Machine Vendetta: 3 (The Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies)

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Also Judge Dredd like, in that these are slightly more militaristic police units, but with an appreciation of the law, unlike the Judges. The big concepts and complex story effectively pull readers into intriguing speculation about human identity and potential.

There is big trouble in the Glitter Band, the ten thousand habitats of which are patrolled by a force of only a thousand prefects of the Panoply. Tom D refuse is a high-ranking prefect, a sort of policeman whose job it is to enforce the accords between the inhabitants of the glitter. Dreyfus works the scenes like a seasoned police officer and we do our best to keep up and play along! MACHINE VENDETTA is an enormously engrossing Hard SF Space Opera, third in Alastair Reynolds' PREFECT DREYFUS EMERGENCY (which Series includes the also exceptional AURORA RISING and ELYSIUM FIRE). 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.I did find however that reading about the familiar characters and setting made it not as impactful as say, his recent book Eversion. There were several questionable narrative choices, but it seems I've become inured to them or maybe it was my mood. Not a starting place for new readers but a treat for the veterans who made it through the previous books and stories.

So why did she walk alone and virtually unarmed into a habitat with a vicious grudge against her organisation?The Prefects are the cops of the Glitter Band, the ring of artificial environments orbiting a planet in the Epsilon Eridani solar system. As his colleagues pick up the pieces following her death, Prefect Tom Dreyfus must face his conscience.

That turned out not to be a problem, since gradually all the background I needed was filled in, especially given the fact that the story begins in the midst of multiple crises that make the basic facts crystal clear from the opening.I guess the first thing to note is that this book is set in a broad and encompassing universe that Alistair Reynolds has created. In the third in the series Dreyfus has multiple emergencies on his hands including neural implants melting, attacks and two potentially war starting events involving his own colleagues. In the end, all the desperate elements come together but nicely in a plot worthy of a murder mystery. Alastair Reynolds has produced a fine, fast-paced thriller in Machine Vendetta, the third, and apparently final novel in the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies series.

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.

Still, once things started popping a little over halfway through the book, I found myself racing through it. Meanwhile something treacherous is happening again, and it will take all their knowledge and power to find the culprit and save the day.