On the Steel Breeze (Poseidon's Children)

The prequel Blue Rembered Earth was superb, one of Reynold's best in my opinion. The story in On The Steel Breeze unfolds a generation or two later, when the first mass emigrations from Earth have been underway for some time already. The main character exists here in 3 versions, which tickles the mind somewhat... I found the story idea interesting but somehow this book just did not do it for me for some reason. The style is different, much more talkative, explaining the plot instead of letting the plot explain itself, a bit like some of Heinlein's books from 50 years ago. I found the story less rich than Reynold usually makes them, and even if the bearing plot has some substance to it there is not enough "padding" to keep my excitement and curiosity going. The book feels just... unfinished? Oh well, it seems even Reynolds can write a less-than-5-star book! I expect the 3rd book in the Poseidon's Childrens family to be back to his usual brilliant level again.

While Reynolds again provides us with some imaginative space opera ideas, His main protagonist character, Chiku Akinya, in her green and yellow personas, lack credibility, are self-absorbed and self-important to the point of loathsome absurdity, and watch their lover and husband die respectively without shedding a tear - while one of the Chiku's blows off her family for some great destiny to save the human race that only she, it seems, can pull off. It was tough to slog through this while intensely disliking the ostensible protagonist of the novel. I've been a huge fan of Reynolds until his last two novels featuring the more or less unlovable Akinyas, the improbably earth shaping triumph of Tanzanian physics, and, inexplicably and always tediously... elephants. I've read my last Reynolds novel until he moves on from this stuff.

Enough has been stated about the story line and characters that I will simply address one other point. The use of such idiotic pronouns constructs such as ve, ver and vis needs to be utterly destroyed and thrown down an Orwellian like memory hole. It is maddening to read such utter and nonsensical dreck. I almost tore the book in half and used it for kindling. Pliable halfwits should be banned from attempting to destroy the English language with such tone deaf politically correct idiocy. For love of God, just please stop. Tin eared SJWs please commence embarrassing yourself....

Portgual, 2365. Chiku Akinya is one of three clones, and the only one to remain on Earth. One of her 'sisters' is on a dangerous space mission to the edge of the Solar system, trying to recover a deceased relative. Another is on a massive holoship, more than a dozen light-years from Earth, headed to investigate a giant alien artifact picked up by a powerful space telescope. But some strange events compel Chiku to venture to Venus and Mars, and what she discovers will have important ramifications for her sisters far out amongst the stars.

On the Steel Breeze is a semi-sequel to Blue Remembered Earth and the middle volume of the loose-knit Poseidon's Children trilogy. Though readable as an independent novel, a number of references in this novel will resonate more if you have read the previous book.

As before, the book unfolds from the point-of-view of the Akinya family, a dynasty that became rich due to the explosion in Africa's economy. Chiku is the daughter of Sunday, one of Blue Remembered Earth's protagonists, and the novel is told from her fractured POV as memories are shared between her three different bodies. The two main characters are Chiku Yellow, who remains in the Solar system, and Chiku Green, who is living on the holoship (a hollowed-out asteroid fitted with engines and life-support equipment, carrying 10 million people to the planet Crucible) Zanzibar.

The result is, effectively, two SF novellas that unfold simultaneously, with each 'sister' updating the other on what's going on through lengthy radio transmissions that allow them to update and integrate each other's memories, thus giving them a clearer picture than what each individually would be able to find out. There are echoes here of Reynolds's earlier House of Suns (which featured a woman splintered into different incarnations), as well as the Revelation Space books which featured storylines unfolding light-years apart with the speed of light limitation making it difficult for people to communicate with one another. The two stories feel rather different to one another, but ultimately integrate into a mostly satisfying whole.

Chiku Yellow's storyline takes in 24th Century Earth, attempts to explore the planet Venus (complicated by the planet's hellish surface conditions) and visits to Mars and Saturn. Some elements (and characters) from Blue Remembered Earth are revisited in these sequences. This section is enjoyable, but risks retreading the same ground from the earlier novel. This is mostly averted by some excellent descriptions and use of real science, especially in the disaster-movie storyline that unfolds on Venus.

