Elysium Fire

The second Dreyfus novel, eleven years after the first. Citizens of the Glitter Band are dying when the neural implants that connect them to the habitats’ shared systems fail, the rate is climbing, and Tom Dreyfus has to work out whether it is a defect, an attack, or something being used as cover — while a secessionist movement argues that the Band’s one binding institution should be dissolved. A failure cascade in deployed hardware, investigated as a crime.

Context: B tier, “also worth reading,” volume two of the Dreyfus Emergencies, which the a16z page rates “possibly better” than the Inhibitor trilogy. Readable after The Prefect; the premise assumes you know what a prefect is for.

Connections

• a16z Infra Reading List — the list this came from.
• Alastair Reynolds — the author.
• The Prefect — the first Dreyfus novel, reissued as Aurora Rising.
• Machine Vendetta — the third.
• Revelation Space · Redemption Ark · Absolution Gap · Chasm City — the rest of the universe.
• Science Fiction — the genre page.