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)

A classic in my book

Stands up to Sci Fi classics in my opinion. One of my favorites of all time, and narrated excellently.

Reynolds successfully juggles three storylines

Where does Revelation Space rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Revelation Space is among the better audio books I've listened to. John Lee does a good job bringing each character his/her own voice. He does tend to lean towards the Slavic/Russian accents, but I figure that has more to do with the characters themselves.

What did you like best about this story?

Its complex in that you really are listening to three distinct and separate stories till the very end. Watching the characters collide with all the inevitability and force that's built over the many hours of listening was truly gratifying. It wet my appetite for the next installment.

Which scene was your favorite?

Reynolds does an excellent job adding character to the Lighthugger "Nostalgia for Infinity". I loved the scenes aboard it.

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

I don't think it could be filmed.

Worth the second read/ listen!

Understanding Dan Sylveste is critical to the plot lines of the series. He is enigmatic, and here we find why and how he acts to advance his maniacal goals. The writing is top notch, and there are too many story arcs to review about. Dan, Ana, and this other sentience ... is just awesome.

needs more voice actors

Very tough to finish! the story is good but the single monotone narrator for the entire book made it easy to get distracted.

Not sure why people think the narrator is awful.

 He isn’t perfect, but then again, nobody is. But I was so sucked in by the story that I hardly even noticed any editing issues. Over all it really enjoyed the concepts in the story. I really like how Alistair writes the characters to be unlikable at certain points in the book but then they come around full circle. Really great job on this book. I can’t wait to read the next few books in the series.

You will need to keep notes.

The story has so many twists and turns that you will need to keep notes on the characters.

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

Defeated

This book defeated me, I am ashamed to say. I do most of my audio listening whilst driving, but this requires you too pay too much attention, and thus, while driving you lose important plot points, for two reasons:

1) There is a lot of tech within the book, and diluted time due to near-light speed travel on ships, and there is a lot of scene-shifting within chapters, which leads me to...

2) Other reviewers have alluded to it already, but it was a bad move not to have some sort of pause or audio-cue when scene-shifting between chapters. What happens is that John Lee (whose other stuff is ok, in my opinion), moves between scenes without taking a breath and you completely lose where you are whilst driving.

Shame I have to give it up, it's supposed to be a classic series. But them's the breaks.