The meat of the story, however, is in the holoship caravan making its way to Crucible at 13% of lightspeed. Here Reynolds lets his imagination have full reign, creating an interstellar society that is trying to survive the agonisingly slow journey without collapsing. There are evocative descriptions of how the holoships work and how they are organised, as well as intimations of their politics. However, a fuller exploration of the caravan is not possible due to a constrained page count and the need to flip back to the other narrative at key points. This helps keep the story on track and focused, but it does result in some lost depth to the Zanzibar storyline. Most notably, a climax to that storyline revolving around the complex politics of both the holoshop and the caravan as a whole lacks resonance due to those elements not being explored in greater detail earlier.

Reynolds admirably raises the tension and stakes as the story switches back and forth across the light-years, building up the narrative drive in a way that Blue Remembered Earth rather lacked. However, this tension is then dissipated by an undercooked finale: Chiku reaches Crucible, some fascinating events unfold there and the book rather abruptly ends. I'd hesitate to call it a cliffhanger, but there's a lot of unresolved events and elements left for the final book in the series to address. It also doesn't help that the main theme of the series (strongly hinted at in the first volume) seems to be the struggle between organic life and the machine life it creates. This is not a new theme for Reynolds (it was also explored in the Revelation Space series) and he comes at it from a different angle here, but those who have watched the new Battlestar Galactica TV series or played the Mass Effect video game trilogy may find themselves groaning at the re-use of a very familiar trope. How successful Reynolds is in putting a fresh spin on it remains to be seen, as it appears to be an idea which will be explored more in-depth in the third book in the series.

On the Steel Breeze (****) is a fine hard SF novel that explores some interesting and intelligent ideas. The book's two-part structure allows for a lot of story to be explored efficiently, but also results in some elements not being as fleshed-out as might be desired. In addition, the ending is abrupt and there is no guarantee that the next book will explain much of it (the third book, it is rumoured, will pick up thousands of years later). It's still a fascinating novel and for much of its length is a better book than Blue Remembered Earth, but it also definitely suffers a bit from 'middle volume syndrome'.

Alastair Reynolds, that master of the Deep Novel, herein imagines a far away future in which Africa and Africans are leading spacefarers. One can therefore plausibly imagine that the audio version might benefit by capturing the flavor and cadence wondrously practiced by Africans today, people capable of a mellifluous, singing English. So lovely.

Regrettably, the novel is nearly unlistenable. A fine line exists, one supposes, between narrator tour de force and buffoonery; in this case the line has been left far, far behind. Accents and characterizations are distorted, strained beyond incredulity, laughable, almost. In a word, the narration is guilty of intruding. There is no act more worthy of forcible ostracism from the clan of narrators than the Sin of Intrusion. Running a close second, though, we find the Sin of Addition.

Narrators must be ever vigilant, clearly enunciating, carefully caring the story, but ever aware that the narrator's role is neither actor nor author; she is an automaton of convenience. Too harsh, you wonder? Perhaps, perhaps. Grant me this, though; the narrator's presence is to be light, invisible, a conduit, never an interpreter.

Reynolds' opus is stunning and deeply appreciated, though the Poseidon's Children series is among his weakest. Still: this is the creator of Revelation Space; the writer capable of imagining lifespans over hundreds of thousands of years in House of Suns. His work is worthy of respect. This narrator and this narration are disrespectful, intrusive, and unworthy.

Three stars for Reynolds, partly informed by momentum from the earlier work against which it is inevitably compared. No stars for narration. It's that bad.

On the Steel Breeze is Alastair Reynolds' follow-up to Blue Remembered Earth. I call it a follow-up rather than a sequel, because it doesn't depend very much on reading Blue Remembered Earth, and Blue Remembered Earth's characters (with one exception) do not play much of a part in this novel.

