*****
Disquieting and with an unexpected ending
This
science fiction gem differs from the epic novels that Reynolds has accustomed
me to, not only because of its length (it is indeed a novella), but above all
for the apparent simplicity of the plot. The story is told from the point of
view of Dimitri Ivanov, a Russian cosmonaut, on two parallel timelines. It
offers a pessimistic image of the future, in which space exploration has
practically stopped due to the interaction with a mysterious huge artefact of
alien origin, which the Russians call Matryoshka.
In a timeline,
we see Dimitri escaping from a structure for mental patients and trying to
reach someone to reveal what he discovered in his last space mission. The
mission is shown in the other timeline, in which he and two other colleagues
are approaching the Matryoshka and preparing to take samples.
In the
alternative future in which the events occurring to this cosmonaut are
narrated, only Russia has maintained a minimum of space activity, while the
rest of the world surrendered to the impossibility of revealing the enigma
concerning the alien artefact. And the same Russian cosmonauts are driven in
their search more by necessity of survival than by the desire for discovery. If
what they discover won’t be pleasing to their government, they could still come
to a bad end.
A sense of
anguish pervades both timelines and the absence of division into chapters urges
the reader, prompting them to complete the reading as soon as possible. I
particularly appreciated the whole space part of the story, which, as in all
Reynolds’s works, mixes rigorous science with aspects which, due to their
origin, go beyond our ability to establish how realistic or not they can be.
The more I went on, the more I grew curious to know what was hidden within the
Matryoshka.
And the
answer comes in an unexpected and therefore satisfying ending, not so much for
its content, which, when you think about it, is anything but original, but
rather for the skill of the author in distracting the reader and then
surprising them.
Troika on Amazon.
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