Belladonna Nights and Other Stories

by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds has continued to publish short fiction throughout the thirty-odd years of his professional career. This fourth collection gathers material mostly written by the former space scientist in the last decade, even as a number of stories—such as the title piece, set in the universe of House of Suns—revisit earlier environments.

The scope of settings is wide, ranging from the contemporaneous Earth to the near future and out to the furthest realms of the galaxy, and taking in such diverse topics as the perils of immortality, cybernetic encounters in the Wild West, uncanny skateboard parks and the flocking behaviour of birds. There is horror here, but also hope—and not a little black humour.

The collection includes “Open and Shut,” “Night Passage,” and “Plague Music,” a long, previously unpublished story, all three set in the Revelation Space universe.

Limited: 1500 signed numbered hardcover copies

Table of Contents:
* Introduction: Winter Did Come
* Belladonna Nights
* Different Seas
* For the Ages
* Visiting Hours
* Holdfast
* The Lobby
* A Map of Mercury
* Magic Bone Woman
* Providence
* Wrecking Party
* Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee
* Death’s Door
* A Murmuration
* Open and Shut
* Plague Music
* Night Passage
* Story Notes

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Space Opera, Collections, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction

367 pages, ebook

First published October 31, 2021

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

[Khalid Abdul-Mumin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Belladonna Nights --- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is the first story within the collection that's been set in the House of Suns universe where an unexplained catastrophe has claimed the Mimosa Line. The Belladonna protocol is activated and Campion is a guest at their Thousandth Nights celebration but all is not as it seems.
Awesome story, I loved it


Magic Bone Woman --- ⭐⭐⭐
This one is quite short and it's about actions and consequences in a world facing a catastrophic disaster and the impacts thereof. Forgettable read.




Will update as I read more stories within...
2022 Read

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Your own thoughts, keeping you alive. Never stop thinking, never stop dreaming, or you start to die."

It's fascinating to see how Reynolds creates impressive worlds in just a few words - these stories are the embodiment of the saying "less is more".

Some are set in the near future, some in the Revelation Space universe, the eponymous one is related to House of Suns; more than a few have tinge of horror on them, and all of them leave room for thought, which is one of the things I love about his work. In quite a few is shown his love for art, and if you are one who follows him on his blog, you'll know what I'm talking about.

There is also an introduction, "Winter did come", about a particular moment in his childhood and his love for science fiction, and some notes about the stories, what was the inspiration and how he came to write them. I have enjoyed both to the max. In the end, it's an uplifting collection, and I loved it to pieces.

Here are the stories:

Belladonna Nights - features Campion as a guest to another clones line's celebration of the Thousandth Night. It's a heartbreaking story, with an unexpected twist, which reminded me of the Beyond the Aquila Rift - not that emotional, but close.

Different Seas - another heart wrenching one. One woman is having problems with the automated rudder on her ship offshore, and gets help from another woman through a proxy robot. Only she would never have guessed her helper's motives.

For the Ages - a crew goes to a distant planet to leave a message for posterity in a Commonwealth world. I'm wondering if it was written as an homage to his friend, PFH, though he doesn't mention this in his notes at the end. Nevertheless, I choose to believe so, and I like this speculative thought.

Visiting Hours - a story about the fragility of human mind and body, and also of the point of no return.

Holdfast - two enemies find themselves on a Jovian planet far away with no possibility of escape, and realize the futility of war.

The Lobby - two skateboarders discover their playground missing overnight. I saw it as end of childhood and sudden beginning of adulthood. Sweet and sour.

A Map of Mercury - another story featuring art as the main drive in someone's life; for me it had a strong Zima Blue vibe.

Magic Bone Woman - read a few years back, it's a very short story about priorities, actions and consequences. Also, it can be read on the author blog: http://approachingpavonis.blogspot.co...

Providence - a crew on an intergalactic ship finds out they cannot land on the planet their course was set upon, and one woman finds a disturbing truth. She chose to do something unexpected instead of sharing it with the others.

Wrecking Party - a western story, with machine intelligence and a steampunk setting.

Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee - a story with sun divers, and one that reminded me of Brin's Sundiver, only I liked Reynolds' way more.

Death's Door - a sweet and sour story about friendship, dedication, love, memories. It's also a feast of ideas and imagination.

A Murmuration - another passion of the author is shown in this one, and it was amazing to see how starlings fit so well with technology.

