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Revelation Space 25

Posted by Hemos from the and-he-unsealed-the-seventh-seal dept.
Returning with another science fiction review, Duncan Lawie takes a look at Revelation Space. Written by Alastair Reynolds, this is the author's first book length effort - and it looks good.
Revelation Space
author Alastair Reynolds
pages 470
publisher USA: To Be Published by Ace
rating 8.5/10
reviewer Duncan Lawie
ISBN 0575068760
summary Fiercely intelligent hard science fiction, bursting with ideas and rich with plot.

Alastair Reynolds is one of the breed of science fiction writers who is also a professional scientist. Originally from Wales, he has a PhD in astronomy from St Andrew's University in Scotland and lives in the Netherlands, where he works on scientific data analysis, primarily for the European Space Agency. He has taken the traditional route into publication through short story writing, having been published in magazines such as Interzone and Asimov's in recent years. Much of his work can be categorised as "radical hard science fiction", a style of writing which has helped revitalise the British science fiction scene. Revelation Space is his first novel.

As the book opens, Volyova is a senior officer on a lighthugger - several kilometres of malfunctioning, self-repairing starship capable of accelerating almost to the speed of light. She is experiencing a little local difficulty with her gunnery officer, who is trying to kill her. Khouri is a soldier who was frozen and shipped 20 light years away from her war and the only world she knew as a result of a clerical error. She has taken up assassination as an appropriate employment since she is "good with weapons". Sylveste is the leader of a scientific colony/expedition which has suffered rebellion and the departure of its only lighthugger. He is more interested in excavating the relics of an alien civilisation almost a million years dead.

These principal characters focus the large cast and the author's first objective is to get them all into the same time frame. This manipulation becomes apparent through the diverse range of settings and time periods in the early chapters - to the extent that it becomes a treatise on working within the boundaries that nature - or Einstein - has set. The complex machinations introduced set up the plot drivers for the book as a whole, though this does not mean that the story is simply revealed to the reader. Much of the intelligence of the novel is derived from the exposure of deeper plot motives as the book progresses. Some revelations are gently foreshadowed whilst others burst from the page. One of the central concerns of the book is the conundrum at the heart of the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence: if we are not alone, where is everybody else?

The story unfolds within a universe populated with enigmatic aliens, bizarre technology, conspiracies, death, world threatening weapons and post-human races. The definition of human has expanded away from the Homo sapiens norm, some becoming machine-human hybrids, others adapting to the new environments the galaxy has to offer. The technological background of the novel is creatively engineered and inventively described. This complex universe pervades the atmosphere of the book without Reynolds having to draw demonstrating the protagonists' limited views. Revelation Space develops as a product of interaction between characters and through increasing understanding of the external world and the history of the galaxy. Though the plot never begins to feel predictable, the central characters become increasingly well defined through development and disclosure. Reynolds' inventiveness combines with a fondness for science fiction tropes to produce a picture of a rich and true human universe five centuries hence.

Alastair Reynolds: home page
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Revelation Space

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  • Umm, what new breed? (Score:3)

    by flatpack ( 212454 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @05:32AM (#761170)

    Alastair Reynolds is one of the breed of science fiction writers who is also a professional scientist.

    This is hardly a "new breed", try for instance, Stephen Baxter [math.ethz.ch] who has a PhD in mathematics and whose Xeelee sequence contains some of the most epic ideas in all of SF (neutron stars as weapons? engineered singularities a billion light years wide?). Or check out Greg Egan [netspace.net.au]'s homepage, which has some of his fiction and a load of Java applets which he has programmed.

    Seriously, there are a lot of tecnically accomplished science-fiction writers out there today who really do know what they're talking about. The two above are IMHO the best, but they're far from the only ones...

  • For that matter.... (Score:3)

    by FascDot Killed My Pr ( 24021 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @05:38AM (#761171)
    Heinlein - engineer
    Asimov - PhD in biochemistry
    Niven - PhD(?) in mathematics
    Haldeman - Masters (PhD?) in physics (astronomy?)
    And many many others. Nearly ALL science fiction authors have technical backgrounds. Fantasy (unfortunately but understandably lumped together in most bookstores/libraries) authors generally do not.
    --
    Linux MAPI Server!
    http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
  • The word "new" appears only once in the article, and not in the location where you have read it to be. Reread the sentence you quoted very carefully. You're seeing things that you want to see, not what is actually there.

  • Hmm, Robert Jordan [pionet.net] has a degree in Physics, but I can't think of any more who have off the top of my head...

  • The article: "Alastair Reynolds is one of the breed of science fiction writers who is also a professional scientist." You: "This is hardly a "new breed" Me: So? It's hardly a yellow breed either, but no-one's pretending that it is..

    -

  • Rating the review (Score:3)

    by m2 ( 5408 ) <[slashdot.org] [at] [spam.ksub.org]> on Friday September 22, 2000 @05:56AM (#761175) Homepage Journal

    Since I haven't read the book, I rather rate the review...

    Uninteresting. Shallow. Tries too hard to look "profesional" and fails. Provides very little insight into the author's style or performance.

    That said, the reviews found and/or linked from the author's homepage are much intriguing and do raise some interest on the book. The author links to an excerpt from the book [amazon.co.uk] which is certainly interesting but doesn't really want to make me go out and buy the book right this minute.

  • Yes, but Stephen Baxter's writing sucks like a hoover.

    I was going to write a review of Revelation Space, but Hemos beat me to it. Take my word for it, Reynold's effort is a genuinely superior piece of work.

    Ralph

  • You have a point? You couldn't just ignore the whole thing? You think we care whether you're riveted or bored by bookreviews? Think again.

