The Prefect

infobox Book |
name = The Prefect
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Alastair Reynolds
cover_artist =
country = United Kingdom
language = English
series =
genre = Science fiction novel
publisher = Gollancz
release_date = 2 April 2007
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = 512 pp
isbn = ISBN 0-575-07716-6
preceded_by = "A Spy in Europa"
followed_by = Chasm City

"The Prefect" is a 2007 science fiction novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds ( ISBN 0-575-07716-6). It is the fifth novel set in the Revelation Space universe, and takes place prior to the four previously released Revelation Space novels, but after some of the short stories. It is a standalone novel, containing no characters from any other Revelation Space works.

Setting

The Glitter Band

The novel offers a thoroughly in-depth study of future technology within the Revelation Space universe, due its unique setting in the time-line. Set a century before the devastating effects of the melding plague, the book is able to showcase the golden-age of mankind alluded to in earlier books. The Glitter Band consisting of ten-thousand orbital habitats with a population of 100-million, is seen only as the Rust Belt after the effects of the plague.

All habitats in the glitter band represent a different format of society, all linked by the common right to vote. A giant computer network runs thousands of polls everyday to decide the general actions of the Glitter Band as a whole. Most inhabitants have built in computer routines in their brains that make these decisions for them, making a conscious effort on only the most important polls.

Every habitat has a polling core, a giant computer that generates the polls and transmits the inhabitants’ votes. Each habitat votes on its own laws and punishments, the only universal crime being withholding someone’s right to vote or access to abstraction (a form of digital communication and virtual reality used throughout the glitter band).

The right to vote and access abstraction for each inhabitant is policed by the Glitter Bands’ security force, Panoply. Chasm City is policed independently, and most habitats have their own security forces to curtail other crimes.

Panoply

Panoply is the police force for the Glitter Band. It exists in its own dedicated habitat, governed by an armed force of Prefects.

The prefect hierarchy:

*Cadet - Prefect in training.
*Prefect - Freshly graduated Prefect, but not yet qualified for assignments outside of Panoply
*Field Prefect - Prefects experienced enough to police the Glitter Band.
*Senior Prefect - Field Prefects that have shown themselves experienced enough to serve the administration of Panoply. Usually working from an office, they still retain field status.
*Supreme Prefect - The chief of the entire organisation. At the start of the novel, this position is held by Jane Aumonier.

Panoply does not have the right to carry armed weaponry as standard, with the exception of whip-hounds, electronic whips that are used primarily in defence. If Panoply feels the need to use heavier weaponry, this must be voted on by the entire Glitter Band in an emergency poll before any action can be undertaken (although Panoply command ignores this limitation in the novel, and uses heavy weapons in spite of a vote against it). In this regard, Panoply can only exist if the populace is happy for them to proceed, which defuses much potential tension in this particular society. One issue the Prefects have to grapple with is that they can only enforce the right to vote and access to abstraction; they are not permitted to stop any other human rights violations. This eventually drives Prefect Gaffeny to assist Aurora, the antagonist, in her takeover bid.

Plot summary

"The Prefect" is set in the 25th century in the Glitter Band, the realm of thousands of orbital habitats surrounding the planet Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system, and the height of human civilization at the time. Events take place prior to the advent of the Melding Plague that had already ruined the Glitter Band and caused a massive decline in Yellowstone civilization at the time of the other Revelation Space novels. Tom Dreyfus is the titular prefect, a member of a special investigations police force called the Panoply that is responsible for protecting the Glitter Band.

The novel begins with Dreyfus being sent out on a routine assignment to arrest the head of a glitter-band habitat for polling violations. After a brief fight with the habitat's security staff, he succeeds in taking her into custody and sends one of his deputies, Thalia Ng, to distribute software upgrades around the glitter band to prevent anyone from attempting a similar violation.

Dreyfus is sent to investigate the recent destruction of a habitat named Ruskin-Sartorious. Analysis indicates that the habitat has been destroyed by the flame of a Conjoiner Drive, and Dreyfus's team believe the lighthugger "Accompaniement of Shadows", the only to have been near the habitat in recent weeks, is responsible. Before they can conclude their investigation, however, the Ultranauts take justice into their own hands and destroy the ship, killing all its crew, save the captain, who they leave welded to the ship. Dreyfus is forced to use nuclear weapons to destroy him and the ship, but not before he is able to converse with the captain, who convinces him that his crew were not responsible. Believing him to be true, he and his deputy, the hyperpig Sparver, decide to investigate the matter further.

