Machine Vendetta: 3 (The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies)

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The prefects are, after all, people devoted to their duties, even at the expense of much private life. When another high-ranking member of the council of protects is killed by being misdirected to a hostile asteroid, Creature is tasked with finding out why and exposing the killers. Reynolds again doesn't disappoint and proves while he is a master of the sci Fi genre and an author I always look forward to. Reynolds combines depth in characterization and dazzling hard-science applications to keep the reader turning pages.

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. 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. In any event, don't start here, start with the first book, originally titled 'The Prefect' then reissued as 'Aurora Rising'.

Alastair Reynolds has produced a fine, fast-paced thriller in Machine Vendetta, the third, and apparently final novel in the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies series. Tench had no intention of arriving at this habitat, but her navigation and communication systems have been surreptitiously taken over, redirecting her from her original target to this violent and dangerous place. Prematurely writing this review because I started it on Netgalley without realizing that it is the 3rd book of a series. Machine Vendetta" has everything: adults with the size and mental development of babies; bombed monasteries; secret cults secretly building a computer to trap two near-gods; upgraded pigs and lemurs: a mysterious mansion on a deserted asteroid; a 100 page section of non-stop action; two competing evil near omnipotent A I upgrades; long-lived interstellar posts human traders and their miles long ships; the list goes on. For those who have followed this series it is not a spoiler to say that rogue AI machines are the bete noire of the series.

If you've read a few books from Reynolds before, you're aware that identity issues may be his favorite plot device.Some of my books and stories are set in a consistent future named after Revelation Space, the first novel, but I've done a lot of other things as well and I like to keep things fresh between books. 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. 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.