... Alastair Reynolds is one of the few – not surprising really, considering that the Netherlands-based Welshman has also published several scientific papers, has piled higher and deeper in Astronomy, and currently works for the European Space Agency…
His debut novel, “Revelation ... Read review
Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological ... more
marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.Sylveste i...
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Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological ... more
marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.Sylveste i...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological ... more
marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.Sylveste i...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
With Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds completes the star-spanning Inhibitors trilogy in ... more
which the previous books were Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. The Inhibitors are a mechanical plague, mindlessly but very resourcefully wiping out space-going civilisations that come to their notice. Their latest target is humanity, which lost a round in Redemption Ark. One small human faction now has stealth weapons and technologies that can almost fight Inhibitor assault to a standstill, but running away still seems the only long-term option. From the same cryptic source as that supertechnology, filtered through a young girl's mind, comes the urgent message to make an interstellar trek to Hela, barren moon of the gas-giant Haldora. Hela is home to an obsessive religion fuelled partly by mind viruses and partly by the miracle of Haldora. This unpredictable, unbelievable event happens in an eyeblink, but more and more often. For the devout this increasing frequency is a signal of the End Times, which is why a group of vast mobile cathedrals lumbers forever around Hela--to keep Haldora at the zenith for best observation of its marvels. And on this last circuit, with a madman in command, the greatest cathedral of all plans an impossible short cut over the mysterious, delicate bridge spanning an immense rift in Hela's surface: Absolution Gap. There's a lot of action with both familiar and enjoyably exotic weapons; there's suffering, deceit, loss and triumph; there's a hideous revenge straight out of Jacobean tragedy, a series of awesome revelations and the last voyage of the lightship Nostalgia for Infinity that was so strangely transformed in Revelation Space. Ultimately, behind the enigma of Haldora, a dreadful choice awaits: whether or not to bargain with powers that may be the answer to the Inhibitors--but may be something worse. Alastair Reynolds makes his huge story compellingly readable, with characters we care about, and gives impressive descriptions of beauty and cataclysm. This is very superior space opera. --David Langford
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Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological ... more
marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.Sylveste is the only man ever to return alive and sane from a Shroud, an enclave in space protected by awesome gravity-warping defences: "a folding a billion times less severe should have required more energy than was stored in the entire rest-mass of the galaxy." Now an intuition he doesn't understand makes him explore the dead world Resurgam, whose birdlike natives long ago tripped some booby-trap that made their own sun erupt in a deadly flare. Meanwhile, the vast, decaying lightship Nostalgia for Infinity is coming for Sylveste, whose dead father (in AI simulation) could perhaps help the Captain, frozen near absolute zero yet still suffering monstrous transformation by nanotech plague. Most of Infinity's tiny crew have hidden agendas--Khouri the reluctant contract-assassin believes she must kill Sylveste to save humanity--and there are two bodiless stowaways, one no longer human and one never human. Shocking truths emerge from bluff, betrayal and ingenious lies. The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defences to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons. At the heart of this artefact, the final revelations detonate--most satisfyingly. Dense with information and incident, this longish novel has no surplus fat and seems almost too short. A sparkling SF debut. --David Langford
Postage & Packaging:£2.75 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological ... more
marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.Sylveste is the only man ever to return alive and sane from a Shroud, an enclave in space protected by awesome gravity-warping defences: "a folding a billion times less severe should have required more energy than was stored in the entire rest-mass of the galaxy." Now an intuition he doesn't understand makes him explore the dead world Resurgam, whose birdlike natives long ago tripped some booby-trap that made their own sun erupt in a deadly flare. Meanwhile, the vast, decaying lightship Nostalgia for Infinity is coming for Sylveste, whose dead father (in AI simulation) could perhaps help the Captain, frozen near absolute zero yet still suffering monstrous transformation by nanotech plague. Most of Infinity's tiny crew have hidden agendas--Khouri the reluctant contract-assassin believes she must kill Sylveste to save humanity--and there are two bodiless stowaways, one no longer human and one never human. Shocking truths emerge from bluff, betrayal and ingenious lies. The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defences to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons. At the heart of this artefact, the final revelations detonate--most satisfyingly. Dense with information and incident, this longish novel has no surplus fat and seems almost too short. A sparkling SF debut. --David Langford
