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Revelation Space
Written by Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by John Lee
Book Actions
Start Listening- Publisher:
- Tantor Audio
- Released:
- Jan 5, 2009
- ISBN:
- 9781400179558
- Format:
- Audiobook
Description
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason. And if that reason is uncovered, the universe—and reality itself—could be irrevocably altered.
Book Actions
Start ListeningBook Information
Revelation Space
Written by Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by John Lee
Description
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason. And if that reason is uncovered, the universe—and reality itself—could be irrevocably altered.
- Publisher:
- Tantor Audio
- Released:
- Jan 5, 2009
- ISBN:
- 9781400179558
- Format:
- Audiobook
About the author
Related to Revelation Space
Reviews
A truism of hard science fiction is that (baring collapse-of-civilization scenarios) the farther into the future one sets a story, the harder it is to make it convincing. In this the redoubtable Mr. Reynolds succeeds amazingly well.
In this future there is interstellar colonization, but not faster-than-light travel. Story time is bent intriguingly due to some characters journeying at relativistic speeds while others are planet-bound. Humanity too has evolved in interesting ways. Rather than nationalities or races we have tribal associations or factions (similar to the schema in Bruce Sterling’s landmark and comparably inventive Schismatrix). The star-faring crews (known as Ultras), have life-spans and value systems quite alien to planet- or sun-bound humans. Other strains are differentiated by the degree to which they have cyber implants boosting their biological functions—in other words, the degree to which they have gone cyborg. Still other characters are software simulations, former humans (or aliens) uploaded into various computer strata and capable of acting convincingly sentient.
All of which makes for a wildly mind-bending novel, both thrilling and confusing. It is a challenge when a writer’s intelligence and complexity of mind is way beyond that of the average reader, and in this Mr. Reynolds is challenged indeed. But he is a skillful enough dealer of narrative tension, with frequent, exciting crisis’s, that the book kept me reading.
My main dissatisfaction was that the so-far-beyond-me characters were often not only difficult to relate to, but difficult to like. To one degree or another they are all obsessive, cold-blooded and merciless. To imagine that humanity has progressed so far scientifically, while stalling or even regressing morally and spiritually, was just a little bit depressing.
5 starts for extrapolation 3 stars for plot 1 star for character and human interest / 3 = 3 stars.
The author had a tendency to go trough the events of the last chapter once again, in the next one, just in case you'd forgotten what happened two pages ago, this didn't only happen between chapters but sometimes even within them.
The characters didn't feel real in a sense, the story takes place over a few decades for some of the characters but you get no sense of development. Most characters don't even behave the same between chapters, one in particular (Khouri), seems to cycle between acting and speaking like a five year old, and a soldier. Though that could be attributed partly to the poorly written dialog, where it simply seemed it was a characters turn to speak, to move the story along, not that the character had anything real to say in a given situation. Exposition dialog.
Simply put, the characters were so flat I felt nothing but indifference towards their predicaments, it did not matter to me if any particular lived or died.
What I liked:
An incredibly gripping story, full of lots of images that stick with you
What I disliked:
The writing is immature - frequently, the writer withholds information from the reader as he gives it to the character. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem but it's used constantly to drag the reader along and by the 500th page, I was starting to become more aggravated by it than entertained. Cliffhangers are cool, but you've gotta fall down eventually.
In the end:
I'll definitely continue to read the series