In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. These action sequences are spectacular, and the sense that more will happen adds to the pressure which builds as the book progresses. From the king of modern space opera comes a new adventure in the Prefect Dreyfus series— Machine Vendetta is a thrilling tale of deadly conspiracies and old enemies that refuse to die. It wasn’t a great resolution, not even as good as the rest of the book, but acceptable all things considered.

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. It's fun to see more stories set in the Glitter Band and also to be reminded why the Revelation Space Universe is the worst place ever to live. As with the the other Alastair Reynolds space opera novels I have read, this was quite entertaining and was just what I needed. I dare say you could read it as a stand alone it is so easily managed but the full experience is all three (Aurora Rising, Elysium Fire). I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels.

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. Yet Reynolds makes every action Dreyfus and the others take flow from the people they are so that we get a rich sense of what they’re like. This is solid British SF adventure, evoking echoes of le Carre and Sayers with a liberal dash of Doctor Who.

There were several questionable narrative choices, but it seems I've become inured to them or maybe it was my mood. It's always a shame when a book serises isn't quite able to stick it's ending properly; Alastari Reynol's world-building shines through and the yellowstone he presents is every bit as futurstic and mystical as any other. I would recommend the book to people who enjoy the science in science fiction and really enjoy a detailed and rich future world. A fitting end to the Dreyfus trilogy, and maybe the closest we get to a happy ending for a Reynolds book?

I would say that it is similar to and Ed McBain 87th Precinct novel, with a cast of police agents investigating a serious of what look like random crimes, and finding that they are all the same. The prefects are, after all, people devoted to their duties, even at the expense of much private life.

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. Machine Vendetta is a sharply drawn and finely told mystery, and my only concern is that, according to one statement of Reynolds, it could be his last, not only in the Prefect Dreyfus series but also in the Revelation Space universe. Conspiracy filled stories of androids, aliens, other humans, or crystal worlds, living dinosaurs, and hyperpigs as shown in this story. So why did she walk alone and virtually unarmed into a habitat with a vicious grudge against her organisation? Depending on your preferences this may be considered mundane, if not dull, because there isn't anything particularly exciting and certainly nothing epic.

If you've read a few books from Reynolds before, you're aware that identity issues may be his favorite plot device. 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 don't need to have read the previous books - enough of the backstories are given along the way to explain to newcomers - but those who have read the previous novels will appreciate what happens more. I am dying to know what happens but I think I've already read a major spoiler for the series and I don't want to risk running into more!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. More scarily, there are points where AIs seem to have the upper hand over mere mortals, although they do have limits.