Postage & Packaging:£2.75 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Advantages: Spectacularly imaginative space opera Disadvantages: Slow going at first
“Space,” as Douglas Adams once wrote, “is big.” And faced with the mind-bogglingly vastness of it, most science-fiction writers will invent a method of faster-than-light travel; thus did hyperspace, ultraspace and the warp drive come into being – not to mention various methods of wormhole creation and manipulation. How else are the writers’ heroes and villains going to travel the vast distances between stars? However, ... ...Einstein more literally. Alastair Reynolds is one of the few – not surprising really, considering that the Netherlands-based Welshman has also published several scientific papers, has piled higher and deeper in Astronomy, and currently works for the European Space Agency…
His debut novel, “Revelation Space”, is the story of one man’s obsessive search for the truth behind the extinction of a long-dead race. ... more
“Space,” as Douglas Adams once wrote, “is big.” And faced with the mind-bogglingly vastness of it, most science-fiction writers will invent a method of faster-than-light travel; thus did hyperspace, ultraspace and the warp drive come into being – not to mention various methods of wormhole creation and manipulation. How else are the writers’ heroes and villains going to travel the vast distances between stars? However, there are a very few authors out there that take Einstein more literally. Alastair Reynolds is one of the few – not surprising really, considering that the Netherlands-based Welshman has also published several scientific papers, has piled higher and deeper in Astronomy, and currently works for the European Space Agency…
His debut novel, “Revelation Space”, is the story of one man’s obsessive search for the truth behind the extinction of a long-dead race. As the book opens, it has already cost him his marriage; it will soon cost him the political power on Resurgam too. But Dan Sylveste is not going to let such minor details worry him; even as a prisoner of convenience to the new colonial ruler, his mind turns over the enigma of the Event that wiped out the Amarantin. Meanwhile, Ana Khouri has been plucked from the ranks of the Shadowplay elite by a mysterious recluse known only as “The Mademoiselle” and offered an assignment she cannot refuse. And out in deep space, the lighthugger “Nostalgia for Infinity” carries its undead Captain between the stars in the search for a cure to his terrible plague. These threads weave into a spectacular narrative crescendo with an answer to Sylveste’s question that is more terrifying than he – or his father – ever dreamed possible…
This is no short story at 545 pages, but given the incredible complexity of everything that happens between its suitably dark covers, I’m surprised it’s not longer. Reynolds’ imagination runs riot on the technology – all within the bounds of the theoretically possible of course – and his attention to detail (particularly in the relativistic effects of near-lightspeed travel) is all the more remarkable for not straying into the impenetrability that Iain M. Banks sometimes falls prey to. I *did* find the story slow to get into, but starting a book just before Christmas and all it brings is perhaps not the best time to be assured of some uninterrupted reading. In the end, it was well worth the effort. The only little niggle I can come up with is the use of location and date tags at the beginning of each chapter; a common enough device, but one I still find distracting – I’d rather have a line in the narrative where necessary.
A “loose sequel” (as Reynolds himself puts it) to the book, “Redemption Ark”, is due to be published in May of this year (2002), and “Chasm City”, a story from slightly earlier in the same future history, is already available. With at least one more book planned in the sequence, and two more novels contracted, it looks like the work of Alastair Reynolds is going to be taking up a sizeable chunk of space on my bookshelf.
Author’s website: http://members.tripod.com/~voxish/Home.html Current best price: £6.99 post-free from Blackwell’s (http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk)
Advantages: Better than revelation space Disadvantages: There are two timelines which can leave you fuming when they switch!
I?d never heard of AlastairReynolds and originally picked up revelationspace based upon a recommendation from one of the sales assistants. Since then I?ve never looked back and think that Chasm City is an improvement on the previous book.
The book is quite a nice sized read, maybe I?m biased but I get very frustrated when you?re really getting into a book and it?s only a few hundred pages long. I love devouring books over 500 pages, and this one at 616 is no exception. I daresay you?ll not notice the size though as the action is pretty thick and fast. The one possible gripe I would have with this book (in addition to RS) is that it gets too fast during the last 150 pages. The detail and plot is so intricate during the earlier part of the book, I would have preferred the author keeping the same rhythm which may have added ...
