There is a modern triumvirate of British far-future space adventure SF writers: Neal Asher, Iain M. Banks, and Alastair Reynolds. I listed them alphabetically, but that also happens to be my order of preference for their work. Make no mistake, I like all three, but I have found myself disengaged by a few of Reynolds’s books.
We started on a positive note [see this post], but I quickly ran into some issues with his writing [see this post and this post]. I was very disappointed by a couple of his books. That so far hasn’t happened with Banks or Asher.
Recently, though, I read Reynolds’s Halcyon Years (2025).
In what now seems the distant past — the late 1990s or early 2000s — as I walked to my car after work each evening, I noticed a common behavior in others also walking to their cars. A lot of them were talking on their cellphones.














