Customer Reviews

The Six Directions of Space

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Only 84 or so pages long, this is another refreshing dive into the cosmos that is the writing of Alastair Reynolds.

The story follows "Yellow Dog", a female government spy for an intergalactic empire of the Mongol Empire who is investigating 'phantoms' in what appears to be their spacelane wormhole. She has a pony.

As for the rest of it, the book is too short for me to give you more without spoiling it. Suffice it say, it's emotionally the usual combination of mean and very kind that is characteristic of Reynold's work. (Particularly because he is a horse lover.)

The book also has anti-Christian, anti-tribalism themes that are amazingly current for this time in history. If that's your sort of thing, you will be suitably impressed. If not, this isn't the book for you.

Ridicule of at least one major religion aside, what is most striking about the story is that it nails Gen-X themes of disenfranchisement by government, religion, and home. Reynolds seems to believe that the only thing that is real, in the Cartesian sense of the word, even, is self-reliance and kindess towards others. It's a world view many in our age have.

Very interesting.

P.S. Because of backroom negotiations between Amazon and Golancz that I can't write about without Amazon refusing to publish this review, it's not actually hard to get this book by ordering it through Amazon. It just looks like that's difficult--you may have to wait a few weeks from the time of ordering.

And if you do buy it, you may be wonderfully surprised: mine was a signed copy of 1000. I'm particularly touched that I inadvertently acquired something the author actually held in his hands.

Disappointingly, I found after receiving TSDoS, that it was just a hard cover printing of the same novella that had previously been published in the "Galatic Empires" collection edited by Gardner Dozois for the Science Fiction Book Club. If you've not already read it, it's an excellent story of several galactic empires ovelapping in alternate universes. However, I'd recommend the "Galactic Empires" collection instead, in which you'll get 6 good short stories, instead of just this one.

I loved this short story, but I too was brought up by the "then there were other adventures" shortcut. The author is a recently emerged giant in his field and all of us who enjoy his writing anxious await his next novel. Now to my point, this story was included, in total, in the SFBC edition of 2008 titled "Galactic Empires" along with pieces by Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher, Robert Reed, Stephen Baxter and Ian McDonald, a dream team of writers with terriffic stories of their own. Those that feel they overspent for this book may what to seek "Galactic Empires" out on the secondary market at AMAZON. Hope this gets printed, I am a very good and enthusiastic supporter of AMAZON.

I have enjoyed Alastair Reynolds work, and looked forward to this tale as well. Sadly, the story is actually more of a short story that deserves to be in an anthology rather than its own book. The tale starts out very nice and quickly grabbed my attention.

Unfortunately, as I read on, it became obvious that Alastair himself had lost interest in the idea about midway through the tale. Characters just disappear when they don't immediately fit, and the final half of the book had a very rushed feel to it. This was best described when the author writes about how the protagonists had other encounters, but he is not going to go into them. It is the equivalent of Mark Twain writing Huckleberry Finn had some fun adventures on the Mississippi, but he and his friends eventually found their way home and all was well and Huck learned a thing or two about life in the process. The End.

I should have known by looking at the book's page count. It is something I will keep my eye on next time I look at an Alastair Reynolds novel.

Fair warning to folks ordering this book. I have received two copies (my original order and a replacement) and both arrived unsigned.

The product details say "Signed limited edition" and if those limited editions are gone, the product details should be changed to reflect that.
I submitted an "update product info" but this review will have to serve until they change the details.

I still give the book 5 stars because the story is great (although quite short as others have pointed out), but I knew it was 88 pages when I ordered it. I don't judge books by page count, word count or weight.

I was very interested to read this novella, and was not dissapointed. Given the brevity of this 'book', many exciting and thought-provoking concepts were presented. While I think that Mr Reynolds did an excellent job presenting this unique concept in such a short story, ~80pages, I would have felt cheated at the price it had been selling for. I did end up powering through it in an hour or two, very captivating story; I hope it gets expanded on in the future.. The whole tunnel network leaves open many possibilities. Mr Reynolds probably got shafted by the publishing company wanting to push something out. The length of this story clearly shows it should have been included in an anthology or part of a larger work, or the price drastically cut to a more reasonable amount. In any respect, a definite recommendation to read for serious Reynolds fans.

I loved this story, but it can be had in the 26th annual Year's Best SF for less than the $23 they want for the novella.

As usual, a book by Alastair Reynolds is thrilling and a joy to read. The Six Directions of Space, while fairly short comparatively, was a great read. The possibility of Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes in charge of an interstellar empire was fascinating.

A very good short story. I gave this 8/10. Well written and very involving. Should and could have been a novel.

I must disagree with a previous reviewer's assertion that Reynolds "lost interest" in this story. I can see where they are coming from--this story would make a fascinating novel--but I'll not accuse the author of "losing interest" in his story in order to account for its length (especially an author like Reynolds, given that each of his first four novels clock in at 600 or more pages in length).

I loved this novella, and consider it money well spent. Not only does it feature an intriguing idea (an interstellar Mongol empire, & 'rifts' in local space that allow for different time frames to exist and overlap with one another), it has a great cast of characters and is succinct and complete in the ideas it presents.

Unlike other reviewers, I'll not complain of the price, nor the length. I knew how much the novella was when I bought it: it's published by a small publishing house, and is being published in a limited run.

For a story as well-written as this, $25 is fine price to pay. If you enjoy Reynolds' work, do yourself a favor: drop the cash and enjoy this wonderfully written novella.

We can only hope he'll choose to revisit this world sometime in the future; I would LOVE to see this universe expanded into a novel. But in the meantime, The Six Directions of Space is a great standby, and another great addition to Reynolds' already fine collection.