Redemption Ark

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 27 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Late in the 26th century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors---alien-killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons---and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes---and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether.

©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2009 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Reynolds confirms his place among the leaders of the hard-science space-opera renaissance." ( Publishers Weekly Starred Review)
"The best of the new breed of space opera. Wild action on a grand scale spans well-imagined and developed worlds." ( The Denver Post)

A surprise at every turn...

This was epic. A journey of space and time, G forces and Wolves. A life and death struggle in personal and civilization scales. wish We could see this adventure unfold on the big screen. Characters are compelling, complicated, thought provoking. I didn't want it to end..

B

narrator voice

the narrator was a little hard to focus on at first, won't keep you awake driving. but he differentiated the voices well

Amazing story, sub par production

I highly enjoy the concept and layout of this series. John Lee does his trademark excellent performance. However, the production quality is shockingly low. Not in the sense than you can hear pages turning or breathing on the part of the narrator, but that there is literally zero pause between different sections of a chapter. One second you are listing to one character from one story line, and the very next second a different character in a different story line in a different section of the galaxy is talking as if they never stopped from their previous section. I found myself skipping back frequently, sometimes a minute or four, because I realized the character I thought was speaking was actually someone else and in my confusion I had missed a chunk of the story. I feel most people listen to audio books while engaging in less mentally demanding activities (driving, cleaning, etc.), but this book almost requires you to sit and stare at a wall while listening so you don’t miss anything. I will continue to purchase and listen to this series, I just hope the producer sees this and fixes the flaw for future books.

a middle book of filler

If you could sum up Redemption Ark in three words, what would they be?

Slow being to end -

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Am I wake or....

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

No snoring please

Any additional comments?

Jon Lee needed to add some acting

Great Science Fiction

I read Revelation Space in print, and really enjoyed it, so I started the rest of the series in audio. It's awesome science fiction, akin to Ian M Banks' books, such as 'surface detail'.

The narrator has grown on me during the series. He's doing a fine job.

I'm certainly going to finish the series.

Take A Sip Of Some Excellent Hard Sci-Fi

In the distant future, humans are locked in a desperate civil war for control of the Universe. Ah, but there is a third entity who is lurking in the outer realms of space with plans of hunting down and killing all humans. They are ruthless, relentless and should be feared.

I enjoyed Alastair Reynolds’ “Chasm City” and decided to listen to his Revelation Space Series. I hated book one, “Revelation Space”, and quickly abandoned my plan. After several months of healing from the bad listen, I decided to fire up “Redemption Ark” and learned that resistance is futile. I will lower my shields and be assimilated by this Hard Sci-Fi series.

Decent book if not wholly original

Just finished this one. Nice long book. Wasn't quite as epic as advertised but entertaining all the same. An awful lot of familiar elements to regular scifi devourers.

Love and Quantum Vacuum

Alistair's science is impeccable, his world is more realistic than any other. The one downside is that his characters seem too stiffly self controlled than real people.

Great followup to Revelation Space

The new characters, Neville Clavain, Scade, Scorpio, and the Inhibitors make for a good story.

satisfying return to the main story

satisfying return to the main story after Chasm City left me mildly disappointed. going to jump straight into the next book.