Slow Bullets

Overall this was disappointing. I've read many books by Reynolds, and I've come to expect interesting, fleshed out stories. There are interesting ideas that I'd want to read more about in this book, but they aren't developed. It's almost like a book trailer, getting you interested in the story but without really giving any details.

It's also extremely short. This is fine, but it's list price is $14.95 and this book doesn't deliver anywhere near enough story to justify that price. If the book wasn't printed with a large font and very generous margins it would be lucky to make it to 150 pages.

was approached by the publisher to review this a few months back – feeling quite pleased with myself that they felt my reviews of Reynolds’ work was sufficient quality to approach me with this new release. Long-time readers will know that I am a big fan of Reynolds’ work so I read this at my earliest opportunity. It’s a bit of a departure in terms of length. Most of his books are 600-700 pages but this novella, having taken me around 3hrs of reading time, was one lazy evening’s read.The only other works of this length I have read by the same author are Diamond Dogs (which I adore) and Turquoise Days which, though similar to DD, is still a good read if not memorable. They appear in a single volume just for the record.

Told in first person, it is of an old woman named Scur recounting the details of her life starting from her capture on the eve of a peace agreement. Rotten luck, because the commander who has her has shot “slow bullets” into her legs that when they reach her heart, will kill her. Instead of dying (the slow bullet is actually an information recorder which becomes vital as the story develops but no spoilers here), she wakes up on a prison ship along with a large number of fellow soldiers from both sides of the war. Nobody really understands how they got there or even why they are there considering they now know about the end of the war. And that’s when the fun really starts…

Having read this, I wish Reynolds would write more of this length. Not because I don’t like his longer work (because I do), but because his style, depth and concepts can be so easily adapted to something like this without losing the quality for which he is known; it’s also much adapted than to the short fiction which always leave me feeling disappointed. He has attempted “twist in the tale” type stuff before, but this one is full of twists and turns that will keep you guessing up to each and every revelation. I’m not revealing any of them here but I do recommend this, especially if you have not read Reynolds before and are curious about hard science fiction.

Note: Not presently available in the UK – there are no immediate plans to do so.

SLOW BULLETS is a mystery, the kind where science is used to shed some light on the superbly engrossing puzzle presented and without devolving into technical minutiae. It’s also a character study of a group of humans trying desperately to retain whatever shreds of societal cohesion with which they find themselves, a nascent stability already stretched to near breaking point from the outset. At its heart, though, it is a story ultimately about memory and the preservation of knowledge.

While there isn’t much action to speak of, the pace moves along well and interest never wanes. There are moments where one keenly feels the efforts of a makeshift community trying not just to survive but also attempting to stave off a desolate sense of hopelessness. Their near-explosive apprehension for an uncertain future teeters on a fulcrum, dangerously balanced against an ad hoc political hierarchy subjected to ever mounting pressures. And the need for stability dictates that they secure something of themselves in the form of records, even incorporating methods that would have been easily comprehensible to the myth-making primitive man. At first, the records are of a more personal nature. Later, the information is pertinent for group survival, not just practicalities but also of culture.

The story itself is ‘fairly straightforward’: the background being a large scale interstellar war between two groups hinted to be tainted, in part, by religious motivation. A ceasefire is at hand, but the vast gulfs of space and time make for cumbersome, unreliable and tardy dissemination of news, so some skirmishes continue unabated. While the story starts planet-side, the bulk of it is set on a mysteriously deteriorating transport vessel. Narrated in first person, Scur is (was) a conscripted soldier parleying between two factions previously at war whilst ironically pursuing a vendetta against an individual responsible for her suffering during ceasefire.

The ‘slow bullets’ refer to data/memory repositories embedded within the bodies of soldiers, and the paradox of the phrase is fleshed out through a number of motifs in the narrative. Reynolds plays with the idea of memory and identity, showing that conflicts ultimately stem from differences in identity, itself rooted in various cultural constructs built up over memory. How to reconcile the two when we cling so dearly to them, especially in a form as volatile as faith? Reynolds offers a logical, yet profoundly unsettling solution: in dire straits, erase that which causes conflict to start anew. Whether we can wilfully accept such erasure when what we expunge is so fundamentally tied to our sense of self is altogether another matter, in spite of its otherwise strong, latent potential for conflict. This is partly illustrated by Scur’s struggle between her desire for vengeance and the necessity for compromise so as to rise to the call thrust upon her by circumstance for a greater purpose.

Reynolds reminds us again of his ever growing proficiency at balancing hard SF elements with his characters and the impressions of humanity his writing can evoke. Some truly fascinating concepts of cosmic magnitude are introduced in rudimentary form, but rather than exploring those, Reynolds decides to focus instead on the intensely human aspect of the story: the struggle to preserve civilisation against the force of entropy, that most implacable of enemies. As ever, Reynolds is adept at delineating the nuances of human psychology and motives, and he does so here with a greater intimacy and ethical poignancy than he’s previously displayed. What surprises is the presence of FTL. It’s a trope that Reynolds rarely indulges in, although the narrative does end up presenting justification for necessitating the mechanism.

