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)

Love it!

This is truly one of the best hard sci-fi books to come out in a long, long time. Reynolds vision of the future is one that easily weaves together grand ideas with very human motives. The whole of the Revelation Space series is fantastic, but this is where it all begins.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The story is excellent and intriguing. The characters are believable and well fleshed out. Unfortunately, there are no breaks in the story given by the narrator, and on top of that, the narrator is brutally boring and distracting all at the same time. On a regular basis, he puts me to sleep.

What didn’t you like about John Lee’s performance?

He is incredibly boring. The only person even more boring than John Lee is my high school history teacher, and he was a man that always spoke in a dry monotone. John Lee took an incredible story and made it so boring that it is very hard to stay awake.

Do you think Revelation Space needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

There are already two.

Impressive imagination and story telling!

Any additional comments?

I'm new to science fiction in general and Alistair Reynolds in particular. The universe he creates is complex, original, dark and gloomily political. Prepare for adjectives like 'malignant' and 'repellant' to run throughout. It ain't feel-good escapism, but I wouldn't classify it as dystopian either. As an astrophysicist, he clearly knows a lot about the workings of the universe, and this knowledge provides a solid foundation for his imaginings of the future. Good science, great epic story-telling, and I especially enjoy his female characters. The guy's got chops. I highly recommend this book, as well as 'Pushing Ice', which I also recently read. Alistair Reynolds is for me!

great story was not disappointed

it was like all the scfi movies and story's I have ever watched or read, the hopping back and forth was not as bad as others have mentioned.

Technically brilliant, but hollow

Intrigued by this book, as I'd read Chasm City not too long ago and liked it. However this story's characters seemed so wooden that they almost lacked any relatable humanity. It's as though we got a robot's retelling of events, missing out on key points of emotion and doubt. The events in the story are so preordained that any choices the characters make don't matter or were never really their choices to begin with.
On a directing note, I don't understand why they didn't put pauses between characters' narratives, unless the intention was to deliberately disoriented the listeners.

Story idea excellect, voice acting terrible.

I thought the story concepts where great and want to read the balance of the series. The characters arcs are moderate to say the least, they need work, but a lot of time is spent on concept and science so I can forgive that. Dialogue is also not great.
John Lee needs to work on his voice work. His transitions are not well done, this french accent is tiresomely boring. I honestly almost did not finish this book because of it and have not listened to others because he is the reader! Not a fan, but I am adjusting because he reads a lot of sci-fi.

Hard to get into

it took 3 restarts for me to get into this book. overall it was good, and I will continue with the series. this is not an idle listen, pay attention or you will get lost fast.

Not Great but not Bad

What did you like best about Revelation Space? What did you like least?

Found this book difficult to follow at first, (well almost to the end). It was difficult to tell who was who, when characters were changing or if the location changed. Had to keep replaying portions of the book to keep track.
The ending was ok but not as epic as hoped for.
If book two is like one I'll read the paperback.

Ok

Didn't like the narrator, no feeling in the voice.
The story was compelling enough for me.

The standard by which I judge all others...

Roughly eight years ago I revolutionized my life by beginning to listen to books 8 to 12 hours a day while I work. I started with a couple childhood favorites and then I went in search of my first epic space opera. This book and the subsequent series are my all time favorites. Mr Reynolds holds a very dear place in my heart as does the incomparable Mr. John Lee. I have read almost all of Mr Reynolds’ works multiple times and the Revelation Space series gets about two visits a year from me. We get ever closer to the mysteries of the dark forest around us. What happens when the forest notices us?