Slow Bullets

Slow Bullets is another shorter form science fiction story by Alastair Reynolds. I wish Like -- who's the publisher for the Finnish translations of the author's books -- had prioritized the short story anthology with the Netflix-adapted Zima Blue and Beyond the Aquila Rift over these one-off novellas because then that collection would most likely be available at the library and I could actually read it. Maybe one day...

In Slow Bullets, humanity has colonized space far and wide. A galaxy-wide war sparked off -- as is tradition -- and then ended in a ceasefire. However, news travel slow when it takes years even for light to cross the vast distances of space. And even once the message has been received, it might take someone to enforce the peace.

In the novella's initial location, the has arrived but fighting's not quite done. The story's protagonist Scurelya "Scur" Shunde has been captured by an enemy combatant called Orvin who's infamous for being particularly cruel to his victims. Orvin's fun times are interrupted by arriving peacekeepers, however, and he leaves Scur to die. Scur swears revenge -- and then comes to from cryosleep somewhere far away, after a very long while.

The novella's name comes from an implant whose purpose is to hold a person's credentials -- mainly a soldier's. The bullet is inserted into one's thigh from where it travels to its final destination -- hell of a convoluted and unnecessary system, I feel. The procedure is normally painless but without anesthesia and such, it can be excruciating as Scur can tell.

The implant tech remains relevant later as the book's budding revenge story gets combined with a galaxy-wide, post-apocalypse what-if scenario where only a shipful of people remain of a once-massive culture. The bullets' capability to hold data is found useful. But how purposeful that really is -- that's for the reader to decide.

With the book being narrated from first person, and me knowing Reynolds's sketchy habit of naming characters, I wasn't sure if Scur was a man or a woman. I did decide it was the latter -- confirmation being given once Scur finally confronted Orvin again face-to-face much later.

I personally probably wouldn't have nominated Slow Bullets for the 2016 Hugo for best novella. One-off short stories are kind of a whatever unless they have a really memorable idea. This one didn't have such.