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Sci-fi epub 13.5 mb List: Poseidon's Children: 01-Blue Remembered. Beyond the Aquila Rift Century Rain Harvest of Time(Doctor Who). Read or download 'Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds' for free.This is an amazing collection of some of the best short fiction ever written in.
Not the book you’re looking for?Preview — Beyond the Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds
(Revelation Space “The Last Log of the Lachrimosa”)
This is an amazing collection of some of the best short fiction ever written in the SF genre, by an author acclaimed as 'the mastersinger of space opera' THE TIMES.
Alastair Reynolds has won the Sidewise Award and been nominated for The Hugo Awards for his short fiction. One of the most thought-provoking and accomplished short-fiction writers of our time, this collection is...more
Alastair Reynolds has won the Sidewise Award and been nominated for The Hugo Awards for his short fiction. One of the most thought-provoking and accomplished short-fiction writers of our time, this collection is...more
Published June 2016 by Subterranean Press (first published January 2005)
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Popular Answered Questions
Joao Augustothis book is a collection of short stories. You can read them in anyorder you like that you will be able to understand and enjoy it all.
I felt that…morethis book is a collection of short stories. You can read them in anyorder you like that you will be able to understand and enjoy it all.
I felt that the stories are kinda sorted by it's distance in the future, so the first book is the closest to the present and they will advance in time in the next story(less)
Best Picks: Adult Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Novels of 2017I felt that…morethis book is a collection of short stories. You can read them in anyorder you like that you will be able to understand and enjoy it all.
I felt that the stories are kinda sorted by it's distance in the future, so the first book is the closest to the present and they will advance in time in the next story(less)
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Rating details
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Dec 05, 2016Althea Ann rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Great Wall of Mars
A really complex scenario for a short story, but it works, with a good core narrative and glimpses of a coherent larger universe and history outside it.
A small group of implant-enhanced humans is holed up in a Martian colony, under threat from a vastly larger force who view their actions - attempts to 'escape' - as military provocations. Two brothers are part of that larger force. One, motivated by revenge, wants war. The other, a former POW, insists on going down for peace ne...more
A really complex scenario for a short story, but it works, with a good core narrative and glimpses of a coherent larger universe and history outside it.
A small group of implant-enhanced humans is holed up in a Martian colony, under threat from a vastly larger force who view their actions - attempts to 'escape' - as military provocations. Two brothers are part of that larger force. One, motivated by revenge, wants war. The other, a former POW, insists on going down for peace ne...more
Sep 25, 2016Manuel Antão rated it it was amazing
If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.
Mindfuck Literature: “Beyond the Aquila Rift – The Best of Alastair Reynolds” by Alastair Reynolds
'’Tell me, Thorn. Are we out beyond the Rift?' I can hear the fear. I understand what she's going through. It's the nightmare that all ship crews live with, on every trip. That something will go wrong with the routing, something so severe that they 'II end up on the very edge of the network. That they'll end up so far from home that gettin...more
Mar 14, 2016Bradley rated it it was amazing · review of another editionMindfuck Literature: “Beyond the Aquila Rift – The Best of Alastair Reynolds” by Alastair Reynolds
'’Tell me, Thorn. Are we out beyond the Rift?' I can hear the fear. I understand what she's going through. It's the nightmare that all ship crews live with, on every trip. That something will go wrong with the routing, something so severe that they 'II end up on the very edge of the network. That they'll end up so far from home that gettin...more
Shelves: reality-bending, psychology, fanboy-goes-squee, sci-fi, space-opera, mindfuq, fantasy, worldbuilding-sf, 2016-shelf
I remember Galactic North fondly, but I must be honest here. This collection, while it picks up two stories from the previous collection, namely Great Wall of Mars and Weather, everything else is new to me. Alastair Reynolds is easily one of the best SF authors writing today. He's not sneaky about it, either. This isn't any kind of artsy-fartsy writing. This is Space-Opera filled with so much imagination and planning and detail and truly wide vistas of thought, time, and space, that I'm surprise...more
Oct 25, 2018WarpDrive rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Representing another excellent work by this very gifted author, this book contains a brilliant collection of short stories, all of them highlighting Reynold's great imaginative powers and his first-class world-building narrative capabilities.
I loved almost every story of the collection, and some of them (like 'Diamond Dogs' - a much more intriguing, complex and riveting version of the famous sci-fi-horror 'The Cube'), will stay with me for a long time.
Alastair Reynold is rapidly becoming my mos...more
Jun 02, 2016Claudia rated it it was amazing · review of another editionI loved almost every story of the collection, and some of them (like 'Diamond Dogs' - a much more intriguing, complex and riveting version of the famous sci-fi-horror 'The Cube'), will stay with me for a long time.
