On the Steel Breeze

by Alastair Reynolds

On the Steel Breeze is set in the 24th century, 200 years after the events of Blue Remembered Earth. It depicts a massive interstellar colonization effort, involving hundreds of immense generation ships known as "holoships" carrying millions of humans to extrasolar planets. The holoships are propelled to relativistic velocities by engines based on exotic "Chibesa physics", but are in danger of overshooting their target planets due to a lack of fuel for deceleration. Meanwhile, the ocean-dwelling transhumans of the United Aquatic Nations have become one of Earth's pre-eminent powers, and the colonization of Venus is underway.

The novel's main characters are two clones of Chiku Akinya, the daughter of one of the main characters of Blue Remembered Earth. The original Chiku had herself cloned centuries before to allow her to experience three different lifestyles. One clone, Chiku Yellow, remained on Earth, while the second, Chiku Green, embarked on a holoship heading for the alien planet of Crucible, which is home to a mysterious structure known as the Mandala. A third clone, Chiku Red, was lost attempting to find her famous great-grandmother Eunice Akinya in deep space. Chiku Green faces a series of revelations after a strange accident kills hundreds aboard her holoship, while Chiku Yellow is haunted by a cybernetic "ghost", leading her to seek out a powerful transhuman on Venus.