Open and Shut, Plague Music and Night Passage - all three related to the Revelation Space universe.

Open and Shut - also read a few years back. Set after the events in The Prefect, it's a nice interlude between that one and Elysium Fire. We get to see what Dreyfuss and Aumonier are doing, and also the insights of two difficult cases with strong ethical vibes about them. Can be read on Gollancz' site: https://www.gollancz.co.uk/news/2018/...

Plague Music - one gets a new job in Chasm City, after plague took it. Only there's something strange about him.

Night Passage - previously read in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection. We follow the struggle of a Demarchist captain in a ship which is apparently hijacked by a few Conjoiners. There is a mutiny, a Shroud encounter (could be the one from the main trilogy or could be another), a last minute escape and, of course, a twist.

"I thought of all the evenings stretching ahead of us, all the bright strands we had still to dream, all the marvels and adventures yet to play out, and I thought of how wonderful it was to be alive, to be a thing with a mind and a memory and the five human senses to drink it all in."

--------

Hope to make a review for it in weekend, but now I'll just say that it's an amazing collection.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Consider me awed out of my balance. Had AR been starting some sect, I would've been the very first person to try to join regardless of the persuasion.

I don't think that AR's trade secret is that he's very succinct in his writing. Though there's that. I think it's that he's building so very broad-painted worlds in his head, all at galaxies-sweeping scales of magnitude that no matter how many words he expresses his thoughts with, the worlds in there are always much more grand than one would've ever thought possible. Conceptual richness makes his scifi one of the best around.

More TBA. Now I'm gonna try and savour this one for as long as is inhumanly impossible!

Most recommended.

[York · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the way Reynolds takes on "Grand" ideas of cosmology, time and the unknown...he has always been one of my favorites, I'd say a close second to Iain M.Banks...he revisits the universes of "House of Suns" and "Revelation Space"...there are other stories too, but those that retread roads already traveled are imho, the best!...

[Janna M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Between each story in this collection, I had to pause, set aside my ereader, and let the full weight soak in before diving in to the next piece. These are not lighthearted tales - each story has a soul, a past, and a future encompassed in a very few pages. Alastair Reynolds is the master of leaving you wanting more without feeling like any bit is rushed or clipped. Some universes I recognized, some were brand new, but all were deeply developed. Ever since reading Diamond Dogs, I have devoured any and all Alastair Reynolds short stories, and every single entry in Belladonna Nights is a four- or five-star read for me. Perfect for a cloudy fall night when you want to feel a little somber, but a little hopeful too.

[Yuri Krupenin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ну честно сказать самой изобретательной вещью здесь было продать рассказ про поиск флэшки с ключами активации орбитальной оружейной платформы банку как материал для киберсекьюрети-тренингов.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This exquisite collection contains something for everyone. There are maudlin pieces which seek to immerse the reader in pain, loss, devastation and despair. There are thought-provoking and horrific stuff. There are absolutely gripping thrillers that don't let the reader go, come what may.
And then there is 'Holdfast'— something which makes everything worthwhile.
Apart from that piece, my favourite works, in this book, were~
1. Belladonna Nights;
2. Different Seas;
3. The Lobby;
4. A Map of Mercury;
5. Magic Bone Woman;
6. Open and Shut;
7. Plague Music;
8. Night Passage.
With so many top grade stories, this is definitely an unmissable collection from the perspective of any lover of speculative fiction.
Recommended.

[John Folk-Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belladonna Nights and Other Stories is a great way to get into Alastair Reynolds’ short fiction. Ever since reading the beautiful “Nightingale” in Galactic North, set in the Revelation Space universe, I’ve been alert to a theme of personal loss and grief caused by separation from a loved one or because of the imminence of death. Amid all the carefully constructed scientific detail that Reynolds is so good at there is always the deeply moving human struggle with the inevitable or unchangeable realities of life in different worlds. It’s a special strain of thoughtful melancholy that Reynolds can evoke, and it comes through often in Belladonna Nights and Other Stories.
.......

This is a great collection of stories. In each one, Reynolds combines a mastery of scientific detail, ranging from space ships to monitoring the behavior of flocks of birds, with a testing of human limits in extreme situations. There are surprise endings and wrenching emotional confrontations. As diverse as the story settings are, a few dominant themes come through with great force. There are a couple that I found too short to achieve the effects they were aiming for and one in a setting that was more an indulgence of the author’s love of the Wild West than science fiction. But, on the whole, the collection deepens my appreciation for Reynolds’ mastery of the short form.

