Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Revelation Space, Book 6

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

Diamond Dogs

The planet Golgotha - supposedly lifeless - resides in a remote star system, far from those inhabited by human colonists. It is home to an enigmatic machinelike structure called the Blood Spire, which has already brutally and systematically claimed the lives of one starship crew that attempted to uncover its secrets. But nothing will deter Richard Swift from exploring this object of alien origin.

Turquoise Days

In the seas of Turquoise live the Pattern Jugglers, the amorphous, aquatic organisms capable of preserving the memories of any human swimmer who joins their collective consciousness. Naqi Okpik devoted her life to studying these creatures - and paid a high price for swimming among them. Now she may be the only hope for the survival of the species - and of every person living on Turquoise.

©2002 Alastair Reynolds (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[R]eaders familiar with Reynolds will find intriguing sidebars." ( Kirkus)

Virtuoso sci-fi, but not for RS newbies

Any additional comments?

If one can be a sci-fi virtuoso, Alastair Reynolds is it. You enjoy his work immensely, but you can never figure out how he does it.

Diamond dog, Turquoise days are two short stories/novellas. You should have read one or two books in the Revelation space-series before taking them on, otherwise words like Ultras, jugglers and Chasm City may through you off.

Diamond days is the story about people penetrating an alien and deadly maze. Turquoise days circles on the isolationist planet Turquoise and it's home-grown research on the juggler phenomenon.

The novellas are not as good as the novels in the Revelation space-series, but still fills me with that kind of wonder I am after when reading a Reynolds novel. John Lee is brilliant as ever.

Great short stories

I love it when an author creates short stories in the universe that we love to live in, but don’t concern any main story characters. These two stories are very fun to listen to.

Fantastic as always.

Reynolds brings big ideas to the table in a way very few are able to execute with such grace. John Lee is as adept as ever at bringing to life the vivid worlds that Reynolds paints. although his library of "characters" is often limited, John still manages to evoke real humanity in Reybold's well-written characters.

Two masterful examples of storytelling.

John Lee is, as always, an excellent fit for the voices and tone of Alastair Reynold’s characters. This pair of novella are richer for having read the rest of the Inhibitor series, but they could just as well stand on their own. Don’t shy away from Diamond Dogs - Turquoise Days if you are looking for a quick weekend read.

Loved This

I'm a big Reynolds fan...and John Lee's narration is amazing. I could listen to him narrate a phone book. The stories here are exceptionally entertaining, especially for fans of hard sci fi.

pretty good

Alistair Reynolds always tells a good story, and this is no exception, but it did seem a bit disjointed.

not a continuation of any other book :(

I think it's misleading to call this book 6 of Revelation space. Although these two short stories are interesting in their own right, other than existing in the same universe they have no bearing on the other books. And while I enjoyed the stories, I would have been happier if it was called: "Tales From Revelation Space". That said, high scores for awesome storytelling and a great narrative performance.

Two short stories. Weak allusions to R Browning

The first short story is a intersteller take on Robert Browning's "Childe Roland to the dark tower came" if you are a fan of the Dark Tower Series then you might enjoy it . Not as deep or revealing as other Books but the perversion of ones self in pursuit of the tower is a major theme that is carried through in this book as well . This book is not continuation of the Revelation space story strands, but is still set within the universe. Good for what it is, but not up to par if one arrives at this book with the expectation that it is as the other stories Alistair has written. Not bad but lacks the detail and richness one would expect.

Two novellas, seemingly unrelated.

there wasn't enough content in total for one novel, and having it broken across 2 unrelated stories was very disappointing.

Good Shorts

If you are interested in the chasm city space universe and the jugglers this is a good set of two stories in that universe but not in the series.

Read these after you’re done with the other stories in the series