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

Unexpected twists and turns

The story is good even though it took a totally unexpected path. I'm not sure the bit about the Lindblad Confederation that bookends the story actually added anything to it.

It wasn't an unstoppable page-turner (I read two other books at the same time) and the "dogs" and their gristle-ship were difficult to accept even within the book's universe.

An easy listen, but not a great story

The beginning of the story is quite a bit more interesting and plausible than the ending. The author does a great job of building the characters and setting the scene for the drama in the beginning of the story. As the story progresses, however, I think the quality drops somewhat and becomes less interesting. What starts out as an above average SF story develops more and more into a "space opera" driven by illogical emotions and stupid choices.

The idea that a space vessel (albeit commercially operated) is run by consensus seems (and is certainly proven to be) a recipy for disaster. The captain of the space ship (and later leader of the human colony on Janus) is initially pictured as a very concensus oriented person who sets aside any personal ambitions to secure the lives of her crew, which makes me wonder why she is captain in the first place. Her character seems somewhat plausible in the beginning, but when she shows no ability to learn from what her lack of ability to enforce unpopular (but correct) decisions, and really carry the responsibility her position as captain entails, it becomes more annoying than enjoyable.

Towards the end the author tries to add spice to the story through the introduction of alien species and new technology, without great success. To me it seems like the story had grown long enough already, and that the author needed an ending (rather quickly, please).

By all means not a bad story and will certainly kill some time, but is certainly not among my top SF picks on Audible.

interesting but a bit haphazard

Perhaps audio made it harder to keep track. Perhaps the time scale, and the confusing foreshadowing from the prologue, just mixed things up a bit. The concepts, aliens and technology were clever and a great measure of how we likely won't expect the reality of aliens in the future, but this was washed out a bit by the conflicts taking place between the main characters of the story and again, the specific and surprising time shifts in the story.

Sci-fi with real science

I enjoyed this book. Many Sci-fi books are really fantasy with little or no science, buy this book does not fall into that trap.

There are plenty of struggles between powerful people, mutiny, double crossing aliens, and other plot twist to keep the story moving. I have to recommend it.

Not Reynolds best but descent

Some big plot holes detracts from this book. Reynolds tries to start small and finish "big" but doesn't really pull it off. The "conflict "between the two main characters seems forced at times and basic survival necessities for humans are glossed over. (Spoiler alert) the badguy aliens at the end seem random and unexplained. John Lee's performance is stellar as always. Overall an OK book but not Reynolds best.

Not my favorite

Painfully slow! The two main characters are just annoying and that’s all the story revolves around. I just couldn’t get into it. The narrator could have been better I concentrated more on the bad narration than the story. I would recommend a pass on this

Good Book

I liked the story. It was a little slow in some areas, but overall I found it enjoyable and entertaining. By the end I couldn't wait to find out what happened to the characters. Worth a read.

Excellent Sci-Fi

This is a great book that is well thought out, and it examines some very interesting issues regarding space exploration and the vastness of time.

Solid Science Fiction

If you like some space travel, science facts and aliens, then this is the book for you. Good plot, which starts off slowly but builds up and has some good twists and turns. Narration is good and characters are well-differentiated. If you like Heinlein, Pohl, Niven or those of that ilk, you will like this.

Pushing Ice Stimulating idea

it had some great ideas but it was long. I loved listening to it in the car on my way to and from work.