Book Review: Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

Permafrost by Alastair Reynolds

Paperback, 175 pages

Published March 2019 by Tor.com

I have to admit that I have never read Alastair Reynolds. I have had several people I trust tell me he is great, I even have a few of his books on my shelf including his Doctor Who novel. Yet somehow I just never made to the point where I cracked up one of his books. When I say he had a Tor novella (they have been releasing just fantastic novellas the last couple years) I decided it was the time.

I mean I saw the book on the new releases shelf and when I read the back I was instantly sold. "Fix the past. Save the present. Stop the future. Master of science fiction Alastair Reynolds unfolds a time-traveling climate fiction adventure in Permafrost." You would have had me at climate fiction. I mean it is a subgenre that I have published in myself and the end of the end Cli-fi is kinda my biggest nightmare.

Add time travel and now we are really talking. Taking place in a post insect future with a slowly dying human race the time travel aspect of the story has a cool Twelve Monkeys vibe. In this world time travelers are trying to go back to a time before all the insects died to hide seeds that they could protect without screwing up the timelines.

I didn't fully get the fake science of it but the time travelers would go back and in embed themselves in a host body. The project that sent them back gave the book the title Permafrost.Once the time travelers are back the various missions and timelines get crossed with an unlikely villain tries to ruin their plans.

I loved this novella, with plenty of plot twists and action. All this with a powerful climate message. Permafrost with its tight story and short page count could make a great movie. It should be a movie anyways. Does all the time science work, it seems to me that it does. I like some of the weird twists the method of time embedded thing creates. The message is strong and highlighted by how strange one of the characters finds it to watch a fly buzz around them. Is it heavy-handed? Sure but the climate crisis needs direct and brutally honest speculative takes so this future never happens.