Revelation Space

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself.

With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason. And if that reason is uncovered, the universe - and reality itself - could be irrevocably altered.

©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"One of the best books of the year." ( Science Fiction Chronicle)
"Ferociously intelligent and imbued with a chilling logic - it may really be like this Out There." (Stephen Baxter, co-author of The Light of Other Days)

Tough Listen, story hard to follow

Narration was very hard for me. Had to slow it down but the transition from the different contexts of the story was very hard to follow in an audio book. I only got a few hours in an gave up.

Decent story; sometimes hard to follow

I read/listened to the Prefect Dreyfus Emergencies before I got to this book and started the series; so it was interesting reading about Ultra[naut]s as they seemed mysterious and out of touch before this. I'm a little put out by the overall premise, don't we have enough civilization destroying entities in other fiction? On the other hand the threads eventually coming together is what gives this four stars. I do have a twofold critique of story that also ties directly into performance. Starting with the story; Sajaki, Hazaki, Sujik - whether written or audio the characters' names blended into each other at times and sometimes I couldn't figure out who was who - then add one of the plot points and it got a little worse so the story "twists" weren't as impactful as they may have been. Adding to this is Mr. Lee. He's a measured and easy listening narrator; but I sometimes had difficulty determining characters, particularly after a break - the accents attributed are too similar. Volyova and Sajaki in particular.

Good, not great.

I love sci-fi. I love technical sci-fi. This story would be a very good read, but didn't translate well into an audio book. I think this was partly due to the way it was written and secondly due to the heavy accents in narration, which made it hard to understand. I kept having to go back and relisten to past chapters to follow the story, which really was a large mystery and discovery story. In the end, I was happier that it was over, more than I was to finish the story. I could have passed on this one.

Not quite Peter F Hamilton

If you like Peter F Hamilton then you most likely will like this. It's not quite as complex as PFH's work but it share similar themes. Certainly worth a credit.

Absolutely no character

I normally love epic sci-fi and so I was excited for something dense that would take its time, but I truly had to drag myself through this. It’s not fun-dense, it just doesn’t add up. Every time I thought it might be going somewhere a character does something completely out of character with no explanation, and random new facts with no plot relevance are dropped in. This happened enough that I realized I no longer cared enough about the world or the people in it to finish it, despite being nearly at the end. I wouldn’t waste a credit on this.

documentary narrator does sci fi

if you never mess with playback speed you’ll actually want to with this guy, i never touch it but it’s set to to 0.8-0.9 and i can almost tolerate the broken sentences & bad pacing

Mind Blowing Complexity and Beauty

Very complex book that will take a few reads to fully appreciate. The narrators accents can be a bit thick, but adds a nice new dimension to characters.

The best resolution of the Fermi paradox I've read in in SF so far

Three different heroes journey converging to unravel a story of extinted alien spicies. Exemplary writing from start to end.

Interesting Story but a bit confusing plot

This story is interesting in the concepts and in the world building. However for most of the first portion of the book I was largely confused by the plot & factions. It only starts to come together around the halfway point. The world building was the best part of this book. We only see a small portion of total human culture but it was very interesting how divergent certain human cultures have become. The ending left me interested enough to start the next book in the series.

So big and so good.

I loved this book. It was my first from audible.com, and I was not only immediately sucked into the story, but I also really enjoyed the narration. Regardless of what other reviewers have said, I found the accents and dialects to be well done, unlike many contrived and corny variations. John Lee's voice acting is subtle and properly punctuated, without all the histrionics that usually ruin audiobooks. Moreover, although lengthy, Reynolds moved the plot along well while dipping into details that thoroughly paint just the right picture. The description and detail is vivid and expansive, and I frequently felt as though I was wandering the Nostalgia for Infinity spacecraft when some corridor or facility was described. The characters were compelling and interesting, and you really want to know each one's story as the plot thickens. And with no real "good guy," I still empathized with the various protagonists, wanting them each to succeed at their respective goal - even when it meant contradicting or conflicting with other characters' motivations. Really great. I'm suggesting it to all my SF fan friends, and moving on to Chasm City.