Alastair Reynold is rapidly becoming my mos...more
Shelves: sci-fi, z-to-a-reynolds, anthologies-collections
Let the feast begin! ;)
And what a feast this was! I relished every word - great collection of stories!
Although half of them weren’t new to me, they are even better at a second reading for you find new nuances in the words AR masterfully lays. As for the new ones, some are real gems, some good, none that I can say I didn't like.
Great Wall of Mars and Weather – 2nd reading and for sure not the last. Read first in Galactic North - my thoughts on them here. 5/5
Beyond the Aquila Rift, Minla’s Flower...more
And what a feast this was! I relished every word - great collection of stories!
Although half of them weren’t new to me, they are even better at a second reading for you find new nuances in the words AR masterfully lays. As for the new ones, some are real gems, some good, none that I can say I didn't like.
Great Wall of Mars and Weather – 2nd reading and for sure not the last. Read first in Galactic North - my thoughts on them here. 5/5
Beyond the Aquila Rift, Minla’s Flower...more
Feb 13, 2014David Sven rated it really liked it · review of another edition
It was only 5 bucks on Audible - which is probably too dear for an hour and a quarter worth of story...but it's Reynolds - nuff said.
This book was basically an hour of Reynolds messing with my head. I would say the twist at the end was a real spin out, except the whole book just starts twisting early and doesn't stop till the finish. It's what a short story should be and it left the ending open for interpretation. Would make for some great discussion of what people thought was going on.
Themes in...more
This book was basically an hour of Reynolds messing with my head. I would say the twist at the end was a real spin out, except the whole book just starts twisting early and doesn't stop till the finish. It's what a short story should be and it left the ending open for interpretation. Would make for some great discussion of what people thought was going on.
Themes in...more
4'5/5.
An essential anthology of the best short fiction of one of the best space-opera writers.
English review: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
Reseña en español: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
An essential anthology of the best short fiction of one of the best space-opera writers.
English review: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
Reseña en español: http://dreamsofelvex.blogspot.com/201...
Dec 07, 2016Robert rated it liked it
I bought this because I knew it contained at least one novella I hadn't read that wasn't easily obtainable elsewhere. I now wish I had waited for the UK edition which has a much better cover. I also wish that the editors had done a better job - by which I mean who-ever was responsible for ensuring a high quality, accurate text. This edition contains a large number of mistakes involving wrong word order, missing words or incorrect homophones. I don't know if the UK edition is any better in this r...more
Apr 20, 2019Shabbeer Hassan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition Shelves: 2019, 5-star-ones, short-story-collection, science-fiction, brit-lit
The recently featured Netflix show - Love, Death, and Robots was the main reason why I came looking to read this weighty tome. And let me tell you, the old adage - the book is usually better, holds true here!
Containing some 18 short stories written by Reynolds, of wide-varying lengths, he achieves with his stories something sublime in science fiction writing. There are some truly inspiring ideas and fantastic tales to be read here. I can truly attest that Reynolds is a true genius in the short...more
Containing some 18 short stories written by Reynolds, of wide-varying lengths, he achieves with his stories something sublime in science fiction writing. There are some truly inspiring ideas and fantastic tales to be read here. I can truly attest that Reynolds is a true genius in the short...more
Oct 08, 2013Jason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
5 Stars
Beyond the Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds is a fantastic short piece of science fiction. It does not waste time with too many details or explanations. It uses the characters as a means to tell a story that will make you think. It does not spell things out as it leaves that to you. The short story is the perfect way to explore large themes with such a little.
I am a huge Reynolds fan and he is an author not to be missed by fans of the genre….
“'Tell me, Thorn. Are we out beyond the Rift?'
I...more
Beyond the Aquila Rift by Alastair Reynolds is a fantastic short piece of science fiction. It does not waste time with too many details or explanations. It uses the characters as a means to tell a story that will make you think. It does not spell things out as it leaves that to you. The short story is the perfect way to explore large themes with such a little.
I am a huge Reynolds fan and he is an author not to be missed by fans of the genre….
“'Tell me, Thorn. Are we out beyond the Rift?'
I...more
May 16, 2018Brian Clegg rated it really liked it · review of another edition
In an article I read recently, the author opined that would-be novelists shouldn't consider writing short stories as training for the craft of novel-writing, as the discipline is totally different. This is certainly true for most short stories - but, strangely, this collection by Alastair Reynolds (almost all on the long side as short stories go) is the exception that proves the rule. The majority of these pieces are, in effect, the seeds of novels.
