I've been disappointed lately with Alastair Reynold's efforts. Like most space-opera/hard SF authors, he's strong on "cool" ideas but weak on character and story. For example, in one of the short stories in this collection, Reynold's relies on that ancient murder-mystery trope: the killer's initials scrawled in the snow by the murder victim! (Actually, to be fair, its the victim's initials but that's a minor twist on the cliche.)The other stories fill in gaps in the Revelation Space universe's history. I will say this for Reynolds, he handles the interactions between the three major factions (Conjoiners, Demarchists, Ultras) of humanity very well.
Otherwise, there's nothing particularly good or bad in this collection and I would think it would be of interest only to completist fans of the author.