I'm of two minds about this novel. First of all, the point-of-view character, Chiku Akinya, is a thoroughly unlikeable person. She's secretive, makes poor decisions, and trusts, no one, not even her family. She's faced with a dilemma, with knowledge that the generation ship she's on is headed to a destination already occupied by a human-created AI with no intention of letting humans settle in. Furthermore, prior automated machines and sensors sent there in advance to prepare the planet for settlement has been lying to humanity for ages. Rather than trust humanity to do something useful with that knowledge, she keeps it to herself and does her best to let no one else know about it, even though if at any point she had died, humanity would have been screwed. It's clear that Reynolds doesn't know how to build plausible characters, and this main character basically reflects the worst of science fiction's traits: the inability to fit decent characters into a plot-driven narrative.

On the other hand, the world building is great. Reynolds does a good job exploring how you could build a caravan of colony ships, complete with ecosystems and planned hibernation setups. The world of Crucible and its solar system is interesting as well, as is the state of the civilized space in the Sol system.

Unfortunately, there are plot-points one after another in the novel that just destroy the believability of the novel. For instance, we are led to believe that humanity would build a caravan of colony ships with deliberately under-supplied engines, trusting that new technologies would be invented during transit that would enable the ships to brake and orbit the target system. That sounds insane to anyone, and is unbelievable.

The net net is that On the Steel Breeze is a much poorer novel than Blue Remembered Earth, and even worse, it doesn't supply a payoff to the major mysteries introduced in the setup, expecting you to read the sequel with the novel ending on a cliff-hanger.

It pains me to say this since I'm a huge Reynolds fan: but stay away from this book at all costs unless the sequel has come out and you're prepared to spend the time reading both books at once. Not recommended.

The only trouble with having a fairly small clique of favourite authors is that when you’ve read and massively enjoyed their entire back-catalogue, it is a really long wait between new novels. This has definitely been the case with this next instalment of the Poseidon’s Children trilogy. I finished the first volume, Blue Remembered Earth, back in Feb.2013 and I’ve read a lot, drunk a lot, got older and generally had ample opportunity to forget what was going on.
Thankfully, though, I got back into the now slightly faded world of the Akinya dynasty pretty quickly thanks to carefully sown memory joggers. While, like the first novel, it was a little slow to get going, the pace was perfectly judged, with the right amount of time spent on character development and world building. Despite its seeming stately pace, there is a lot going on. The main character is the granddaughter of the dynasty’s founding matriarch who has effectively created a triplicate identity, two experiencing the epic voyage of the vast holo-ships to the far planet of Crucible and the mysterious Mandala object from different viewpoints while the third was lost searching for their grandmother’s assumed remains on the far reaches of the galaxy. The triple identity is a clever device first explored in Reynold’s astonishingly original ‘House of Suns’ (well worth a read if you haven’t) and it works very well in this setting.
While the main plot drive is the voyage to Crucible, there are major sub-plots vying for attention, perhaps most importantly the machinations of the artificial intelligence ‘Arachne’, the misleading data from Ocular and links with the slightly sinister ‘Mechanism’. The whole cleverly plotted, multi-threaded narrative can really be boiled down to the old question of ‘how will humanity continue to progress once they can be surpassed my machine intelligence?’ Not a new question, by any means, but Reynold’s is not a dystopian future neither is it a Banks’esque Culture; it is somewhere in-between, presenting the reader with a carefully considered world populated by an array of characters with plausible motivations. Very clever and, while on the subject, the title is a nice reference to Pink Floyd’s amazing ‘Shine on you Crazy Diamond’. Trés cool.
Despite its slightly slow start and somewhat deus ex machina ending, I thoroughly enjoyed this second volume. I am, however, a huge Reynold’s fan and have great regard for both his firm grasp of the craft of writing and his intrinsic understanding of the art of storytelling. Perhaps a victim of the dread mid-trilogy blues, I have to admit that I wasn’t quite as gripped as I was with Blue Remembered Earth (and the huge gap between paperback publication dates didn’t help) but I still thoroughly enjoyed this splendid offering from one of the few masters of penmanship in contemporary science-fiction.

"On the Steel Breeze" picks up the story Reynolds started in "Blue Remembered Earth". And while "Blue Remembered..." suffered from a few weaknesses and was ultimately an interesting but flawed novel, "Steel Breeze" marks a return to form for Reynolds. Evident again is the rich imagination, tight plotting, and deep characters of his earlier works like Revelation Space. This should be welcome news for Reynolds' fans, and bodes well for future book(s) in the series.