Meanwhile, Gaffney, another Prefect, is revealed to be in contact with the mysterious software entity "Aurora", and is researching blueprints necessary to create war machines. He and Aurora discuss the Ruskin-Sartorious incident, ant it is revealed that Gaffney was involved. He searches for information on the word "Firebrand", which he and Aurora believe to be significant to their (as yet unrevealed) plan, but is unable to find anything.

Dreyfus and Sparver interview digital backups of the inhabitants of Ruskin-Sartorious. Dreyfus speaks with one of them about the Clockmaker, an alien machine which formerly lived in a Glitter Band research centre, creating, as its name suggests, clocks, before it begun a violent killing spree and was destroyed with nuclear weapons nine years prior to the novel. He and Sparver then analyse communication records from the Ruskin-Sartorious habitat, and discover links with an orbiting asteroid owned by the Nerval-Lermontov family (a member of which is called Aurora). They defeat its defence systems and penetrate inside, discovering a Conjoiner starship trapped inside. One of them, Clepsydra, has escaped and is hiding. She meets with Dreyfus and tells him that she and the other Conjoiners had been enslaved by Aurora to use the Exordium to predict the future. The Conjoiners predict a future devastate by what is implied to be the Melding Plague, and Aurora has been planning to respond to stop it (use of the Exordium creates a new timeline which can be changed to avoid the future the Exordium describes). She and Dreyfus escape as a ship under Aurora's control arrives and destroys the habitat.

At the same time, Thalia has distributed the software upgrade to the reqired four habitats across the glitter band, but it appears to be malfunctioning; information access is shut down in the habitats she has visited, and servitors (service robots used across the glitter bands) are rounding up and exterminating civilians. She and some of the survivors of the last habitat take refuge in its polling core tower, barricading the entrance. Outside, the servitors begin to construct "weevil" war machines mentioned by Gaffney earlier in the book.

Back at Panoply, Clepsydra is taken into isolation, whilst Dreyfus explains the situation to Jane Aumonier, the Supreme Prefect. Unbeknownst to him, however, Gaffney kills Clepsydra and hides the corpse in Dreyfus's quarters, which he uses to frame Dreyfus. Whith Dreyfus in custody, he manipulates the Senior Prefects into voting Aumonier out of office. The Prefects debate what to do about the emergence of the weevils, which have now left the four original habitats and are moving towards others.

Before very long, however, Gaffney is exposed as the murderer of Clepsydra when attmepting to interrogate Dreyfus (his Whip-hound had been hacked by Clepsydra's implants and instead interrogates him, rather than Dreyfus, forcing him to admit the truth). He admits to his role in the weevil outbreak and informs the Prefects that Aurora is responsible. Aurora herself contact Panoply and demands that they stand down, claiming to be taking over the Glitter Band for its own good. Aumonier, now back in power, refuses and orders Panoply to ready for war. An attack on the habitat Thalia was trapped in fails, although she is able to escape by ejecting the poling core from the habitat. Meanwhile, simulations run by the Prefects indicate that they have virtually no chance of sucess; the weevils are destroying habitats and converting them into even more weevils, grossly outnumbering the Prefects.

Aumonier speaks to Dreyfus and tells him about Firebrand: the Clockmaker was not actually destroyed nine years previously; part of it survived and was recovered by Panoply. Firebrand was an ultra-secret Panoply unit established to research it. Although Aumonier ordered it shut down, she now believes its members relocated the Clockmaker to Ruskin-Sartorious. As the Clockmaker was the only intelligence in the Glitter Band capable of defeating Aurora, she attempted to destroy it. Dreyfus confronts members of Firebrand, who reveal that it was not in fact destroyed, before leaving Panoply. Following them to the surface of Yellowstone, he and Sparver fight their way into an abandoned American colony, where the clockmaker is being hidden. Sparver leaves to fight Gaffney, who is approaching the colony with bombs to destroy the Clockmaker.

Dreyfus meets with the Clockmaker, who reveals that he is actually Philip Lascaile, a character in Revelation Space who was believed to have committed suicide after meeting with the Shrouders, but was in fact scanned to produce a simulation, which was sent back to the Shrouders, who turned it into the Clockmaker. Dreyfus tells the Clockmaker what is happening. It incapacitates him and leaves. Regaining consciousness, Dreyfus meets with Sparver. They return to Panoply to find that the weevil attack has collapsed; the Clockmaker has uploaded itself into the Glitter Band's data network and is fighting a digital war with Aurora. As such, she is unable to control the weevils effectively, and the Prefects are destroying them in alliance with the Ultras. Dreyfus begins preparing to investigate the death of Philip Lascaille, having promised to the Clockmaker to bring those responsible to justice.

External links

* [http://www.sfbrp.com/archives/23 Audio Review] at [http://www.sfbrp.com/ The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast]