingenious but the technology never takes over the story. Characterization is another outstanding feature too. Even the traitor on Panoply is a credible figure, unlike the mustache twirling villains in some current science fiction novels.

This is one of the best books that Alastair Reynolds has written and I have no hesitation in giving it five stars.

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The Prefect