Despite SLOW BULLETS being only novella length, there’s enough conceptual material here to have it fleshed out into a novel more than double its current size. A longer work would have allowed some of the grander themes and secondary characters to be treated with more than economical depth, yet its very compactness sharpens the work’s thematic focus and highlights the unreliability of a past and future when, to a significant extent, both individual and collective memory have been intentionally excised. Like Reynolds’ growing body of Merlin stories, one can only hope this tale is the first of more to come in this particular mise en scène that will expand on the cosmic themes briefly and so tantalisingly presented.

For anyone new to Alastair Reynolds, this short work is an excellent starting point to get a taste. And for those who have enjoyed his Pushing Ice, this story will hold appeal. It incorporates a similar vibe with scenarios that test the bounds of human perseverance and depict the indomitable spirit that impels us to strive on whatever the odds, because, really, that’s all we can ever do.

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“Slow Bullets” is a short new standalone short novel/long novella from Alastair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space series and one of the leading lights of the New Space Opera. Featuring first-person narration from a female soldier named Scur, the novel focuses on her efforts to make peace among two hostile factions that were formerly at war while pursuing a seemingly contradictory goal — vengeance against the enemy soldier who tortured her. The action takes place an indefinite time interval after the conclusion of the war, when Scur and other veterans from both sides become stranded on a huge but barely functional space transport. The central themes of the novel revolve around identity, conflict and memory. The titular “slow bullets” are sophisticated electronic memory devices that hold personal biographies inside soldiers’ bodies.

Memory makes us all into slow bullets, Reynolds hints; human conflicts are rooted in identities, our identities are rooted in memory, and our least tractable conflicts stem from elements of memory and identity, like religious affiliation, that create irreconcilable differences. Thus, conflict resolution invariably runs aground against the desire to retain our memories and remain who we are. Scur must find some sort of compromise — a way to harness or neutralize memory and identity — if she is to make peace among the people … and with her bitterest enemy.

Bottom line: This short novel by Alastair Reynolds is thoughtful, relevant to the seemingly intractable conflicts that plague our globe today, and a straightforward read. It is not particularly action-driven, nor does it involve a great deal of space travel, however, so those looking for an exciting adventure a la “Chasm City,” are likely to be disappointed.

Solid story. Read like a well developed Asimov Magazine novella. Some aspects of the all powerful alien menace were clever, but the fact that an all powerful alien menace is a factor at all in the plot is, in my view, the weakest device in the story, i.e. I groaned audibly.

Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds is a highly recommended novella that should please science fiction fans.

Scurelya Timsuk Shunde is a conscripted soldier who goes just by the name Scur. The war is supposed to be over and a ceasefire in effect but that doesn't prohibit war criminal Orvin from capturing Scur and torturing her. All soldiers have a slow bullet implanted, sort of dog tags only more closely resembling the implanted id chips used for dogs. The slow bullet carries all their personal information. Orvin, to torture Scur, shoots a different kind of slow bullet into her, one that is meant to slowly painfully kill her by moving through her body to her heart. When Orvin leaves, Scur begins to cut the slow bullet out of her leg. She wakes up in an unknown place at an indeterminate time.

Scur sort of saves and takes as a prisoner Prad, and discovers she is on the Caprice, a prison ship. This skipship was also being used as a Military transport and the destination was supposed to be the planet of Tottori, but things seemed to have gone terribly wrong. Now the passengers on the ship are waking up too soon and it appears fraction are developing, with violence an obvious result. Scur also sees that her nemesis, Orvin, is on the ship and she is determined to make him pay. At the same time they need to figure out where they are since none of the obvious facts make sense.

This story focuses tightly on the character of Scur and the story and all of the action is through her point of view. Reynolds is an accomplished writer so he pulls off this comparatively short novel but he leaves you wanting more. It easily could have been expanded to a larger novel with a more complex plot. At the end of the novel, though, the tight focus makes sense. Reynolds shows growth in Scur's character, raises some satisfying questions, and ultimately leaves us with hope.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Tachyon for review purposes.

SLOW BULLETS, a new novella by Alastair Reynolds, is a very good piece of "hard" science fiction, without quite being up to the standard of Reynolds's usual excellent style. The text reads more like a manuscript summary, a submission to the publisher providing the sketch for a future novel, broken up into separate chunks or segments. Despite the fact that each segment is gripping and contains interesting ideas, there are big gaps in the narrative sequence begging to be filled in, and many segments have gaping plot-holes or contradictions that could have been ironed out in a final novel, that was never written. Still, it was a very enjoyable read.

The story is based on ambivalence, as the title announces. A bullet is a high-speed projectile, so the title "slow bullet" is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron, as in the classical example: festina lente, hasten slowly. The contradictory expression highlights the adjective, and we see that the "slowness" involved has two values: positive, the bullet is slow so as to do no harm to vital organs; and negative, the bullet is slow so as to cause as much pain as possible, to prolong the pain.

In classical terms, a "slow bullet" is a pharmakon, something that can be either a remedy or a poison, a cure or a curse. This ambivalence is coded into the heroine's name "Scur", which is phonetically an anagramme of both "curse" and "cures". We can see the possibility of these two pronunciations in the full form of that name, "Scurelya". The audiobook version had to decide on one pronunciation, and chose "Scur" to rhyme with "cur", but two pronunciations are possible. On the second hypothesis "Scur" would rhyme with "secure", or "cure".

