Pushing Ice

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 19 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it.

The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed. As layers of camouflage fall away, it becomes clear that Janus was never a moon in the first place. It's some kind of machine - and it is now headed toward a fuzzily glimpsed artifact 260 light-years away. The Rockhopper is the only ship anywhere near Janus, and Bella Lind is ordered to shadow it for the few vital days before it falls forever out of reach. In accepting this mission, she sets her ship and her crew on a collision course with destiny - for Janus has more surprises in store, and not all of them are welcome.

©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

"[Reynolds is] a genius for big-concept SF and fans of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Larry Niven's Ringworld will love this novel." ( Publishers Weekly

Wonderful hard sci-fi with broken characters

Any additional comments?

Pushing Ice is a wonderful book in many aspects. For someone who likes the science part in science fiction, I was fully taken by the technology and science behind the story. I found the travel at relativistic speeds, time dilation and gravitational forces especially appealing, well explained and integrated into the story. On the other hand, I was seriously disappointed by the characters. Nearly all were highly unlikeable. Not so much because of their character traits, but because they were all extremist in their own ways. So extremist that they were ready to kill for reasons that looked, or at least were described as, minor. I did not find any motives behind the character actions; they seemed as set pieces in a machinery. This made the book much less believable to me.

From the audio perspective, I found the presentation relatively good. The reader was consistent in accents, even though sometimes he interchanged voices, especially for male characters. The only gripe I'd have here is a minor one: people's voices sound overly dramatic, as if starring in a soap opera.

All in all, though, a well worth standalone work for fans of harder science fiction.

We Push Ice. That’s What We Do . . .

The best, so far, of all the Alastair Reynolds books I’ve experienced. Specific to the writing, this is truly epic Sci-Fi: best in breed. Couple Reynolds’ writing with John Lee’s outstanding narration and this book really delivers.

Pushing Ice takes place outside Reynolds’ Revelation-Space universe, in which so many of his stories are based. There are no tie-ins to the Rev-Space series. That fact caused me to delay this book until I’d finished all his Rev-Space books – thinking this book wouldn’t be as good as those. My mistake.

If you enjoy depth to a story, this book will not disappoint. Reynolds delivers both intrigue of plot and inter-character drama as he explores the tapestry of this multi-millennia-spanning voyage of hardship and discovery.

My only complaint is this: it ended too soon . . .

Completely surprised at how good this book was.

Would you listen to Pushing Ice again? Why?

When a book makes me stay up listening until 2am, it's a good book. The description of of the storyline really does not do the book justice. When you think you have a grasp on the limits of the situation they find themselves in, you will be surprised with yet another twist.

Also don't think that the story is about crew on a comet. The crew is only on the comet at the very start of the book. This book is about first-contact, aliens, survival, the human species, the future, technology, friendship, trust, betrayal, living forever, good aliens, bad aliens, etc, etc, and Reynolds does a great job filling your mind with imagination. Wow, what-if!!

Highly recommend this book!

Have you listened to any of John Lee’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've listened to John Lee in the Pillars of the Earth, World without End, and a couple more. This was my favorite performance for John Lee. Great job.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book made me think and imagine and hope.

Any additional comments?

Can't wait for a sequel.

Rockhopping Ice Pushers

Would you listen to Pushing Ice again? Why?

I will listen to it again when Mr. Reynolds writes a sequel (as long as it doesn't take too long)

What did you like best about this story?

I liked the pacing of this story. It felt action packed, and at the same time it was a drawn out with great scale. At the end I wanted more.

Which scene was your favorite?

I laughed way too hard when the Fountain-heads named themselves after mountains.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The conflict between the two protagonists moved me quite a bit.

Firstly, I don't know if everyone believes there are two protagonists in this story; one could be an antagonist.

Their relationship is the barycenter of the story. It was frustrating to have both their perspectives, because it was hard to say either was wrong.

Any additional comments?

I named one of my KSP ships Rockhopper

great story, reader not so much...

deep, complex story, likeable characters, well drawn. I wish the reader had more variation in his voices. it was often difficult to keep track of who was speaking.

Hard scifi not a hard sell

The strange weird and wonderful yet believable universe built by Reynolds is amazing. The scale of the stories over time and space impress and cause pause for thought. As an introduction to hard scifi it intrigues and if you're familiar with the genre it provides new possibilities to consider

Interesting but too slow

The overall story is interesting, with intriguing alien concepts. But I found the story progressed far too slowly for me; I remember my disappointment when I finally got to the end, only to discover "You have only come to the end of a part, but not the end of the entire book" What? Oh no...

Towards the end, I was definitely tiring of the frustrating tendency for the characters to decide on a course of action and then spend time debating the merits of that course. But wait, they already committed to this action, so why discuss it? I also read "Ship of Magic" recently which is even more detailed but doesn't feel slow because it is constantly progressing the plot.

The Dr. Zachary Smith type of character is often a required foil for the smart people to play against, but I've never been a fan of annoying people who can misunderstand any given situation.

Many of the side-plot narrations seemed to have little purpose in the overall story arc, other than to show other things that were going on.

The narration was generally fine but I found the frequent and rushed "I'm sorry" grew tedious.

Overall, I guess I'm glad that I read it.

Epic story

Wonderfully epic story, spanning an equally epic journey. Life is not about the destination, indeed.

didn't want to end - such a great story.

thanks for the magnificent journey. it was a true pleasure to follow the lives of these characters

PDAleph1

With the two main characters being female, I would have expected a female narrator. Great story regardless.