Read the full review at SciFi Mind.

[Simms · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good collection, mostly science fiction but with a dab of horror thrown in. Common themes include: interplanetary colonies, telepresence robots, transhumanism, and communication with non-human intelligences -- you know, all the fun stuff. There's a welcome throwback feeling to a lot of them, back to the Arthur C. Clarke days of human colonies on places like Mercury and Venus being an inevitable, unremarkable thing (even if Reynolds's solutions for habitation there are somewhat updated from the expectations of the 1950s).

Reynolds does an excellent job of making you feel that there is much more going on in the worlds of each story than you see (in several cases, because they are taking place in the pasts or backgrounds of other of his novels) but as someone who has only read one of his other books I never felt like I was missing something important. I only really understood that we were dealing with a spinoff story a couple times because I know the next book by him on my list is called Chasm City and that's the setting for two of them (although the story notes afterword -- something I always love, in a collection -- makes it clear that several more are also working with pre-existing settings). It's a skill.

Individual story ratings:
Belladonna nights 4
Different Seas 4
For the Ages 3
Visiting Hours 4.5
Holdfast 3
The Lobby 3.5
A Map of Mercury 4
Magic Bone Woman 4.5
Providence 3
Wrecking Party 5
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee 2
Death's Door 2
A Murmuration 5
Open and Shut 4.5
Plague Music 4
Night Passage 3.5
AVERAGE RATING: 3.72

Thanks to NetGalley and Subterranean Press for the ARC.

[stasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

[janvier 2025]

grave grave sympa! ça se place un peu intemporellement dans l’univers donc ça peut se lire pour introduire l’univers ou le compléter

j'aurais quand même apprécié que ce soit un peu plus long 😭 la nouvelle est très bien en tant que tel mais justement j’aurais pas dit non à qqs pages de plus pour encore davantage s’immerger !

je trouve que l'univers se prête vachement aux nouvelles donc ça reste chouette à lire et je suis pas "frustrée" par le format


— — — — — — —
attention spoil ⚠️


je pensais que c'était purslane qui parlait au début donc j'ai eu un moment de flottement aha mais j'ai bcp aimé les thèmes de cette nouvelle. shaule qui comprend assez pour vouloir que ça cesse, campion qui a du mal à accepter sa demande, cette idée du souvenir et de l'idendité! ça me fait un peu penser à alzheimer cette histoire
ça me fait aussi penser à shutter island: vaut-il mieux savoir ou ignorer et "vivre" heureux?

— — — — — — —

bref, grave chouette !

[Adam Meek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alastair Reynolds lets his imagination roam from the heart of the sun to the cold depths of interstellar space in this stellar collection, which is sure to please Reynolds old fans and create some new ones!

[Andres · Rating 3 out of 5]

Las historias de Reynolds no siempre son fáciles de seguir, pero casi siempre son muy reconfortantes incluso en el dolor.
Una muy buena recopilación de sus historias breves publicadas "recientemente".
Destaco, por lejos "Belladonna Nights". Tanto espacio, tanto tiempo y tanta tristeza.

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

On second thought, let's not go to space. T'is a spooky place.

Favorites were Different Seas, The Lobby, and A Map Of Mercury.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reynolds is very prolific, pretty well known after so many productive years, and writes great short stories. This is solid collection with a good variety. Recommended to scifi fans.

Thanks very much for the free review copy!!

[Ralph Blackburn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belladonna Nights and Other Stories by Alastair Reynolds- 16 stories by Alastair Reynolds. My favorite would be the titled story, an original, "Belladonna Nights", as the "Thousand Nights" series, including "House of Suns" has always been my favorite of Reynolds works. Subterranean Press actually asked him to write that story to be included here. As with most anthologies there are some gems and the accompanying warts, but this collection is rather stuffed with gems.

[Adam K · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★☆
Belladonna Nights
A melancholy story of a woman who is one of the shattered--clones of a single individual who are sent out into the universe to explore. They reunite at set times once a certain number of years have passed in order to share memories in a tradition known as the Thousand Nights (there are 1,000 clones who each take one night to share their own memories) before dispersing once more. However, there is a man at this celebration that the main character has never seen before, and he brings news. This story had some good worldbuilding, considering how short it was.