The pharmakon as the link between two opposing values, or ambivalent medecine/poison, goes back to Plato. In the PHAEDRUS, writing is presented as a pharmakon. Supposedly an aid to memory, writing as an exteriorised or artificial memory potentially will weaken or destroy our personal memories. This theme is at work in the whole concept of the bullet and its actual and potential functions, and what information it can usefully contain.

Another ambivalence in the PHAEDRUS, and in SLOW BULLETS isthe answer to the question who is wise? the sophists who write down their discourses or Socrates who doesn't? They have much in common, but one is a poison or curse (the sophists) and the other is a remedy or cure (Socrates, the philosopher). We find this theme in the opposition and identification between the heroine Scur and the vilain Orvin. Is Scur just as bad as Orvin, as Orvin himself claims? Can Scur bring something good out of Orvin, despite himself?

Memory and its ambivalence is at the heart of this story: is memory a blessing or a curse? Which memories are the "best", personal remembrances or collective culture ? Personal memories give us anchor, focus, and centredness. But they also give us division, repetition of the past, an appette for revenge. Cultural memory gives us poetry, science and humanity, but also weapons and sectarian strife. Wiping out the personal information on your bullet means passing from memory as literal proof of one's identity, to memory as personal relation to the past and creative relation to our individuality. Putting cultural information on the bullet means passing from narcissistic nostalgic self-authentication to collective future-oriented construction.

Another theme of the novella is the danger of literalism. The Holy Scripture of this future civilisation, called simply "The Book" exists in two versions, very similar but with crucial differences. Seeing The Book through the eyes of the heroine Scur who was brought up in a religious family but is not a believer, we can see how it is divisive if taken literally, but consolatory and wisdom-bearing if one approaches it free from literal belief, more poetically.

The pharmakon theme (curse or cure, poison or remedy) can be seen very clearly in the ship's auto-surgeon, which could heal you or butcher you. Right at the beginning of the novella we have the collection of poems of Giresun, with the poem entitled "Morning Flowers". Scur tells us that this poem is about death and memory ("remembrance"), loss and life. This sets up from the outset the thematics of the story in cameo form.

Another ambivalent term is "caprice", an unreasoning or inexplicable change of mood or line of action, in violation of accepted rules of behaviour. The ship on which almost all the action takes place is called "The Caprice". A caprice can be frivolous whim, often egotistical, or it can be a deeper impulse. When Scur asks Orvin why he is torturing her despite the ceasefire, he laughs and asks "Why not?" This is a negative caprice, meant to be lethal. When Scur spares Orvin, and gives him a second chance, this was an unexpected move, a positive caprice. Prad exclaims: “I did not think Scur would do the obvious thing”. The outcome is uncertain and Scur has violated the wishes of the ruling "Trinity", but Prado concludes that despite this uncertainty and despite the illegality of the action, Scur's caprice was a positive gesture: "It was good that we not kill this man, and good that we gave him a chance to do some good himself”.

I initially gave this book 3 stars, but I have now moved it up to 4. It's somewhere between 3 and 4 but closer to 4, as I enjoyed it a lot as a story, found the ideas to be interesting, and recommend it to others who already like Reynolds or who are looking for a way into his work

Reynolds is in the top tier of science fiction writers and this novella, loaded with thought inducing allegorical material on the nature of memory, religion and time is thought provoking and interesting. Maybe not as good as his full length stuff but worth a look.

5 Stars

An excellent science fiction read. Great character interaction with a good plot.

The ending of a war, finds a large mixed group in hibernation aboard a skip-ship. You have soldiers from both sides mixed in with civilians. Something has gone wrong with the ships systems, and they are just starting to wake up.

I really enjoyed this book, and didn’t want to put it down until I finished. This story is told from Scur’s point of view.

My favorite quote from this story is from Scur –

“You have a weapon,” I said, studying the hopeful gleam in his eyes. “It’s called fear. It’s going to be at your back, every waking hour of your life.”

(Disclaimer- I received this book from Tachyon Publications through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Several less than completely developed trains of thought and a few unconvincing chracter moments mar what would otherwise be a perfectly serviceable $2 short story. Selling it for $8 is a calculated insult; adding fictional list prices and discounts alongside that edges into fraud.

The story is short and involves faster than light travel which is odd for Reynolds. The narrators for this audio book is awful. She sounds like a text to speech engine for all the descriptive narration, only during dialog does she sound human.

This novel reads like a train mystery without the mystery. Our protagonist does little to ingratiate herself to us before we are thrown into her torture and tossed again into her strange prison like ship. It's over either too soon or not soon enough.

Ignore all the negativity from people whose primary criticism is that this book isn't long enough or fully developed. It's a short, concise book that finishes too soon and leaves you wanting more. It isn't a two thousand page space opera, but it is a fun read with an interesting main character and an ending that you wouldn't predict. Take it to the beach and enjoy the fact that you finished it before you got sunburned.