Galactic North

Galactic North gathers the shorter fiction Alastair Reynolds has written in his Revelation Space universe. The stories are spread across centuries of that setting's history, so each one lands at a different point in a long, cold timeline.

Among the periods covered are the Conjoiners' first steps away from ordinary humanity and the Demarchists at the height of their power. Other stories deal with the machine plagues, and with the slow approach of an entity that wants no one to get as far as humanity has.

The title novella is a pursuit. It starts as a dispute over piracy and runs on for tens of thousands of years, with the chase still unfinished at the end of the span.

The collection works alongside the novels or as a way into the universe by itself. It is science fiction of a hard, bleak kind: the technology is followed through to its least comfortable consequences, and the tone is cold throughout. Almost none of the characters get what they set out to win.