Minla's Flowers is an interesting story, but dark. Not to be read if you want an uplifting story. But good!Thousandth night is a prequel to the very excellent book "House of Suns," giving readers a look sneak preview of some intriguing characters.

Subterranean Press has assembled a twin-pack of novellas by Alastair Reynolds, a modern hardback version of the old Ace science fiction doubles, complete with covers on each side of the book that one flips to read, and signed by the author. As I've noticed with some other Sub Press offerings, however, the stories need proofreading on a level with the beautiful books that are created. There are just too many typos - doubled words, skipped words, jumbled words. It really is a mystery how these make it to the final run.

I read Minla's Flowers first, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It was a modern story with just a touch of a retro feel that added to the worldbuilding. The story was built around an unexpected stop by a spacefarer and the effect he has on a world facing unexpected peril. Telling more would spoil the story I think.

Thousandth Night was even better than Minla's Flowers. Both stories give a sense of the immense vastness of space, huge expanse of humans, civilizations all over. In other words, good Space Opera, even tho the stories themselves focus on a small space. Thousandth Night is also a mystery, in fact an old fashioned sort of mystery, set up in spectacular settings.

These are not knock your socks off stories, but definitely an above average read for me. ( )

I'd previously read Thousandth Night in another compilation, so I didn't read it in this edition. Minla's Flowers was new to me, though, and quite a treat. More stories in this universe would be very welcome. ( )