Usually a short story will be a compact, self-s...more
Usually a short story will be a compact, self-s...more
Aug 24, 2016Johan Haneveld rated it it was amazing
Wow! With this collection of stories (it does them a disservice to call them 'short', as they're mostly novellettes and novella's) Reynolds has ascended to the very top of my list of currently active Sf-authors. Hannu Ranajiemi is more mindblowing, but can be a bit obscure with all the techno babble, John C. Wright is entertaining with huge concepts, but can fall back on archetypes a bit, and Stephen Baxter is hard as hard SF can get, with a solid grasp on science and deep time, but also with th...more
May 07, 2016MadProfessah rated it it was amazing
This is an exciting collection of stories from Alastair Reynolds, one of the masters of hard science fiction. Probably 4.5 stars in toto, but several of the stories are 5 star experiences and none of the stories are bad, so let's round up. :)
First, let me say that I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (I'll also note that my electronic copy was not formatted properly so neither on my Kindle or on the Kindle App was I able to click on story titles...more
Jul 31, 2016Kate rated it it was amazing · review of another editionFirst, let me say that I received an advance copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (I'll also note that my electronic copy was not formatted properly so neither on my Kindle or on the Kindle App was I able to click on story titles...more
Shelves: favourites-read-in-2016, out-in-2016-and-read
These stories have transported me to so many different worlds, rich in wonders and horrors alike. Absolutely fantastic.
Sep 07, 2016John rated it it was ok · review of another edition
Too grim for my taste. The two stories written for young audiences, 'Star Surgeon's Apprentice' and 'Old Man and the Martian Sea' were decent efforts, and for a bit older 'The Sledge Maker's Daughter' offered some intriguing world building. But after the leadoff 'Great Wall of Mars,' which reads like a chapter from one of his immense novels, I found myself skipping over long segments because nothing very pleasant or entertaining was happening.
Apr 15, 2019Laurence rated it did not like it
I really can not gel with Alastair Reynolds writing style. Mere sentences in I find myself switching off. I thought maybe it was just Revelation Space which I abandoned five years ago, but almost all of these short stories are the same. Is it overly technical? Or is it just too dull? I don't know.
The reason I was compelled to give him another shot was because of the title story (Beyond the Aquila Rift) being my favourite from the anthology show: Love, Death and Robots (which itself I thought mos...more
Apr 20, 2016Leah Bayer rated it it was amazingThe reason I was compelled to give him another shot was because of the title story (Beyond the Aquila Rift) being my favourite from the anthology show: Love, Death and Robots (which itself I thought mos...more
Shelves: short-stories, space-horror, favorite-scifi
I absolutely adore the Revelation Space series. It's one of my all-time favorites (not just in science fiction, but any genre). Oddly enough, I've only read one other Reynolds book--Slow Bullets--which I also loved. So why haven't I read more from him? It's truly a mystery. I'm hoping to get through his entire bibliography one day, and this is really a great place to start. It covers quite a few of his universes and series with tons of stand-alone content as well, and is just brimming with insan...more
Feb 25, 2019Malcolm Cox rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This was a brilliant collection of tales, each one memorable and immersive. At nearly 800 pages, this Book of the Month very nearly took me all month to read. At the back of the book are some of Alastair Reynolds’ thoughts behind each story. I read each thought before I read the stories, unfortunately a couple did contain spoilers.
Story Name:Beyond the Aquila Rift
What is it about? Following a warp-gate mishap a ship’s crew find themselves a bit further from home than expected.
Thoughts:Full of an...more
Story Name:Beyond the Aquila Rift
What is it about? Following a warp-gate mishap a ship’s crew find themselves a bit further from home than expected.
Thoughts:Full of an...more
May 18, 2018Geoff rated it liked it · review of another edition
Pretty good collection of stories from Alastair Reynolds. Mostly far-future science fiction, which seems to be his standard setting.
Favourites:
Beyond the Aquila Rift
In Babelsburg
Diamond Dogs
Minla's Flowers
The Star Surgeon's Apprentice
Favourites:
Beyond the Aquila Rift
In Babelsburg
Diamond Dogs
Minla's Flowers
The Star Surgeon's Apprentice
Jun 06, 2016Andreas rated it it was amazing
Alastair Reynolds is widely known for his novels but he has also written many great short stories. I am glad that Subterranean Press is continuing its long tradition (think of Jack Vance, Robert Silverberg, Greg Egan, Lucius Shepard, ...) and decided to publish a 'Best Of' collection with 18 stories.
