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. Fiction has frequently explored this concept since then. Unless a breakthrough allows for faster-than-light travel, humanity can only reach the newly discovered exoplanets via generation ships or stasis. 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 provide 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. Yuri Gagarin, a private investigator, serves as the central character. As far as he is 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 arrives at his office calling herself Ruby Blue. She wants him to investigate the deaths of two young people. The official version states that these incidents were accidents occurring several weeks apart. Two openly hostile families run the Halcyon habitat. 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 lives on a giant 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 of 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 considered a suspect until evidence shows that his involvement is unlikely. He visits the Urry estate and witnesses the scene 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 bit 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 in the mud of the main river seem at odds with the current state of technology, such as advanced devices that should not exist in their time period or unusual artefacts that suggest a hidden history. 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 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.
The story is a cleverly plotted novel with plenty of surprises, including unexpected twists that challenge the characters’ motivations and decisions as they navigate the dangers of their journey. As a mixture of 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
