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Alastair Reynolds
Born	1966 Barry, South Wales, United Kingdom
Occupation	Novelist, former research astronomer with the European Space Agency
Nationality	Welsh
Genres	Science fiction
Debut works	"Nunivak Snowflakes"
Influences	Larry Niven, John Varley, Bruce Sterling, Gregory Benford, Samuel R. Delany, Joan D. Vinge, Michael Swanwick, Star Trek [1]
Website	www.alastairreynolds.com

Alastair Reynolds (born in 1966 in Barry, South Wales) is a Welsh science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle, where he read Physics and Astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD from St Andrews, Scotland. In 1991, he moved to Noordwijk in the Netherlands where he met his wife Josette (who is from France). There, he worked for the European Space Research and Technology Centre, part of the European Space Agency, until 2004 when he left to pursue writing full time.

Contents 1 Works 2 Bibliography 2.1 Books in the Revelation Space series 2.2 Other books 2.3 Short stories 3 See also 4 References 5 External links 5.1 Interviews

Reynolds wrote his first four published science fiction short stories while still a graduate student, in 1989-1991; they appeared in 1990-1992. In 1991 Reynolds graduated and moved from Scotland to the Netherlands to work at ESA. He then started spending much of his writing time on a first novel, which eventually turned into Revelation Space, while the few short stories he submitted from 1991-1995 were rejected. This ended in 1995 when his story "Byrd Land Six" was published, which he says marked the beginning of a more serious phase of writing. As of 2007 he has published over thirty shorter works and seven novels. His works are hard science fiction veiled behind space opera and noir toned stories, and reflect his professional expertise with physics and astronomy, included by extrapolating future technologies in terms that are consistent with current science. His first four novels and several of his previous short stories take place within one consistent future universe, usually now called the Revelation Space universe after the first novel published in it, although it was originally developed in short stories for several years before the first novel. However, the works set within this future timeline rarely have the same protagonists twice. Often the protagonists from one work belong to a group that is regarded with suspicion or enmity by the protagonists of another work. While a great deal of science fiction reflects either very optimistic or dystopian visions of the human future, Reynolds's future worlds are notable in that human societies have not departed to either positive or negative extremes, but instead are similar to those of today in terms of moral ambiguity and a mixture of cruelty and decency, corruption and opportunity, despite their technology being dramatically advanced.

The Revelation Space series includes five novels, two novellas, and eight short stories set over a span of several centuries, spanning approximately 2150 to 2727. In this universe, extraterrestrial sentience exists but is elusive, and interstellar travel is primarily undertaken by a class of vessel called a lighthugger which only approaches the speed of light. Reynolds has said he prefers to keep the science in his books to what he personally believes will be possible, and he does not believe faster-than-light travel will ever be possible, but that he adopts science he believes will be impossible when it is necessary for the story. ^[2]

Century Rain takes place in a future universe independent of the Revelation Space universe and has different rules, such as faster-than-light travel being possible through a system of wormholes or star-gates. Century Rain also departs substantially from Reynolds's previous works, both in having a protagonist who is much closer to the perspective of our real world, serving as a proxy for the reader in confronting the unfamiliarity of the advanced science fiction aspects and in having a much more linear storytelling process. Reynolds's previous protagonists started out fully absorbed in the exoticisms of the future setting and his previous Revelation Space works have several interlinked story threads, not necessarily contemporaneously.

Pushing Ice is also a standalone story, with characters from much less distant in the future than in any of his other novels.

The Prefect marked a return to the Revelation Space universe. Like Chasm City, it is a stand-alone novel within the Revelation Space universe. It is set prior to any of the other Relevation Space novels, though still 200 years after the original human settlement of the Epsilon Eridani system. It was published in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2007.

On June 7, 2007, Reynolds announced that his next novel will be entitled House of Suns, and that it will be set in the same universe as his novella "Thousandth Night" from the One Million A.D. anthology.

• Revelation Space. London: Gollancz, 2000. ISBN 0-575-06875-2
• Chasm City. London: Gollancz, 2001. ISBN 0-575-06877-9
• Redemption Ark. London: Gollancz, 2002. ISBN 0-575-06879-5
• Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days. London: Gollancz, 2003. ISBN 0-575-07526-0
• Absolution Gap. London: Gollancz, 2003. ISBN 0-575-07434-5
• Galactic North. London: Gollancz, 2006. ISBN 0-575-07910-X
• The Prefect. London: Gollancz, 2007, ISBN 0-575-07716-6

• Century Rain. London: Gollancz, 2004. ISBN 0-575-07436-1
• Pushing Ice. London: Gollancz, 2005. ISBN 0-575-07438-8
• Zima Blue and Other Stories. San Francisco, CA: Night Shade Books, 2006. ISBN 1-59780-058-9 (Also as a limited edition with an extra story, "Digital to Analogue")
• House of Suns. London: Gollancz, 2008, ISBN 0-575-07717-4 (forthcoming)

