Slow Bullets by Alastair Reynolds

Published by Tachyon Publications on June 9, 2015

After a capture, an escape, and a blackout, Scurelya Shunde finds herself on a transport ship that is adrift in space. Shunde is a soldier. Others who have been cocooned in the ship are fellow soldiers, enemy soldiers, war criminals, civilians, and crew. Now they have awakened to a reality they do not quite understand.

The ship has apparently been adrift for a long time. For reasons that the ship's occupants do not immediately understand, the world they are orbiting, once thriving, is now empty. Nor do any beacons respond. They appear to be alone. Worse, the ship's memory is decaying. In a thousand days, all of human history will be lost.

What should they do?

A couple of other plot threads develop the story. One involves an intruder who boarded the ship before its occupants woke up. The other involves a war criminal who tortured Shunde with a slow bullet before she escaped. Soldiers carry a more benign slow bullet in their bodies that contain their service record and other biographical information.

Alastair Reynolds addresses a number of interesting ideas in this story. One has to do with how information should be preserved when much of the accumulated knowledge of mankind is about to be lost. Another has to do with the value of redemption, or even the possibility of redemption, as an alternative to punishment. Lesser themes concern the nature of individual identity and what should be done about religious conflict in a confined society.

Slow Bullets will probably disappoint fans who want everything a favorite author writes to be just like their favorite novels by that author. Fans sometimes have little patience for writers who stretch, explore, or depart from their own formulas. This isn't a Revelation Space novel -- it isn't even a novel, but a novella length story. It isn't action-filled. If you approach Slow Bullets with an open mind, however, those are not sensible reasons to dislike the work. While the characters in Slow Bullets do not the depth that a longer story would permit, the ideas are intriguing and the length of the story is perfect for the development of those ideas.

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