Signal to Noise

by Alastair Reynolds

People are able to temporarily switch into the bodies of their doubles in very similar parallel timelines. A man uses this to visit his wife, who just died in his own timeline.

Genres: Science Fiction

57 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

I'm Al, I used to be a space scientist, and now I'm a writer, although for a time the two careers ran in parallel. I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels. I write about a novel a year and try to write a few short stories as well. Some of my books and stories are set in a consistent future named after Revelation Space, the first novel, but I've done a lot of other things as well and I like to keep things fresh between books.

I was born in Wales, but raised in Cornwall, and then spent time in the north of England and Scotland. I moved to the Netherlands to continue my science career and stayed there for a very long time, before eventually returning to Wales.

In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. I also dabble with paints now and then. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales. We live surrounded by hills, woods and wildlife, and not too much excitement.

Reviews

[5t4n5 Dot Com · Rating 4 out of 5]

Available in Zima Blue and Other Stories.

Alastair wrote a love story: awwwwwww.

And . . .       . . . it's rather good.

Although . . .       . . . i'm not really a fan of all this parallel universe nonsense, because it is nonsense, just like flat earth nonsense.

But . . .       . . . done right, like Alastair can, you can find some good stories in a parallel universe as long as you ignore all the nonsense bits.

All that aside . . .       . . . next up in Alastair's bibliographic timeline is The Six Directions of Space, which i'll be eagerly devouring in the next week or so.

[Nubjub · Rating 2 out of 5]

A conceptual exploration of the form of time travel in William Gibson's The Peripheral. However the premise of this story does not lend it's self to any particularly compelling scenes.

[Tomer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reminiscent of Dark matter and the Peripheral in concept, but in a very limited and personal scope.