• "Nunivak Snowflakes" - Originally published in Interzone #36 (June 1990)
• "Dilation Sleep" - Originally published in Interzone #39 (September 1990); reprinted in Galactic North
• "Enola" - Originally published in Interzone #54 (December 1991); reprinted in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Digital to Analogue" - Originally published in In Dreams (1992), Paul McAuley and Kim Newman, eds.; reprinted in Zima Blue and Other Stories, Limited Edition
• "Byrd Land Six" - Originally published in Interzone #96 (June 1995); reprinted in The Ant Men of Tibet and Other Stories (2001, ISBN 1-903468-02-7), David Pringle, ed.
• "Spirey and the Queen" - Originally published in Interzone #108 (June 1996); reprinted in Future War (1999, ISBN 0-441-00639-6), Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, eds.; and in Zima Blue and Other Stories; and posted free online at Infinity Plus [1]
• "A Spy in Europa" - Originally published in Interzone #120 (June 1997); reprinted in the The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection (1998, ISBN 0-312-19033-6), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Galactic North; and posted free online at Infinity Plus [2]
• "On the Oodnadatta" - Originally published in Interzone #128 (February 1998)
• "Stroboscopic" - Originally published in Interzone #134 (August 1998); reprinted in Dangerous Games (2007, ISBN 978-0441014903), Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann, eds.
• "Galactic North" - Originally published in Interzone #145 (July 1999); reprinted in Space Soldiers (2001, ISBN 978-0441008247), Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois, eds.; and in the The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection (2000, ISBN 0-312-26417-8), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Hayakawa's SF magazine; and in Galactic North
• "Angels of Ashes" - Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction (July 1999); reprinted in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Viper" - Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction (December 1999)
• "Great Wall of Mars" - Originally published in Spectrum SF #1 (February 2000); reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection (2001, ISBN 0-312-27465-3), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Galactic North
• "Merlin's Gun" - Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction (May 2000); reprinted in Zima Blue and Other Stories; and in The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction (2006, ISBN 978-0-78671-727-9), Mike Ashley, ed.
• "Hideaway" - Originally published in Interzone #157 (July 2000); reprinted in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Glacial" - Originally published in Spectrum SF #5 (March 2001); reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection (2002, ISBN 0-312-28879-4), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Galactic North
• "Fresco" - Originally published in the UNESCO Courier (May 2001); posted free online at UNESCO website [3]
• "The Big Hello" - Originally published in German translation in a convention program; also posted free online at Alastair Reynolds's website [4]
• "Diamond Dogs" - Originally published as a chapbook from PS Publishing (2001, ISBN 1-902880-27-7); reprinted in Infinities (2002), Peter Crowther, ed.; and in Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
• "The Real Story" - Originally published in Mars Probes (2002), Peter Crowther, ed.; reprinted in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Turquoise Days" - Originally published as a chapbook from Golden Gryphon (2002, no ISBN); reprinted in the The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection (2003, ISBN 0-312-30860-4), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Best of the Best Volume 2: 20 Years of the Year's Best Short Science Fiction Novels (2007, ISBN-10: 0312363427), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
• "Everlasting" - Originally published in Interzone #193 (Spring 2004)
• "Beyond the Aquila Rift" - Originally published in Constellations (2005), Peter Crowther, ed.; reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006, ISBN 0-312-35334-0), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Year's Best SF 11 (2006, ISBN 978-0060873417), David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds.; and in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Zima Blue" - Originally published in Postscripts # 4; reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection (2006, ISBN 0-312-35334-0), Gardner Dozois, ed.; and in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Feeling Rejected" - Originally published in the journal Nature (2005)
• "Thousandth Night" - Originally published in One Million A.D. (2005), Gardner Dozois, ed.
• "Tiger, Burning" - Originally published in Forbidden Planets (2006, ISBN 0-7564-0330-8), Peter Crowther, ed.; reprinted in Year's Best SF 12 (2007, ISBN 978-0061252082), David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, eds.
• "Signal to Noise" - Originally published in Zima Blue and Other Stories, (2006); reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection (2006, ISBN 978-0312363352), Gardner Dozois, ed.
• "Understanding Space and Time" - Originally published in a limited edition of 400 copies for the Novacon 35 Sci Fi convention; reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition (2006, ISBN 978-0809556496), Rich Horton, ed.; and in Zima Blue and Other Stories
• "Weather" - Originally published in Galactic North (2006)
• "Grafenwaler's Bestiary" - Originally published in Galactic North (2006)
• "Nightingale" - Originally published in Galactic North (2006); reprinted in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection (2006, ISBN 978-0312363352), Gardner Dozois, ed.
• "Minla's Flowers" - Originally published in The New Space Opera (2007, ISBN 978-0060846756), Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan, eds.
• "The Sledge-Maker's Daughter" - Originally published in Interzone No. 209 (Apr. 2007)
• "The Star-Surgeon's Apprentice" - Originally published in The Starry Rift (2007), Jonathan Strahan, ed. (forthcoming)
• "The Manastodon Broadcasts" - Originally published in Aberrant Dreams I: The Awakening (2007), Joe Dickerson, Ernest G. Saylor and Lonny Harper, eds. (forthcoming)
• "The Six Directions of Space" - Originally published in Galactic Empires (2007), Gardner Dozois, ed. (forthcoming)
• The Fixation - Originally published in a Finnish language, limited edition booklet of about 200 copies in tribute to Hannu Blomilla in Finland (2007); to be reprinted in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 3 (2009), George Mann, ed. (forthcoming)
• The Receivers - Originally published in Other Earths (2008), Nick Gevers and Jay Lake, eds. (forthcoming)

• Transhumanism in fiction, which contains plot detail for some of Reynolds' works.
• Characters in Revelation Space
• Factions in Revelation Space
• Locations in Revelation Space
• Races in Revelation Space
• Technology in Revelation Space

• Personal homepage
• Alastair Reynolds at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Alastair Reynolds' online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
• Golden Gryphon Press official site - About chapbook Turquoise Days
• Map of Revelation Space systems by Winchell Chung and described as "excellent" by Reynolds
• Revelation Space The Alastair Reynolds Forum. Alastair Reynolds chat forum.
• Night Shade Books publisher of Zima Blue and Other Stories

• Interview conducted by Roger Deforest at HardSF.net (2006)
• Science fiction 'thrives in hi-tech world', interview by the BBC (2007)