    Stefan.
    It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-

  • Seriously, if you think mp3's sound just as good a CD ripped wavs, try Shatner.

    Listen to the recently released HDCD of Shatner singing Mr. Tambourine Man and compare it to the mp3's floating around. Your ears will hear the difference.
  • Duncan writes "Alastair Reynolds is one of the breed of science fiction writers who is also a professional scientist" flatpack writes "This is hardly a "new breed", try for instance" Now somebody point out to me just where is it in the first sentence that the word "new" is used? Oh it's not ok thanks. IMHO, Stephen Baxter is useless. Read Niven, Pournelle, or Forward all of whom rock.
  • He didn't claim it was a new breed. You read "new" into it.
  • What can be done about this? Maybe a trade embargo against countries where this happens?

  • I love this novel (Score:3)

    by emmanuel.charpentier ( 36227 ) on Friday September 22, 2000 @06:49AM (#761182) Homepage

    Read it a month ago, and loved it. [found it in a welsch library]

    I still can't believe how the author managed to (seemingly easily) uncover layers after layers of superb techs, deep characters and paranoiac plots. For example Volyova, one of the spacefaring self modified and lonely "ultras" part of humanity, start as a cold bitch who doesn't mind manufacturing loyalty. No feeling, no remorse. While Khouri is stuff to make fantasies of. And yet they sort of end up on the same side of the fence, and you can actually feel the force of their characters when they rival sun stealer.

    The pattern jugglers, an ocean able to record any information, and restitute it directly into your brain (when you go for a swim), is still something I have to sort out. I do wonder where the guy got his inspiration.

    I love the formidable space suits, you couldn't believe what you can do with them, or what -it- can do with you. And I could do with an alpha record of me, or maybe just a beta, considering you are supposed to destroy your physical body when you undertake the former.

    Nice review, nice novel.
  • I'm looking for a good website that talks about new and upcoming sf (and maybe fantasy) books. I have my own sf site that talks about what I've read and liked, but I want to find out about new stuff I haven't seen yet.


    Read a good book lately?
  • Its like a food critic wrote a book review.

    Surely:

    It's like a food review ate a book critic.


    -~ ~- -~ ~-
  • I think it's a yellow breed.
  • Seriously, I'm interested. Slashdot seems to throw up a fiction book review periodically, often on a book that's been out for months (or years).

    How do you decide that a review on Revelation Space (which is a good read, by the way, although the review might have been more relevant six months ago) is going to be more useful, say, than a review of the new Iain Banks novel?

    At the moment, I'll be honest, the fiction reviews seem a little half hearted... either try to make a decent stab at it, or maybe just link to something more comprehensive.

  • to be fair nowhere in

    Alastair Reynolds is one of the breed of science fiction writers who is also a professional scientist.

    is there any mention of new. why does it seem people are so eager to jump all over anybody who posts an article/story?
  • Hmm, an ocean that can record any information and put it directly in your brain when you 'go for a swim'. Would that be like the shape-shifters 'ocean' on DS9?

    And this space suit you speak of sounds extremely familiar to me. Perhaps the author read Dan Simmons Hyperion/Endymion books? Space suits that modify themselves (and you) in such ways as to make a 'wing' kilometers wide that can 'catch the waves' of sunlight and ride them. Enhancing vision through sub-optical light.

    I don't mean to flame, but I would like enough details of the story to know if it is worthwhile, or if it is just a collection of other people's ideas. So far, it sounds like the later.
  • well, how about Gregory Benford? The best hard science fiction writer I have read. Just read his "Timescape" to be convinced. Beautiful, the way the human side of that story is interwoven with the highly scientific discussions of relativity, quantum mechanics and time travel.
  • It's already been pointed out that this post is factually incorrect. Why after 5 hours has it not been modded down?
  • I read the excerpt (which has now been slashdotted) and all I can say is...*yawn*. This is the kind of sci-fi writing that Philip K. Dick would term as "hack" (and not in the sense of "hack-ING"; hack as in hack writers!). I really can't stand reading lengthy paragraphs of explanatory narrative, expecially technical.

    This is the sort of cheap, juvenile drivel that 14 year olds enjoy because of the "cool toys." Truly great sci-fi transcends this technology fascination and really doesn't care how sound the science is - it's secondary to the story itself.

    You want to read good sci-fi? Try:
    Gun, With Occasional Musicby Jonathan Lethem
    The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
    The Disposessedby Ursula K. Leguin Empire of the Senselessby Kathy Acker (fans of Neuromancer would hate this)
    Trouble on Triton by Samuel Delany (intro by Kathy Acker - edition!)
    Software/Wetware by Rudy Rucker
    Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino (and the sequel, t zero)

    Anyhow, no doubt we all have different tastes, so If you love or hate this book it won't make you any cooler/less cool.

  • The book certainly looks 'plotty'. But reading the review I can't figure where the 7th seal comes in? The from-dept's are usually witty and related - but here - maybe it's just 'Lost in Space'.

  • Philip K. Dick, esteemed author of The Three Stigmata of Eldritch Palmer and others, was the Chief Biologist on the CIA's MK-Ultra project, though he got a little carried away.

    Crap, PKD wasn't a biologist. His main interest was Pyschology and his works are notable for their lack of technical accuracy.

    Don't get me wrong, "A Scanner Darkly" is one of my favorite books.

  • Don't know if he ever got a degree, but Philip Dick was a clerk in a classical record store, and (allegedly) he liked drugs a lot, and he got divorced several times, which background variously informed his extensive and inimitable body of work.

    Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net

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