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)

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.

One of the Most Intriguing Books I've Listened to

I've listened to a ton of audiobooks here and right now I can't say many had me more enthralled than this one. This is a true case of the whole being greater than the sum of it's parts.

While the story was interesting it was not different than a lot of other sci fi. Also it takes a lot to get used to the way the story hops around from time period to time period, person to person. I found myself having to check Wikipedia just to sort things out.

The narrator is fairly deadpan in his reading. While he is clear and crisp if he was reading other books I would not have been impressed.

But with that being said I could hardly stop listening. Maybe it was the style of the writing, which is very detailed. You can clearly see in your mind the color and textures of the world being created. Maybe it was the universe the author invented, which is filled with layer upon layer of history. Maybe it was all of this in combination with a narrator who did not seem so much performing a story as seemingly recounting events that recently happened.

I can't say any one thing is what made this story so good, but working together it really made for an interesting listen. I immediately went and bought the next two in the series (already flying through 2). Now to pick a few friends to convince to pick up Revelation Space.

good story, terrible recording

interesting story if a bit long winded.

The recording is terrible though. Quiet and muddled voice with no gap when switching scenes.

Pay attention to this one!

Really really really good. This is one of the better stories I have listened to for a long time. Characters are well developed and very interesting, eccentric, strange and just alien enough to remind you they are people, but people living thousands of years from now.
The story is expensive, masses in It's scope some elements spanning millions of years I loved it from about page 100 on. For some reason I just was not carried away by the story until then, it was somewhat mundane and difficult to follow. The narration was hard to follow as well. While I love the variations in voice between each character but they were just hard enough to understand to make it difficult to listen in the car. I suggest a quieter location for listening to this book. This is the reason why I gave the book four stars for narration.
Once the stage was said, the book became quite the page turner. I had a hard time setting it down. I got lost in the expanse of the writers imagination and the method by which it was illustrated. Frankly I cannot wait to start the second book, I hope you have the same experience.

Audio editing poor, but great story and narration

Several other reviews mention the difficulty in following this book, as the audio editors put no break between different sections within the chapters. While this makes it difficult to follow at times, it is possible to enjoy the wonderful story and excellent voice acting