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

it's hard to pick a favourite book

This story makes me want to be a better person. The conceptual frame work in this story is awe inspiring. Huge scope and micro-level details. I felt sorry for the fish.

Solid Sci Fi

It reads as classic old school sci fi. The writer knows his stuff and makes it convincing. I'm less enthused by the somewhat by-the-numbers characterisations, but this is typical of what I mean by 'old school sci fi'. It's a well paced book and I enjoyed it.

I'm afraid that I have a big problem with the narration however. While Mr Lee has a fine voice and a relaxed tone, he adopts a sing-song cadence , rolling through punctuation as if it isn't there. This drains meaning from sentences and renders the characters even flatter than written. Despite attempts at varying accents , everyone sounds the same and frankly I got bored listening to it. Gritting my teeth to get through this book.

In future I'll buy the paper versions of Alastair Reynolds novels and read them myself.

Story breaking levels of narcissism :(

the narrative writing is absolutely top-notch, and the presentation was solid-though I did think that Svetlana's diction changed quite a bit during the story, while no one else's did, which was distracting. Somehow she became more and more Polish as time went on...?

Now...I am sorry to say this, and i have reflected on this a bit to be sure that it isn't just my desire to have had the story unroll differently - something that I strongly believe separates actual reviews from what is essentially whining: the two main pro/antagonists Bella and Svetlana are unbelievably immature and selfish. When I say that, I mean it breaks the story, not just that I wish they were different. Character flaws are fine, but stories about two irrationally deluded people aren't fun, interesting, or informative if there is no way to relate to them.

Svetlana displayed behavior characterized by regularly breaking donald trump levels of self-interest and outright narcissism-more than any one "leader" could possibly demonstrate in a group of less than a thousand people and still keep their head. Bella's judgements to ignore the original indictment of conspiracy against Deep Shaft coming at her from her "friend" isn't even close to rational, but at least it was excusable because it serves to further the plot. THEN, when her refusal to hold Svetlana responsible for her outright crimes - almost all of which were directly attributable to people dying gruesome deaths - past iteration #3, it began to seem more and more like the story was less about Janus and The Structure and more about how this narcissistic wacko was going to eventually screw everything up, which very predictably happens.

Basically, all of the pallative understanding heaped on the reader trying to justify the decisions of these two overtly sociopathic leaders became obvious attempts to plug the believability leaks in the story quite early,
and the book meandered on and on and on while no resolution was offered to that growing mountainous heap of unbelievability, until one of the elements just disappeared. It was reminiscent of the way hack Hollywood directors perpetually build intrigue during an entire feature and never resolve any of it in the 3rd act, essentially an entertainment "bait and switch", which I personally find intellectually and emotionally insulting.

In summation, the book had a LOT of really neat scifi concepts, but they were mostly just set pieces rather than plot devices, and the weird love/HATE relationship between the two main characters distracted every bit of real attention from the story. if one of these characters were eliminated early, or they resolved their differences and faced a real enemy for 90% of the story arc instead of being passive aggressive narcissists, it would have been about, say, 40% more engaging. As it is it's just watching a high-school drama unfold over the course of a few centuries; I've been to High-school; no thanks.

Meh

Prolog really put me off. It was corny.

The narrator, while having a very nice voice, has a very matter of fact way of narrating. It was hard to stay immersed. Sometimes it felt like he was reading a grocery list.

As for the story, often new plots were spun only to be abandoned and picked up way later when you already forgot about them.
Not all loose ends are tied at the end. A lot of questions are left unanswered.

Secondary characters are meaningless. They are one sided and cause no sway on the main characters, which are indeed complex, but they don't seem to evolve.

Great standalone.

John Lee and Alastair Reynolds are my fave combo. I hope there’s a sequel someday but it’s great on its own.

If it weren't for the narrator...

I like the premise of this book and the story. I wanted to listen to it, but I could not get past the narrator's style of speaking. He has a thick accent, which is ok, but every phrase and sentence begins and ends with the same intonation. The sentence starts evenly then goes up and drops down flat on the last word. It sounds like lazy reading, like someone is not even trying to get the emotion of the scene across, but is just getting through the next line. Its like listening to Count Chocula read a sci fi book. Kind of funny at first, then annoying, then I dreaded going back to the book to listen. More dissapointing, I found that this narrator recorded all of this author's books. So I guess I'll have to read them on paper instead. Oh well...

Meh

Not a lot of emotional connection with the characters. Plot wasn’t all that interesting. Narration was OK.

Good/Great scifi novel

I loved the premise and the first 1/2 of the novel. Then it gets a bit repetitive with characters not learning from previous mistakes which is kind of dull and gets to be a bit of a slog. And the ending is... poor and left me feeling unsatisfied and wanting more information about what's next. It's nice that it is only a single book but could have used some more... polishing at the end.

Excellent

Really enjoyed the book! Definitely recommend. Enjoyed the focused nature of the story as an alternative to his revelation space series.

Reynolds at his Best

The story is grand in scale and totally engaging. Reynolds exposes the human condition and take his reader far into the future to draw a positive picture of what humanity may become. The narration is flawless. A page turner and ear burner from beginning to end.