Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days

Two novellas set in Alastair Reynolds's Revelation Space universe examine different faces of the galaxy's dangers. In Diamond Dogs, a team of mercenaries confronts an alien tower on a distant world whose mathematical puzzles demand both intelligence and a willingness to accept terrible costs for wrong answers. In Turquoise Days, Naqi has devoted her life to studying the Pattern Jugglers, a mysterious alien intelligence embedded in ocean worlds, and finds that the price of their attention may be higher than she understood. Together, the novellas explore the intersection of human ambition and alien indifference that characterizes Reynolds's universe.

John Lee narrates both novellas with the controlled dread appropriate to hard science fiction that tends toward horror at the edges. His delivery of the Diamond Dogs sequences, where the tower's inexorable mathematics eliminate one team member at a time, carries considerable tension, and the Turquoise Days's more contemplative pace is handled with the patience the material rewards. At just under seven hours, this collection is an efficient entry point into Reynolds's universe.