Alastair Reynolds is one of my favourite SF authors, so when this volume arrived it was sufficient to overcome my normal preference for novel length work. The short story collection Zima Blue demonstrates all the same virtues as Reynolds’ novels: a compelling vision of myriad possible futures, allied with a convincing grasp of cutting-edge science, and a powerful writing style.

The stories ‘Signal to Noise’ and ‘Cardiff Afterlife”, set in the same near future reality, explore different aspects of technology enabling communication between parallel worlds. The former, a novella-length piece, explores the impact of such tech on human relationships, when a man who has lost his wife manages to actually cross the gap and spend time with a different version of her. It’s an affecting tale, with good characterisation (not always Reynolds’ strong suit) – perhaps the near-future setting stops the characters being overshadowed by the concept. In ‘Cardiff Afterlife’ we have a short exploration of the impact that the reality-spanning technology could have on civil liberties, as well as the change on peoples’ perceptions of their own mortality.

There’s a trilogy of splendid far-future Space Opera tales featuring the enigmatic Merlin. In many ways these are closest in feel to Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe (none of the stories in Zima Blue are set there though), spanning vast swathes of time and space, featuring implacable alien foes of a human diaspora, and technology left behind by a long-dead civilisation. In ‘Merlin’s Gun’, he is seeking a weapon of incalculable power to save humanity from the Huskers; but I enjoyed ‘Minla’s Flowers’ more. In it, Merlin lands on a planet beset by civil war and ends up helping one faction in bid to unite the planet in time for the population to escape an impending catastrophe. The clever bit is that Merlin goes in to hibernation and only wakes up to check on progress every 20 years – so he, and we, witness repeatedly the unintended consequences of his attempts to help. There is a clear nod to Maggie Thatcher in the character of Minla, and the whole thing is thought-provoking and depressing in equal measure.

The substantial ‘Understanding Space and Time’ is, for me, the tour de force in Zima Blue, a high concept story working together the mysteries of the universe, enigmatic but helpful aliens, the human desire for knowledge, and, rather bizarrely, Elton John. It takes place over a truly vast timescale, yet never loses its sense of being grounded in the journey of one character. Very clever and very enjoyable.

There’s hardly a duff story here, in fact – I enjoyed ‘Digital to Analogue’ the least, but perhaps that was more a factor of the subject matter (dance music) than anything else. Stories like ‘Angels of Ashes’ and ‘Enola’ are remarkably clever and display all of Reynolds’ trademark touches. And the title story, ‘Zima Blue’, demonstrates how he can get a powerful tale out of a very, very simple initial idea (the commentary after each story is enjoyable and illuminating too, adding to the experience).

In the past I have suggested that Reynolds’ view of the future and humanity’s place in it is fairly bleak and forbidding – that he is less inclined to make assumptions about the inevitability of social and technological progress than some of his SF peers. While I haven’t changed my mind about that, what Zima Blue demonstrates is that Reynolds seems to feel that, in a whole slew of alternative futures, humanity will always find ways to eke out an existence of some kind or another – and surely there’s some hope to be found in that.

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