Slow Bullets

An interesting high concept sci fi novella. Our protagonist wakes up on a strange spaceship and tries to piece together what has happened. He had been fighting a war and had been injured. The ship he wakes up on turns out to be a prison ship, but where they are is a complete mystery. This novella does a good job of creating a nice mystery in its short page count, using some good hard science to back up its more fantastic elements.

I am a big fan of Alastair Reynold's sci fi writing. This book does not disappoint! A lot is crammed into a novella, and it makes excellent use of this story form. The novella title takes its name from small computers that are implanted into soldiers to store key information about them - service record, etc. This computing power is key to the story in many ways. The story also does well in its play on some fears that ‘cryogenic travel' impart.

All in all a neat novella

Featured on an episode of the delightful if at times very smugly snotty podcast “I Don't Even Own a Television”, Slow Bullets is a nice little soft sci-fi novella about a prison ship in a very dire situation. Alistair Reynolds enjoys his grimdark stories and this is no exception, but it's a short and enjoyable little glimpse into a world in great peril. There's a bit of a smug anti-religiousness that some people might find grating, but I felt it was tempered by having characters observe that there were positive things brought to the table by the "believer" faction as well. On the whole, if you enjoyed Revelation Space this is worth a quick read. If you've never read anything by Reynolds though, I'd suggest starting with something else.