★★★☆☆
Different Seas
A cargo ship captained solo by a woman named Lilith is caught out during a massive solar event that takes out the automated navigation system and locks her rudder and sail controls. The rest of the planet is struggling with repairing systems and no one can be spared to make the trip out and rescue Lilith, but a humanoid robot controlled by proxy can assist. This is a bit of a sad story, but it also bears a lesson in making snap judgements about people.

★★★★☆
For the Ages
Humanity sends a crew to a distant star that is hurtling away from the center of the Milky Way in order to engrave an important message to future sentient beings onto the surface of a planet made of diamond. It sounds wild, but it has some interesting thoughts at its center.

★★★☆☆
Visiting Hours
A rather brief story about posthuman transhumanism.

★★★☆☆
Holdfast
Two enemy soldiers find themselves face-to-face after slowly whittling down one another's squadrons until only the two of them remain. Finding themselves plunged into the depths of a superjovian planet, wrapped in darkness with failing suits and no weapons, they then begin to share information and realize the futility of war. But there is something on the planet that gives them a tiny shred of hope that they can cling to. Even though this is a bit of an old chestnut, it's well-done enough that I enjoyed it. The little extra element gives it just enough intrigue to bump it up to 3 stars.

★★★★☆
The Lobby
A couple of skateboarders find that the skatepark they just went to the previous day has been mysteriously and inexplicably replaced with an office building. Everyone else seems to be acting as if it has always been there, but they know better and decide to investigate. This story gave me some PKD vibes with the strangeness and eerie "reality lurking beneath reality" type feel.

★★★☆☆
A Map of Mercury
Another story about posthuman transhumanism. This one focuses on a colony on Mercury where humans have transitioned themselves away from their organic flesh and into mechanical parts. They look down on biological humans. All of their efforts are in the service of art and the creation of art. One biological human is sent to Mercury to try and coax an artist to leave Mercury.

★★★☆☆
Magic Bone Woman
A researcher and expert on isolated tribes is sent to ask a particular tribe to vacate their land not for possession of the land itself, but in order to search for something--something that could save the human race from extinction.

★★★☆☆
Providence
A colony ship finds themselves with a damaged engine and no way to slow down and land on their target planet. Doomed to die, they make the decision to use their long range instruments to record and send back vital data about the new planet to their old home world for future colonists to use. A woman from the group discovers a terrible secret, and decides to take what she believes to be the merciful path.

★★★★☆
Wrecking Party
A western that takes place at the tail end of the Wild West when automobiles are just starting to catch on. A town marshal finds a man smashing up and automobile and takes him down to the jailhouse where he recognizes him as an old partner of his from the Civil War days. And his old partner has a tale to tell. A tale the concerns the future. I enjoy these sorts of stories with anachronistic technology. This one doesn't really go anywhere particularly thought provoking, but it's still a fun read.

★★★☆☆
Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee
Taking the form of an interview with the titular character, this story wraps alien artefacts, exploration of the sun, and posthuman transhumanism all in one. Interesting thoughts, but quite vague and a little amorphous.

★★☆☆☆
Death’s Door
In the distant future, humans are no longer tied to their physical bodies, and the concept of remaking environments to suit humans has become obsolete. Now humans adapt to suit the environment by having special bodies made for each different place they go, traveling via special doors that can knit and weave these new bodies together and transport their consciousness into them at far distant points in the solar system. This is a story about three friends. One of them, after hundreds of years, has grown tired of living and his friends are trying to convince him that there is still more to see and experience. It's a bittersweet story and there are a lot of interesting concepts and ideas here, but it just felt a bit flat to me.

★★☆☆☆
A Murmuration
A research scientist is researching and experimenting with the flocking behavior of starlings. At first, he is using technology to track and attempt to discern patterns within their movements, but he then progresses on to controlling their movements directly. There is an interesting idea here about utilizing nature as a sort of computer, and it is couched in the rigor of the peer-reviewed scientific research paper process. As someone with a passing familiarity with this process, this story felt a bit tedious where it could, perhaps, be enlightening or cathartic for some.