The entry picks up about 100 years in the future from the previous works, and follows the story of the 3 sister/clones of Chiku Akinya--surnamed Yellow, Red, and Green for clarity. The plot alternates between two of the sisters in two different places: one on Earth (mostly) and one on the caravan that has been launched to the mysterious planet Mandala. Note that the book description on the store is incorrect. It is not "a thousand years in the future" it is only 400!

The sisters rapidly become embroiled in intrigue. Locally on Earth, there is tension between the aquatics--genetically modified humans who live in the sea--and the dwellers of land and sky--normal humans. There is also a troublesome AI who seems to be out to get Chiku. Far away in space on the caravan, the other Chiku faces her share of troubles too as the caravan struggles with how to slow down; they are travelling at 13% of the speed of light and burned all their fuel to accelerate to that speed. They have none left to decelerate at their destination, and need to develop some new technology quickly lest they zoom right past Manadala. Frustrating their efforts are more conservative members of the caravan.

Old characters and new make an appearance, but the strength of the novel is definitely in its taught pacing and stellar plot. Once the action starts it never truly lets up, and Reynolds does an admirable job of sustaining a high level of dramatic tension and excitement from start to end. And while the end is a bit precipitous it is really the only weakness in the novel.

Similarly the characters are well executed and the settings richly imagined. Although Reynolds may have dialed his imagination back a notch or two from the wildly original technologies and spectacularly inventive settings of Revelation Space, his maturity in more fully developing the characters (but not at the expense of plot) more than makes up for this. And the prose, while never poetic, is sure and well executed.

All in all, this is an excellent return to form from one of the current masters of sci-fi. And although he has previously indicated that the "Poseidon's Children" series will be a trilogy, it seems unlikely that the major themes and plot points of the struggle between machine substrate consciousness (AI) and flesh and blood intelligence, and extropian versus dystopian futures, will be able to be resolved in a single volume 11,000 years in the future. And I for one would find it no bad thing if there were two or three more volumes in this series.

With the death of Iain M. Banks (d. 2013), Alastair Reynolds is the best writer of hard science fiction epics alive. He is probably best known for his five books set in Revelation Space, not a connected sequence of narratives (like Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy) but rather separate stories set in the same imagined world and time. On the Steel Breeze is the second book in a new trilogy, Poseidon’s Children. Blue Remembered Earth (2012) was the first. The third, Poseidon’s Wake (2015), appeared in April.

Set in the 24th century, two hundred years after the events narrated in the first book, On the Steel Breeze continues the adventures of Akinya family, focusing on Chiku Akinya, space explorer Eunice’s great-granddaughter, who is both on earth –Chiku Yellow- and on a holoship (think BIG spaceship, large enough to carry thousands of people on a centuries-long voyage to a possible second earth) -Chiku Green. The two Chikus are clones of the same Chiku. A third clone, Chiku Red, was lost in space looking for Eunice’s ship. The plot is complicated, at times too much so, but involves the two remaining Chikus in parallel but separate attempts to come to terms with living extended lives (three hundred is not beyond belief) in a much more complicated world than the one we live in now. Humans can be bio-tailored in all sorts of ways. Chiku Green’s son is now a trans-Spermian, genetically engineered to become a human-aquatic: he works with krakens in the oceans of the earth. (The oceans have recovered from our ecological transgressions father than the atmosphere.) Chiku Green, lightyears removed from earth, deals with emerging intelligences (genetically modified elephants who understand and can communicate words), a robot with a near-human personality and another artilect (machine intelligence) that fears humans enough it may want to wipe them out unless things change.

Reynolds has always been good at the tech stuff. He’s gotten better at characterization but tends to lay it on too thick. He plots thoroughly but the result lacks vigor at times –too many pages to get from point A to point Z and too many subplots between. The result is a novel that taken as a whole is worth reading and quite satisfying but en route may incline the reader to shout, “Let’s get on with it!”

