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)

Entertaining SF with Some cool concepts

I noticed some other reviewers complaining that the story was hard to follow. It's not. There are three storylines that are easy to tell apart if you are paying the least bit of attention, and the three come together pretty quickly in any event. I thought maybe this would be even more complex in the setup phase than a Peter F. Hamilton book. It was not nearly as complex as Hamilton.

John Lee is John Lee. I happen to really like him. Yeah he's terrible at accents (half the characters in this book sound like the Count from Sesame Street) but I find his stentorian British narration to be really easy on the ears, so as far as I'm concerned the good outweighs the bad.

The story and the world building are pretty good. I was really starting to get into it about halfway through but then the plot became a lot less expansive and a lot more claustrophobic than I expected it to be. The conclusion was not so great in my opinion. I may check out some of the other books in the series but I haven't quite decided yet.

Difficult to follow in audio

This seems like a good story. However I find this book difficult to follow in audio format. Or maybe it's the reader, I don't know. I will have to read this one the old fashion way. I am giving up on the audio version after 3 hours and two restarts.

I'm so glad I didn't listen to critical reviews

This book is great. It's packed with great ideas, the plot is very entertaining, characters are likable and live, you find yourself liking both sides of the antagonizing parties. The culmination and final are great. Usually I listen at speeds 1.5-1.6, but this book, considering how full of science and ideas it is, and how reportedly short the pauses between scenes are, I listened to with 1.15 speed and it was great. Every new scenes starts with the name of a character mentioned, so it's not that difficult to follow. I love John Lee's dictation too.

Another Excellent Book by Reynolds

I've listened to House of Suns, Chasing Ice, and Permafrost and loved them all. Each was engrossing in its own unique way. Reynolds has a gift of building suspense in subtle ways. Revelation Space is different than the others I just mentioned, but that's why I liked it so much. It's not just the same plot or same characters set in a different universe. It really is a very unique book with some fascinating and complex story arcs. Some have complained about John Lee's performance. They didn't like his characters' voicing or that he didn't pause enough between scenes. Neither of those bothered me. I had no trouble distinguishing characters, and recognizing scene shifts wasn't difficult. I highly recommend this book.

Just as great as I remembered

I own the book series but it's been years since I read them and don't have the time to now. I know alot of people complain about how the narrator jumps to the next scene without a pause. Not to disrespect anyone but to me I really enjoy it. It really makes your brain work and ensure you are paying attention to details and characters.

Hard to follow

I got lost many times. I listened to Chasm City first and loved it. This one was ok.

Long but good

It seemed like there was a lot going on and at times I wasn't sure if I was following it closely enough but after having finished it I enjoyed it. The universe that this is set in I would love to see as a tv series. There's just so much going on and then it focuses in and makes it so interesting but that just lets you know that there's way more going on than you even thought!

very satisfying hard science fiction

Well-conceived world, thoughtfully diverse characters, elaborate plot, super fortunate conditions, connections and rescues. The comfortable, jolly-voiced reader was pretty much the best part.

Long winded but mind boggling

Long winded and hard to understand some of the accents but the overall story was really some of the best, I would not even call it sconce fiction, but a mind expanding hypothesis of the life in the galaxy

John Lee is awful

I’ve read the book and loved it, but absolutely could not finish this version. I’d honestly really rather listen to a computer read than Lee. Just absolutely awful. Same bizarre attack on nearly every sentence and over the top enunciation yet a complete lack of emotion or humanity.