★★★★☆
Open and Shut
Taking place in the Revelation Space universe, a Prefect discusses a particularly morally harrowing job where a colony has to be closed off for extreme violation of voting laws. They are sealed off from the rest of the universe for decades as punishment. Halfway through, someone goes in to inspect how things are going. This is called the "open and shut." A story filled with fascinating tidbits and hints at the universe beyond the story itself, it is another taste of the expansive Revelation Space universe.

★★★★★
Plague Music
Probably closer to 4 stars, but I added an extra star for Revelation Space intrigue. In the fetid air of the lower reaches of Chasm City, the largest settlement on the planet Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system, the destruction wrought by the Melding Plague still blankets large swaths of the city. A small crew of people are sent in to do a clean-up job to burn away the remnants of the plague. Things don't go exactly as planned. As a fan of the Revelation Space universe, I appreciated the small glimpse at the early stages of the Melding Plagues effects.

★★★★★
Night Passage
The captain of a long-haul transport ship recounts an incident where she was awoken from reefer sleep to hear that there had been a conjoiner uprising on her ship. Her crew managed to subdue it, but not without serious damage to their ship. They were dead in the water, and slowly drifting towards a mysterious spatial anomaly. It was the size of a star, had no measurable affect on space around it, and was a dark, black void. This is a story that provides some more interesting back story to the Revelation Space universe. It's one of the longer stories in this collection, but I think it is all the stronger because of it. Again, maybe a 4.5 star story, but I'm willing to round it up to 5.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belladonna Nights by Alastair Reynolds is a special edition collection of short stories published by Subterranean Press. It gathers stories that Reynolds has written over the last decade or so, including stories set in his Revelation Space universe, and a sort of follow up to his novel House of Suns. This collection showcases the continued high quality of writing that us fans have come to expect from his work.

If you are a long time Reynolds reader, and have read through Revelation Space and House of Suns I would urge you to read this collection as well. There are three stories set in the RS universe, with one being set after the events of The Prefect, another set right after the Melding plague, and the last detailing a Demarchist captain finding a Shrouder. Those of you unfamiliar with Reynolds’s novels will not recognize the terms I just mentioned, and I would actually not recommend this collection to you. If you want to start reading his work, and you definitely should, I would recommend starting with his Galactic North collection.

Here are my favorite stories from the collection:

Belladonna Nights, set after the events of House of Suns, Campion is a guest at another gentian line’s Thousands Nights event. This story does not quite unfold the way one would expect, and it is a rather sad and powerful story.

Holdfast is a standalone story where two alien enemies at the end of a war discover another lifeform on a Jovian planet. They also discover the futility of war, and are forced to examine their roles in the war, what it means for themselves and their species, and the stupidity of it all. Fantastic story overall.

Plague Music is a Revelation Space story set in Chasm City, shortly after the melding plague. It follows a crew of cleaners who are tasked with burning away and sterilizing the plague infestations. A haunting and beautiful story with a bit of a twist for the main character. Definitely recommended for RS fans who are eager to read a story closer to the events of the melding plague.

Night Passage is another story set in the Revelation Space series. It follows the crew of a passenger ship filled with Demarchists and Conjoiners alike. The crew encounters a dark void in space, and they wake the Captain to help investigate.

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alastair Reynolds is one of my favorite novelists (House of Suns is my favorite book), and now he aims to become one of my favorite short story writers. And, with this limited-edition Subterranean Press collection, it looks like he might do just that.

First of all, Reynolds' mission statement hasn't changed just because he's writing short stories. He takes big sci-fi ideas and breaks them down into snapshots in history focused on a few characters, often scientists or soldiers, who happen to be in the right place when stuff hits the fan. His writing and story elements don't get dumber just because they're shorter, and I really don't think there's a dud in this collection. My least favorite was "Visiting Hours," and it wouldn't be on the bottom of any other collection it appeared in.

But let's talk about the fun stuff: the standouts. Our title story, "Belladonna Nights," is a delightful return to the aforementioned House of Suns. It's a good story that's just uplifted by the fantastic, grand-scale concepts underneath it and the weight of Campion's story from the novel. As a fan, I really enjoyed it. "Death's Door" and "The Map of Mercury" were both transhumanism-based stories happening in the solar system; both were in the upper echelon in this collection. Two other favorites that will stick around are "Wrecking Party," a Western dealing with powers much greater than humanity, and the far-flung hard-af-sci-fi tale "For the Ages."