Taking the history he created in ‘Blue Remembered Earth’ forward another generation, Alastair Reynolds succeeds in teasing the reader’s interest in the alien mystery waiting at the end of a 200-year old journey, but keeps the scope of events surprisingly restrained for an author known to write in cosmic epochs that laugh at stacks of expired civilizations. Again, he keeps his dramatic perspective on one single family, which can really be said to in fact be one person, duplicated across three cloned bodies who occasionally synchronize their mind states. This concept I found fun, and made for some interesting moments as the separate lives of our tri-fold protagonist, Chiku Akinya, reconciled herselves with the existence of multiple husbands/lovers and families at either end of her dual lives. There is also some great world building here within one of the main settings for the action, the asteroid-sized holoship traveling as part of a caravan to a new and promising alien world. Reynolds, in 2001’s "Chasm City", has previously written about a rivalry between en-route colony generation ships which violently escalates once the prize comes into sight, but with much more believability here. The other two setting loci, Earth and the destination world of Crucible, both have similar challenges for the Chiku heroines in the form of an all-powerful artificial intelligence willing to kill in order to ensure it’s own survival. Like Chiku, this intelligence, Arachne, has been cloned across two distant star systems, but these have remained un-syncronized, and have begun to drift apart in their thinking towards humanity.

The story has well-paced action scenes that don’t rush in too close together, and characters that are compelling to follow, though a bit too saintly and flawless, I felt. I think a reader who hasn’t read the earlier story would feel unsatisfied with this one, and clearly too many questions remain unanswered to give up on ready the series now.

I have read Blue Remembered Earth a while back and now I've purchased the other two books. I had forgotten the wonder Reynolds instills in his readers. We have an Akynia descendant (who else) triplicated, one home on Earth, one on a holoship bound for Crucible (the Earthe like planet with an enigmatic Mandala like formation on it, discovered by an intelligent telescope array) and the other bound for Oort Belt. They can change memories and experiences and they discover a menace and a lie behind Crucible, aided by mermen (transformed people inhabiting the world's oceans). As always, there is warning and a lesson in the pages, about humanity's present and future, about the things we are doing to our planet and the wonders and dangers of too much technology. Aaah, and the best thing, talking elephants. Great book.

A solid, even touching addition to the story of the influence of one remarkable woman, Eunice Akinya, on human history. Hard science, as always, with an interesting story to tell and interesting places to visit along the way: Mars (now taken over by malevolent, cannibalistic robots), Venus, Saturn. An aquatic varient of human is available; elephants have been helped along evolution's path. And, as usual, there's a Big Something out there for humans to run into. I don't think Reynolds has ever stooped to an aliens-with-ray-guns book. His stories are generated by the decisions of specific characters, well drawn. My favorite contemporary SF author. I was hooked with Revelation Space and Chasm City. He is still writing great, 4 and 5-star stuff; his vision is always interesting if not fascinating. It helps that he writes well; it's where a lot of SF writers stumble. It definitely helps if you have read Blue Remebered Earth.

In On the Steel Breeze, Alastair Reynolds continues the Poseidon's Children series. Set 200 years after the events of Blue Remembered Earth, it depicts a massive interstellar colonization effort, with its roots tied to the events of book one. Hundreds of immense "holoships" (hollowed-out asteroids) carrying millions of humans to extrasolar planets form the convoys.

Alastair's imaginative development of future technologies continues to intrigue, and his characters are deeply-drawn. I enjoyed the story and recommend it as a good read. I only gave four stars because I found some of the political issues facing the lead caravan of holoships and their subsequent actions in the face of vastly advanced "Overwatchers" to be less than plausible. Not that the actions of politicians always makes sense, but I had a hard time envisioning a scenario where millions of people would go along with a policy blatantly incompatible with their survival in the near term.

There is a fascinating parallel storyline taking place in Earth's solar system. I love how the author wove the two plots together. Even the terms "Epic" and "Space Opera" barely capture the true span of the story.

Notwithstanding the aforementioned implausible aspects, I enjoyed On the Steel Breeze, and look forward to part three--rumor has it set thousands of years in the future.

