Revelation Space

Nothing read yet, need to buy glue!

I take issue with those who say that Reynolds can't write or is unimaginative. It's amazing writing, and one of the most creative books I've read in some time. The style is highly literate (even if your vocab is large you may learn a word or two). And every page contains at least one technology, circumstance, or invention so fascinating and unexpected that you'll have to stop and read the section over again.Yes, Reynolds does use semicolons when he should be using commas, dashes, or periods. It's a stylistic choice, though. Anyone who can string a sentence together as well as this guy certainly knows punctuation protocol. Think of his semicolon usage as a far-future convention. A forthcoming change in 'the rules.' It's a pretty flexible little mark anyway, and people love to take license with it.His writing is definitely on par with that of Dan Simmons--it's just colder. The story demands it. Revelation Space is a lonely, dark, and chilling book. The characters are fully developed and complicated people, but the tone of the book is such that most of them have some kind of a defensive wall around themselves. Not so different from modern society, a lot of the time. Here, it's taken to the extreme, as the plot revolves around deception and hidden agendas. This book is tight. And very, very complex. I put Reynolds up there with Simmons and Robert Charles Wilson--writers whose authorial abilities are as interesting as the stories themselves.

Reynolds manages to mix a mindblowing plot with 'hard' science in a way that only few authors can accomplish successfully. I cannot think of one page in this book, let alone one character or subplot, that is wasted. Never since Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy have I encountered a universe this well thought out. The main plot of Revelation Space almost becomes secondary amidst all the 'wonders' of the setting with its intricate dynamics, strange cultures (the human cultures more so than the alien), and plague-ridden cities and spaceships, which - for a change - are not capable of faster-than-light travel. If you like John Barnes and Peter F. Hamilton, you'll enjoy Alastair Reynolds.

I just got done reading in my humble opinion the best sf novel of the year,Revelation Space. Reynolds has estabished himself with this grand and mostly chilling space opera set in the 26th century.He has the ability to tell diverse storylines and have them come together in cohensive and gripping fashion.Dan Sylveste, a obessive scientist on the colony world of Resurgam seeks to find the answers for why the planet's original inhabitants,the Amarantins a avian race was wiped out eons ago. But Sylveste doesn't know it but he and his simulation of his dead, father calvin are being seek by cyborg crew of starship Nostalgia for Infinity to cure their captain who suffers from nanotech plague.Sylveste isn't aware that one of the crew,a lady assasin, Khouri is contracted to kill him!The tension of this novel is so palpable you can almost cut it with the knife.Reynolds also knows his plot twists, as he illustrates that in the future technology changes but human nature doens't as he gives scenes of machivellian manuvers among the crew of Nostlagia.Characters in this epic novel also are not what they appear to be like the brave and sometimes ruthless Volyoya who seeks to save her captain from the nanotech plague. Khouri the assasin who must kill Sylveste in order to be reunited with her husband.The deadly Sajaki who agendas on the ship no one knows.Reynolds how to create memorable worlds and aliens like engimatic intelligence called the Shroud and how those who enters it are changed. The atmosphere of the creepy ship, Nostlagia very memorable as the crew battle each other and deadly stowaway called Sun Stealer.Reynolds also gives a answer why there are few intelligent civilizations found in the universe.the reason will terrify you!The author's ability in universe-building puts him in the same league as David Brin, Greg Bear, and frank herbert as he tells a epic saga that transcences space and billions of years in the history of the universe.Reynolds also knows how tell a story with hars science in a way that doesn't confuse the reader or take away from the human element of story.Reynolds knows how write action sequences as he describes in relish as the ship battles the defenses of the machine planet,Cerberus and terrifying escape from the menace of the Sun Stealer.This was the best space opera I've read since Peter Hamilton's Reality Dysfunction series and bodes well for Reynolds future in the genre!

Alastair Reynolds has produced an amazing masterpiece (an incredible debut!) blending the extrapolations of hard science with unforgettable characters set in a possible and disturbing future five centuries from now. This is a thinking person's novel, not light reading to be finished overnight. The conceptions from nanotechnology, astrophysics, genetic engineering, and computer science will stimulate you and keep you thinking long after finishing the book. It is so well written, that despite its length I was left wishing it would continue for a few hundred pages more. The vast panorama of intergalactic history and conflict, spanning billions of years, and the original ideas the author presents establish him as one of the most powerful voices of modern science fiction, in the tradition of Arthur Clarke, A.E. van Vogt, Jack Williamson, and a few others. Although the power of this novel emerges primarily from the dizzying vistas of the future and the alien artifacts and civilizations it paints in cataclysmic brush strokes, it also features outstanding characters not easily forgotten: Khouri, the soldier assassin, and Ilia Volyova, the dynamic Triumvir on the starship Infinity, are easily two of the strongest female characters in sf literature, and the pathos of Dan Sylveste will long linger in memory as well. This novel is a first rate masterpiece of the calibre of Clarke's CHILDHOOD'S END, Williamson & Gunn's STAR BRIDGE, and A.E. van Vogt's VOYAGE OF THE SPACE BEAGLE. Highly recommended!