Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds (book review)
The idea of generation ships has been around since before at least 1918 when physicist and rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard published ‘The Ultimate Migration’ postulating interstellar arks. It has been taken up many times in fiction since then. Unless there is a breakthrough that allows for faster-than-light travel in reality, the only way humanity has of reaching any of those recently discovered exo-planets is to employ generation ships or putting the population into some kind of stasis for the duration of the voyage. Usually, in fiction, the plot revolves around something going wrong.
In ‘Halcyon Years’, it is not stated at the very beginning that Halcyon is a generation ship, but there are enough small clues to give the heads-up. The setting feels very 1950s, without any of the technology, such as mobile phones, that we are beginning to take for granted. The central character is a private eye by the name of Yuri Gagarin. As far as he concerned, he is the Russian cosmonaut who died on Earth centuries ago. He has the memories of that time. He has been told that his remains were put into cryo and it is only recently that he has been able to be revived.
For Yuri, the mystery starts when a woman arrived at his office calling herself Ruby Blue. She wants him to investigate the deaths of two young people. The official version is that these were accidents and several weeks apart. The Halcyon habitat is run by two families who are openly hostile to each other. The dead youngsters are one from each family, thus immediately drawing comparisons to ‘Romeo And Juliet’. Although there are elements of the classic play, there are many differences. The DelRosso family live of a huge yacht floating on the largest of the habitat’s lakes; the Urry family has a complex tree house structure. Officially, they do not speak to each other. Juliana DelRosso died as a result if injuries sustained while she was outside the habitat. Randall Urry died several weeks later from a shooting accident on the family estate. As part of the investigation, Ruby Blue suggests Yuri talk to a policeman, Lemmy Litz.
Yuri starts his investigation in a traditional way, interviewing those who should have information about the deaths, in the brand new car supplied by Ruby Blue. He visits the clinic where Juliana died. He interviews the doctor who treated her and who dies later when his car leaves the road. Initially, Yuri is a suspect until it shown that that was unlikely. Visiting the Urry estate, he is shown the site of Randall’s accident. Along the way, he is picking up clues but cannot connect them to make coherent sense. Part of the jigsaw is in the conversations he has with his friend, Milvus. Regarded as a touch crazy by most, Milvus is sure there is a conspiracy going on, partly because he is a scavenger and some of the things he has found on the mud of the main river that seem at odds with the current state of technology. When Yuri decides that he needs to go outside the habitat to see the place where Juliana was injured, Milvus wants Yuri to take photos of the stars as one of his theories is that, impossibly, Halcyon has stopped in space.
With Lemmy’s contacts and help, Yuri is able to leave the habitat to see where the site of Juliana’s accident and gains information he didn’t expect. Life gets considerably more dangerous as the pieces begin to slot into place. He and the reader discover what has gone wrong on Halcyon’s journey to the star where the population expects to start a new life as colonists.
This is a cleverly plotted novel with plenty of surprises. As a mixture crime and Science Fiction, it works very well. Reading it is an enjoyable experience.
Pauline Morgan
March 2026
(pub: Gollancz, .2025. 326 page hardback. Price: £25.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-1-3996-1176-3)
check out website: https://store.gollancz.co.uk/products/halcyon-years