Design, typesetting and layout meet the typical high standards and are beautiful. As someone else has put it, this is 'shelf-candy'. But what about the stories? Everyone who already owns a collectio...more
Design, typesetting and layout meet the typical high standards and are beautiful. As someone else has put it, this is 'shelf-candy'. But what about the stories? Everyone who already owns a collectio...more
Mar 11, 2014“Gideon” Dave Newell rated it really liked it · review of another edition
‘Aquila Rift’ calls to mind another Reynolds story “Pushing Ice” or Frederick Pohl’s “Gateway” with its plot device- an unreliable alien FTL technology backfiring. Each of those novels are both much longer, and therefore more satisfying to those who found this story disappointingly short. One particular strength here, however, is the well researched and described stellar geography of our 'local bubble’ within the Milky Way- exactly what one would expect from a former ESA research astronomer.
I ha...more
I ha...more
Aug 17, 2012Sylvia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Simply put, the most breathtaking sci-fi short I've ever encountered. Alistair Reynolds is a genius in his ability to put inconveivable scales into stories that the reader can experience, giving us a little piece of the infinite. This short shows us the implications of that infinite, and in doing so leaves you both humbled and liberated. Get lost in this short, you'll finish it in an hour and it'll take you so very, very far away.
Oct 21, 2014Dmitry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
This short story is perhaps Reynolds finest work - haunting, thoughtful and utterly real in its approach to the unforgiving glimmer of distant stars.
Excellent collection of stories by Alastair Reynolds. This one will stay with me for a while.
This massive collection contains most of Mr. Reynolds’s short stories and novelettes, which have formerly appearaed in other publications. Some are set in the Revelation Space universe, but most are standalone. Thousandth Night is a prequel of sorts to House of Suns. It is by far the weakest of the entries, overlong and tedious like most of the book it connects with. The average standard is very high, as one would expect from Mr. Reynolds. Most deal in some way with the nature and meaning of exi...more
May 26, 2019Belinda rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Well, if these are the stories that were not approperiate to transition into full novels, I'm sooo pumped to go Alastar Reynolds novel shopping. I'm not even going to read the back of the book, I'm just going to pick one up and sit back and enjoy. Imagination and details were off the charts, and with an astounding writing prowess all of the stories (with one exception) were AMAZING and I could have kept reading and reading.
For more reviews (and some videos too!), check out my Facebook page BELI...more
For more reviews (and some videos too!), check out my Facebook page BELI...more
I came to know about 'Beyond the Aquila Rift' through an episode of 'Love, Death, and Robots' with the same name and to my surprise, this book actually delivers even more than I expected. His writing is clean and concise, his characters are intriguing and 'feel real' even in sci-fi concept, his plots are rich and well written making it hard to not read a story thoroughly. This book is categorized as 'soft sci-fi' so most concepts are not explained in details but the way Alastair uses those conce...more
I decided to read this after bingeing Netflix's 'Love, Death + Robots' and realizing two of the episodes are based on Alastair Reynolds' short stories.
The short story in general is the same as the one in the show, except that the show drops the main character's wife and is a bit more ambiguous regarding Greta's true intentions.
I really enjoyed both. Go watch the show and read this book, asap.
The short story in general is the same as the one in the show, except that the show drops the main character's wife and is a bit more ambiguous regarding Greta's true intentions.
I really enjoyed both. Go watch the show and read this book, asap.
A collection of mostly very engaging stories and novellas that offer a wide variety of genres and are absolutely bursting with compelling ideas. It is only occasionally marred by Reynold's tendency to perform an info dump at the resolution of certain stories as a kind of awkward ending, but many of them are so haunting that they make it easy to forgive this mistake.
Dec 02, 2017Pavlo Tverdokhlib rated it really liked it · review of another edition
This is a collection of short stories, that encompass a little of bit of everything in Reynolds' work. Not all are great, a few pieces I found to be somewhat bland, though most have interesting, albeit somewhat disturbing twists to them.
My appetite is whetted for more of his full-sized works, so I suppose the book reaches its goal.
My appetite is whetted for more of his full-sized works, so I suppose the book reaches its goal.
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I'm Al, now a Goodreads author. I used to be a space scientist, and now I'm a writer, although for a time the two careers ran in parallel. I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels. I write about a novel a year and try to write a few short stories as well. Some of my books and stories are set in a consistent f...more
Revelation Space(3 books)
“We stabilised the Wall’s degradation with software running on dumb machines,” she said. “But when Felka was born we found that she managed the task just as efficiently as the computers; in some ways better than they ever did. In fact, she seemed to thrive on it. It was as if in the Wall she found…” Galiana trailed off. “I was going to say a friend.” “Why don’t you?” “Because the Wall’s just a machine. Which means if Felka recognised kinship…what would that make her?” — 0 likes
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