First Lines of Allistar River's "Century Rain"

 "The river flowing sluggishly under Pont de al Concorde was flat and grey, like worn-out linoleum. It was October and the authorities were having one of their periodic crackdowns on contraband."

- Alastair Reynolds, Century Rain

My beach read this year, I picked Century Rain because of it's interesting "alternative history" premise, a promise of a lot of Paris, and fond memories of his entertaining opera Pushing Ice. Alas, I was greatly disappointing. I found it to have wooden dialogue that stretched on for far too long, and interesting ideas buried beneath obscurely described action. I'm sure some people love this kind of thing, but it didn't do anything for me. For my next Reynolds book I'll stick to the deep space operas.