All in all, I think I need to read more of Reynolds' short fiction. This was a pretty enjoyable experience that's probably in the top ten short story collections I've ever read... well done, Reynolds, and I look forward to more from you soon.

[Rafael Morillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found out about Alastair Reynolds from the series "Love, Death & Robots." In the three seasons I have watched my favorite episode is "Beyond the Aquila Rift" based on a short story by Alastair Reynolds. I quickly bought two collections of his stories including, "Belladonna Nights and Other Stories." The stories are a combination of near and far-future sci-fi with interesting endings. Alastair created many interesting concepts and futuristic societies.

My favorite stories were "Belladonna Nights," "A Map of Mercury," "Magic Bone Woman," "Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee," "Plague Music," and "The Lobby." I enjoyed "The Lobby" the most because the ending was ambiguous and it leaves the reader thinking about the deeper layers of the story. The story notes at the end help reveal the story behind each of the tales. Excellent collection and I am looking forward to reading more collections by this author and possibly his novels.

[Jim Andrew Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy the writing style of Alastair Reynolds. He knows how to craft an intelligent story and creates very realistic science fiction. Most of the stories in this collection hit the ground running with little build up or introduction, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, it tends to get the story moving quickly and sets a good pace to keep the reader engaged. My favorites here are "Magic Bone Woman" and "Open and Shut". This is a solid collection of well done sci-fi.

Thanks to NetGalley, and to Subterranean Press for putting out yet another excellent story collection and providing the opportunity to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Groucho42 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is one of a small number of signed editions, and I understand why it ended up on my library shelf. Yawn. There were two stories I thought were above average, but it didn't save the collection. Most were so trite as to be annoying or just dull. A number were reworks of old tropes (enemy aliens stuck on a world…), but he had nothing new to say about them and his style was boring. Avoid this.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I’ve read around two thirds of it because there are a few House of Suns and Revelation Space stories that I don’t want to read yet.

As for the others, there are some really clever concepts in all of them, but sadly Reynolds doesn’t always find the way of turning them into an entertaining narrative. Lots of them have twists but they are developed slowly and without emotion instead of being a surprise.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection. I enjoyed the title story, and the three Revelation Space stories the most. The physical book itself is a thing of beauty. The cover art directly inspired the cover story and the physical construction of the book is astoundingly high quality, as would be expected from this publisher. The illustration repeated at the beginning and end of the book (guessing it's for the final story "Night Passage") adds to the whole thing.

[Jojo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent set of short stories! I like how Reynolds included "story notes" on each story at the end of the book.

Although the book was published in 2021, the stories themselves are all copyrighted between 2011-2018.

Some favorite stories included Belladonna Nights, Holdfast, A Map of Mercury, Sixteen Questions for Kamala Chatterjee and Night Passage.

I didn't much care for nor understand the story titled A Murmuration.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the strongest collections I've ever had the pleasure of reading! A good mix of far-future and near-future sci-fi and great range in style and substance.

It's hard to pick favorites, but some of the best ones were Plague Music, The Lobby, and A Map of Mercury. The ones set in the Chasm City universe were especially gripping.

[Erich Rau · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel that this was a somewhat uneven set of short stories. The ones I liked the best and that felt strongest were the ones that took place in either the House of Suns universe, or the Revelation Space universe. I fully admit that I am a huge fan of Reynolds core work, and that most likely influences how I felt about these stories.

[Charles Korb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short story collection may have been worse than the sum of its parts. As the title story points out, belladonna symbolizes death and so a lot of the stories deal with death in one form or another and that kind of grinds you down after a while.

I think "Different Seas" was my favorite story in the book but "Belladonna Nights" and "Magic Bone Woman" were also standouts

[Kynan]

Belladonna Nights: Revisit one of my favourite stories: House of Suns. Unfortunately, this was not as good (but, what could be). It was an OK story, but didn't quite hang together.

Different Seas: A fantastic little story of a care-taker sailor and gig-economy robotosist, with a pretty cool little twist!

For the Ages:

[Kevin Postlewaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

More good stories by Reynolds including some set in the Revelation Space universe. If you're trying to decide whether to read the book and my first line resonates with you then yes, you want to read it.

[R. Andrew Lamonica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of material for the Alistair Reynolds fan

With at least four stores set in Alistair Reynolds most popular settings this collection is a no-brainer for AR fans. The rest of the stories are a diverse group but there were not any I regretted reading (even the urban horror one).