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)

Very solid until the end but I will continue the series

The writing and character development is quite good in my opinion. Further, the hard science fiction portion of it was really quite compelling and interesting. The characters, as mentioned, were well developed, but then, at the end as it drew to a close, they began to make obviously ruinous decisions that did not fit with their previous characters at all. However, I found it intriguing enough and well written enough for the first 3/4 to continue the series.

Requires your full attention

This is an excellent book and the narrator sounds good he has a great voice. I got lost several times because there was no indication of the other characters turn in the story. The futuristic ideas in this story are very interesting. the only issue is you have to put all your attention to the story so you won't get lost it took me probably twice as long as the book to get through it because of how many times I got lost. Overall very fascinating story.

poor narration

couldn't finish due the narration. slurred and sometimes muffled, it was difficult to follow

Confusing at first, but strong finish

Good story. There are a lot of characters that were hard to keep track of during the story, but it eventually focused down to a manageable amount with enough diversity to easily recognize each. The story was crazy too. The cultures were just thrown at the listener in a rush, so again it took time to consolidate the situation of each enclave of each set of characters. But once that happened the story world blossomed. The twists were fun and enlightened. I was almost ahead of them but still happy with each revolution right through the tale. It was good enough that I’ll be hitting the next book in the series next. Recommend to any fan of Reynolds’s past works as well as Vo to any spaceship enthusiasts. Two thumbs up.

well-plotted but emotionally unsatisfying

As hard SF goes, Revelation Space is definitely on the “harder” end of the spectrum. It's a got a complex, ambitious plot, with all sorts of far future tech casually treated as normal fixtures of reality. The novel's vision of dark, mysterious alien powers, which are behind the disappearance of civilizations whose ruins are found throughout the galaxy, is intriguing. The protagonists are the "gritty, complex" sort, driven by their own personal agendas, and not unwilling to manipulate or even betray the others. Reynolds does a good job of writing clearly, conveying a sense of the underlying science without over-examining it. He also deserves credit for writing some convincingly tough female characters, without making a big deal about it. The plot wasn’t uninteresting.

On the minus side, Revelation Space suffers (in my opinion) from a flaw common to other hard sci-fi, namingly that its intricate plot machinations and cerebral focus don't leave much breathing space for the emotional aspects of the story. Though the main characters are credible enough, it’s hard to care about them, and I found myself wishing that Reynolds would slow down on the intrigues, shipboard politics, and space battles, and offer a little more of the awe and wonder that I read science fiction for in the first place. For example, there's a scene towards the end of the book in which a character penetrates a vast alien artifact, but Reynolds barely gives any attention to what it looks like, or the character's reactions. Talk about a wasted moment. Though it’s been years since I’ve read Dan Simmon’s Hyperion, *he* made such scenes into page-turner material.

Unfortunately, the audiobook experience adds another flaw: the reader doesn’t leave any space between scene switches! This led to numerous rewinds on my part, whenever I wasn't paying close attention. The character backstories get a little confusing.

In sum, your opinion of this book will probably depend heavily on whether or not your tastes already include a lot of hard SF (Vernor Vinge, Peter Hamilton). If so, there’s plenty of smart stuff in Revelation Space. However, for other readers, the lack of much emotional resonance might override the other selling points.

Performance sub par

I found this audio book hard to follow. The reader had great accents, but his volume often trailed off at the end of sentenses to the point where I couldn't make out words. The audio might have benefitted from an audio compressor to make the low/quiet parts easier to hear. The story also would have benefitted by adding music between the scene changes. The reader would often change between scenes and characters, and I wouldn't realize it for at least a minute. I'm going to try to read this one because I hear it's a good book. I've listened to a lot of audio books, and I would not recommend this unless you are very patient and plan to listen in a quiet environment.

Terrible editing ruins this audiobook

The book jumps frequently between scenes and plot lines, a common technique for building suspense, which works fine in print where white space on the page is your cue for the scene change. However, for an audiobook, you need cue... normally a long pause in other audio books. In this recording, there is no cue! No pause, no page turn sound, nothing! It makes it very difficult to listen to because the scene changes are often during conversations, so you don't even know which characters are speaking. Very annoying!!

The story itself is wonderful, except for the ending which is literally deus ex machina.

Must give it your full attention!

There’s a lot going on and bunch of back and fourth with character development. I couldn’t keep up with my listening style which I’m usually doing something else... driving, yard work etc... It’s a super detailed story that demands your full attention!

Confusing

I tried three different times to listen to this book. The character names are similar and most of them sound Russian so it was hard to keep them straight. Plot shifts are very abrupt causing me to be several moments into a conversation before realizing there had been a shift. And really, I just found it boring.

Good book, solid science fiction.

Story was great, science was solid, narrator could use some work. Narration switched between yelling and whispering.