Dean M. Cole
Author of SECTOR 64: Ambush

I struggle with reviewing the middle of a trilogy without being able to read the conclusion. This certainly moves the story along from where it started in Blue Remembered Earth, but I was disappointed that the Panspermian view did not play as large of a role in this installment. Considering that the series is called Poseidon's Children I had expected more from that area. Regardless of that, I think the themes of artificial versus organic intelligence dominate were handled appropriately, and the "twist" at the end certainly sets up the final book for some intriguing possibilities.

This is a great improvement over The Blue Remembered Earth. Where the first book was somewhat slow and tedious, this one is dynamic and exciting. It has a great character development. I never really cared about Geoffrey from the first book, yet here I really cared about Chiku, well 3..., no, mostly 2 (when you read the book you will know why), of them. Given the mostly sorry state of current sci-fi, this the is best sci-fi book I read in the last 6 months. I just hope that the third book will deliver as well as this one.

I bought this before I realized it was the sequel to _Blue Remembered Earth_, which I did not like at all. The most annoying character from that book, Geoffrey, is gone, and with him all that I disliked about the first book. This is a solid space opera. It may not be on par with Reynolds' other works, but it is very good.

I've read the Revelation Space series, "Blue Remembered Earth" and now "On the Steel Breeze" and I have to say I really enjoy the direction Alastair Reynolds is going with this new series. This is not exactly new material for Reynolds, it reminds me alot of the Story of Sky's Edge from one of the Revelation Space novels, but far more grounded in humanism. I really enjoyed the concept of the Holoships, and their internal political struggle.

I was turning the pages with anticipation to find out what would happen on Crucible, and I wasn't disappointed.

Look forward to the next installment.

Alistair Reynolds write fantastic stories that happen to be excellent science fiction. I try to read everything he writes. I was not disappointed in this one. His ability to write very human stories with provocative hard sci-fi elements is exceeded by none. I was so happy to come to the end of this novel and learn there is more to come. Write, Alistair, write!!

Alastair Reynolds is not content to write tales of a dystopian earth or the creation of artificial intelligence. The book features the last living member of the Akinya family Chikyu. She clones herself into two additional humans. One of the resulting humans stays within the earth's solar system, while the other two leave on voyages outside our current galaxy to prepare for the next chapter of human existence.

Reynolds is one of the last remaining writers of far future SciFi. For those of us that crave this level of imagination, he is the life blood of the genre..

So disappointing...as several other reviewers have mentioned, the story was tepid. If failed to deliver on the promises made by the first book and flopped onto a new planet without much interesting at all. BUT, worst of all, the narration made the listen almost unbearable in the end. So disappointing…

Although quieter than the Revelation Space books, On the Steel Breeze is still a mind blowing novel. It centers around a fascinating question - it is possible for a Galactic Civilization to be born in a universe like ours, where greater than light travel is not possible? The answers are even more intriguing than the question, and show that the space-opera subgenre can still feel fresh and interesting.

The daring tech-savvy adventure of earlier Reynolds novels is missing. Millions of people travel to a distant star without the physics theory worked out to slow down when they get there, and then roll over as tyrannical regimes oppress them and ban the research needed to develop the miracle technology. The main character(s) can't make a decision without apologizing and hand wringing. Other characters take great offence when not consulted or matters aren't talked through. Into this mix, Reynolds adds characters and dialogue seemingly intended to curry favour at the Hugos including going out of the way to reveal a secondary character's sexual orientation and including a major character who is refered to by unique gender pronouns. After writing himself into a corner, a herd of (apparently bulletproof) elephants is, thankfully, on hand to save the day.

This is not Reynols'work, is garbage compared with earlier works, implausible in characterization and depth. Most probable scenario, he made the plot structure and someone else write this incredibly boring, and childish execution. I'm done with Mr Alastair.

Not worthy of Alastair Reynolds' name. The first book in this series was good, but this one was not even okay. It was boring, very little plot. Couldn't be more disappointed, and the first time I've been so with one of Mr. Reynolds' books.