Tag Archives: alastair reynolds

books, Reviews, science fiction, Space opera

Redemption Ark (Revelation Space 2) by Alasdair Reynolds

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Stars: 2.5 out of 5.

This is the third book I read by this author, and I’m beginning to see a trend: the worldbuilding is excellent. The ideas are fascinating and thought-provoking. The faraway future of human space exploration and settlement the author paints is definitely worth exploring further. But the characters, oh the characters… the author can’t write engaging characters to save his life.

It was a slight issue for me in the first book of the series, Revelation Space, but the new world was interesting enough to dive into that I overlooked the lack of engaging characters to follow. It was also visible in the prequel Chasm City, but at least that book gave me some answers about other things raised in book 1, so I let is slide. But this problem came to the forefront in this book, because the main storyline is most definitely character driven. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any good characters to latch on to. And by good I mean interesting and realistic, or even engaging. 

I couldn’t care less for Clavain and his identity crisis, mostly because he came off condescending and thinking himself smarter and better than anyone else in the universe… while making some rather stupid assumptions and decisions. I also didn’t like Skade and couldn’t really understand her motivations for being as she is. You would think that it would be better explained, since she is the main villain. But even her story was put aside halfway through, when Clavain and his crew got busy with the big confrontation with the Triumvir. 

Speaking of which, what was that even about? We spent pages upon pages talking about the importance of the weapons, and everyone is fighting for control and possession of said weapons… only to just leave them and run at the end? What was the point of this book exactly then? If they were essential for the fight against the Inhibitors, then why didn’t anyone bother to scoop them up before they turned tail and burned it out of the dying system?

As it stands, the book dragged for me. In fact, it took me the better half of last year and then a couple months in 2024 to finish it, simply because I would start losing interest after 10 pages or so and put the book away. I had to force myself to come back to it every time and finish it. I will still give book 3 a try to see where this story is going, but I hope it will be a much tighter book with at least a couple characters I can latch into.

books, Reviews, science fiction, Space opera

Revelation Space (Revelation Space 1) by Alastair Reynolds

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Stars: 4 out of 5

I love when I discover a new space opera series that I haven’t read before, and there are several books already written. This means that if I like the series, I can binge it at my heart’s content. I’m happy to say that Revelation Space is another binge-worthy contender. 

The author created a very complex and fascinating world with several characters that have different motivations and come from extremely different backgrounds. We are also presented with a complex interweaving story that eventually brings all of those characters to one place and time.

This is an interesting take on space exploration and the age of our universe. Unlike a lot of other science fiction franchises, like Star Trek for example, who are teaming with sentient alien species and stories of first contact and collaboration, human in the world of Revelation Space seem to be almost alone in the galaxy. Sure, they have encountered a couple other sentient races like the Shrouders or the Pattern Jugglers, but they are so alien that any hope of communication and understanding is short lived. But they found ruins, and plenty of them, on multiple planets. It’s almost like the galaxy used to be a crowded place teeming with intelligent life… that died out long before humanity made it to the stars. It’s like humans were too late for the party and found only the remnants of the buffet.

What happened? Why did all those civilizations disappear? Will the same fate befall humanity as well? The quest for the answers to those questions is what is at the heart of this story.

As I had mentioned before, we have a diverse group of characters in this story as well. And while I didn’t like all of them, I must admit that they were all interesting and well-done. They had distinct personalities and motivations. More importantly, there was always a reason behind their actions, even if that reason wasn’t immediately apparent. I love characters who behave and act in accordance with how they are established, because that makes them believable. 

Again, that doesn’t mean I liked all of them. Sylveste was a particularly self-absorbed condescending prick. I really can’t fathom what Pascale saw in him. Granted, he sort of redeemed himself in the end, but you could argue that he had to do it to prevent an extinction event that wouldn’t have happened hadn’t he been so pigheaded and single-minded in his obsession.

My only complaint is that the author overuses dialogue (or should I say monologue?) to infodump the reader on different events and concepts. It works the first or even the second time, but it gets rather old after a while. I also noticed that the characters constantly summarize previous events for other characters, even though the reader just witnessed them a few chapters ago. I mean sure, this book is 500 some pages long, but give the reader some credit, we haven’t forgotten what happened 100 pages ago.

The world itself is complex and fascinating, and this book only scratched the surface of it. I can’t wait to dive into the next books and uncover other pieces of the puzzle.