Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds

I bought this because I knew it contained at least one novella I hadn't read that wasn't easily obtainable elsewhere. I now wish I had waited for the UK edition which has a much better cover. I also wish that the editors had done a better job - by which I mean who-ever was responsible for ensuring a high quality, accurate text. This edition contains a large number of mistakes involving wrong word order, missing words or incorrect homophones. I don't know if the UK edition is any better in this respect.

There's some great stuff in this collection but as with any other short story collection, there's some variation in quality. On this front what concerned me was a trend towards poorer efforts as the book goes on. Since they are in publication order, does this mean Reynolds is getting worse?

That said, this is still a great introduction to Reynolds for those unfamiliar with him and is worth the price for Diamond Dogs alone.