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Beyond the Aquila Rift is a 2016 "best of"-style collection of short stories and novellas by Alastair Reynolds. It focuses on various short stories and novellas written by Reynolds in the 2000s and 2010s (with none of his older stories from the 1990s and earlier). The stories are standalone or come from several of Reynolds' established universes or series - e.g. the Revelation Space universe, the universe of the House of Suns novel, the universe of the "Merlin" short story series. Due to the "best of" approach, many of the stories had appeared in previous anthologies of Reynolds's short fiction, e.g. Galactic North, Zima Blue and Other Stories and Deep Navigation.

The anthology was published in June 2016 by Gollancz and Subterranean Press. All the stories published in this anthology had been published previously, but some of the more obscure ones had been out of print for several years, and one newer story was not yet published in book form before this anthology.

There are four Revelation Space universe stories in the collection: "Great Wall of Mars", "Weather", "Diamond Dogs" and "The Last Log of the Lachrimosa". The collection's only Revelation Space series short story to be first published in book form is "The Last Log of the Lachrimosa", previously first published online in a 2014 summer issue of Subterranean Press Magazine. The first three stories had already appeared in the Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (2003) and Galactic North (2006).

Contents[]

  • "Great Wall of Mars"
  • "Weather"
  • "Beyond the Aquila Rift"
  • "Minla's Flowers"
  • "Fury"
  • "The Star Surgeon's Apprentice"
  • "The Sledge-Maker's Daughter"
  • "Diamond Dogs"
  • "Thousandth Night"
  • "Troika"
  • "Sleepover"
  • "Vainglory"
  • "Trauma Pod"
  • "The Last Log of the Lachrimosa"
  • "The Water Thief"
  • "The Old Man and the Martian Sea"
  • "In Babelsberg"
  • Story notes

Gallery[]

Notes[]

  • Cover art for the Subterranean Press trade paperback edition (seen above) by Dominic Harman.
  • Cover art for the Subterranean Press limited edition (seen in Gallery) by Alastair Reynolds himself.
  • The title is based on Beyond the Aquila Rift, a story that already appeared in the non-RSU anthology of Reynolds' short fiction, Zima Blue and Other Stories.

See also[]

Revelation Space series
NOVELS
A Prefect Dreyfus Emergency
(crime fiction series, 2007-present)
Aurora Rising (2007) | Open and Shut (short story midquel, 2018) | Elysium Fire (2018) | Machine Vendetta (2023)
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Chasm City
(standalone novel, 2001)
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Inhibitor Cycle
(main novel series, 2000-2003, 2021)
Revelation Space (2000) | Redemption Ark (2002) | Absolution Gap (2003) | Inhibitor Phase (2021)

ANTHOLOGIES
Galactic North
(2006, short stories)
Great Wall of Mars | Glacial | A Spy in Europa | Weather
Dilation Sleep | Grafenwalder's Bestiary | Nightingale | Galactic North
----
Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days
(2003, novellas)
Diamond Dogs | Turquoise Days
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Other anthologies
Deep Navigation (2010) - Monkey Suit (2009)
Beyond the Aquila Rift (2016) - The Last Log of the Lachrimosa (2014)
Infinite Stars (2017) - Night Passage (2017)
Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021) - Night Passage (2017), Open and Shut (2018), Plague Music (2021)

PUBLISHED ONLINE
Subterranean Press Magazine (2014, summer issue) - The Last Log of the Lachrimosa (2014)
Gollancz / Hachette UK (2018) - Open and Shut (2018)

BEHIND THE SCENES / RELATED ARTICLES
Revelation Space universe | Alastair Reynolds | Websites
Cultural and scientific references | Adaptations | Translations
Book cover art | Fan art

External links[]

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