Alastair Reynolds has written a lot of big, meaty science-fiction books, so I was surprised to discover on my library's shelf this slender volume bearing his name. As it turns out, The Six Directions of Space is a very good space opera novella that is best appreciated not on its own, but as an introduction to a fascinating universe.

In Reynolds's alternate history, the Mongols have conquered Earth and then the stars. Their galactic empire is tied together by a network of wormholes set up by a long-extinct alien civilization. Nobody understands how the wormholes work; all they know is that they enable faster-than-light travel between pre-established nodes. This lack of understanding becomes a liability when the transportation web begins to glitch -- disappearing ships, hideous phantoms, etc.

There's some additional window dressing, but in essence The Six Directions of Space is nothing more than a drawn-out explanation of the interstellar web's nature -- another entry in the "Big Dumb Object" subgenre. Despite the book's lack of originality, the mix of vast alien technologies, extinct civilizations, and mysterious but vaguely menacing clues is a winning combination, and Reynolds's well-crafted story will not disappoint anybody for whom space still sparks the thrill of wonder.

My only criticisms of the novella are (1) that it feels very much like a preface to a much longer work, and (2) that Reynolds skips over some of the more exciting stuff, especially near the end. In other words, I wanted more! Reynolds is apparently open to expanding on Six Directions. Here's hoping he delivers.

Copyright © 2009 Steven Wu