Terminal World

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different - and rigidly enforced - level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue.

But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint's base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon's own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police but by the very nature of reality---and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability.

©2010 Alastair Reynolds (P)2010 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A rousing adventure in a widly original setting." ( Guardian, UK)

Another great one

Different from other Reynolds works, but thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope there's more to come.

Reylolds could use another narrator

Most of the reviewers have nothing but praise for the narrator. I, however, agree with Michael's review below. I think that most people like Lee, just because the author is so great, not because the narrator's performance is good.

Everything is read in the same deadpan style. Reynolds tells great stories, but Lee does not stress the story, but the originality of his books. It's as if he was saying "everything is so strange, but for the characters in the book its normal". His reading does not follow the story, and a great action-packed passage is read in exactly the same way as a static description. All characters speak in the same way, use the same intonation at all times. I can't imagine any two people talking to one another in this way, let alone a whole world of people.

If you listen (not that) closely you will notice that where there is no dialog Lee reads every sentence with exactly the same intonation. You could have like 20 sentences in a row read exactly the same. Then, every single book is read in exactly the same way, so you have a hundred hours of listening to the same intonation. No wonder people find it hard to concentrate and decide that Reynolds' books are too difficult for them.

I love Reynolds, but find Lee extremely irritating. I may be totally wrong - I am just one person. However, I would advise the publisher to try another narrator for a change and see how readers react.

Don't expect closure

An interesting plot in a far future Earth, but his ideas don't cross the finish line, and there will be no sequel. Imaginative and the pace is good, leaving plenty to think about. Overall, worth reading.

Rather weak quest sci-fi book

This book is really a squandered opportunity for a cool sci-fi novel. Reynolds' whole thing typically is his solid science but flat characters. He's great at thinking up new and interesting science topics. He's also typically space opera, of which this isn't. The best way to describe this book is a mix of steampunk/dirigible and fringe multiple universe (??) science. He rather flips the script in that the characters are pretty fleshed out and there's quite a lot of dialogue, but the science is really not very legit in terms of moons, equator temps, how floating works, how length measurements work, etc. Also, he utilizes quest as a method for pulling the reader along. This works well until you it becomes apparent that the quest was just a method for telling the story and doesn't amount to anything in the end. The author becomes so enamored with so much dialogue between the characters that he never really reveals well what the heck is going on on this planet or how stuff works, which really is the only interesting aspect of the book in my opinion. So, at 50% I was very positive and then I got ground down by the boring dialogue and the ending was definitely lacking for a stand-alone. I would suggest House of Suns as this author's best book instead.

John Lee is okay as a narrator but I've found that he becomes quite repetitive when you listen to several of his book. It's sorta British John Wayne in his execution of characters.

Would have preferred more closure

As far as Reynolds' novels go, this is not at the level of Revelation Space, partly because Reynolds ends the tale without a satisfying resolution. We are presented with a different Earth 10k years in the future where the bulk of the population lives on a vertical screw-like structure reaching perhaps almost into space. The structure is vertically segregated into segments with unknown restrictions on the degree of technology that can function. Biology is a bit more forgiving, but people still experience "zone shifts" with resulting illness.

Our hero represents a modified "angel" from the highest or celestial level who is on the run due to vague factional, political differences. The bulk of the story is an adventure that alludes to the true purpose of the structure, "Spearpoint" and the "how it all went wrong". The ending doesn't so much as resolve the conflicts as it seems to merely explain the real work left to be done.

As is Reynolds' style, the story explores human evolution and in this case, adaptability to extreme changes in some basic laws of nature. What at first appears random and artificial, the zone boundaries for technology to function in reality, conforms on a loose basis with our world today with examples such as cell phones dropping bars, wireless connectivity being geographically dependent, or electrical outlets varying from country to country indicative of "zone shifts".

This is now the 3rd non-Revelation Space novel that has left me expecting either more or a sequel to quickly follow; which is odd since novels set in the Revelation Space series have all been reasonably self-contained.

Urban Sci-Fi

Class warfare in the dismal/distant future.. A good Sci-Fi adventure yarn..with an imagination, i enjoyed the literal vertical stratification of societies .A bit of analogy to what's here now. By the way, the narrator, John Lee is the best..

A Steampunk post-apocalypse

Alastair Reynolds has impressed me with his intellectual sorta-hard-SF space operas, but left me a bit cold in terms of characters and storytelling, the grand scope of his plots dwarfing the human elements. He's a bit like a colder Charles Stross who is not trying quite as hard as Stross does to impress you with his cleverness, even though he's very clever.

Terminal World is a departure from his usual space operas - it's set on one world, that vaguely resembles Earth but isn't, in a post-apocalytic far future. The setting is kind of steampunkish, but steampunk done in a hard-SF way, and more post-human than the usual pseudo-Victorian frippery.

Quillon is a doctor living in a city called Spearpoint. Spearpoint is, as its name implies, a towering sliver of civilization stretched up into the atmosphere, surrounded by a wasted, cold and drying planet. Spearpoint is divided into "zones" that determine what technology works there. At the highest levels are the Angels, who still enjoy advanced technology, while at lower levels are places like Neon Heights, Steamville, and Horse Town. Some places, electronics stop working. Other places do not even allow internal combustion. And there are some zones where even humans can't survive.

At first, the characters seem mostly uninterested in how this state of affairs came to be, because apparently it's been like this for thousands of years, and is now the accepted status quo. Indeed, we learn that despite the obvious remnants of what was once a great, highly technological civilization, most people have little awareness of history or a world beyond their own.

It turns out Quillon is an Angel, or a former Angel. Angels can't normally survive in the low-tech lower levels, but he was part of a special infiltration project that went wrong and left him isolated among hostile humans (or "post-humans" as the Angels call them). When the Angels come after him, he goes on the run. His flight eventually takes him out of Spearpoint altogether, and across the wastelands which are occupied by Reaver-like "Skull-boys" and a rival civilization known as SWARM that exists entirely in the air, aboard a great fleet of zeppelins.

So, Reynolds manages to give us sky pirates and zeppelin battles, and a world-saving adventure that does not really uncover the secret behind Spearpoint and its world, but gives us a few glimpses. At times this felt like one of his epic space operas, albeit confined to a single planet, and at other times, it was more like a steampunk adventure. (Zeppelin battles!)

I liked Terminal World - it feels complete, even with a somewhat vague ending. Clearly Reynolds could write more books set in this world, but it doesn't seem like he plans to.

Alastair Reynolds is probably one of the smartest and best writers of hard SF and space opera today, the kind of SF that actually uses physics and big ideas. Unfortunately, his writing still lacks an essential something to make him one of my favorites - it's as if there is always a certain lofty distance between author and creation that one can sense in his work. His characters are intelligent and interesting, but they are largely plot puppets. Still, this was going to be "three strikes and you're out" but it was more of a base hit, so I'll keep reading him.

Multiple dystopian societies collide

An entertaining standalone story that draws on the fashionable genre of Steampunk without diving in entirely. By arranging his world and setting into 'zones' of technological disparity, Reynolds allows narrative room for various SF sub-genres and characters. I enjoyed it most when he was in fully far-future Space Opera mode, which was sadly the minority of this story. My opinion of the protagonist, Dr. Quillon, slowly soured, too, as the character became unconvincingly pure-hearted.

Numerous unexpected turns ... it is Sci Fi

I found this audible book to be of medium grade pulp, keeping my mind occupied when I would otherwise be bored while traveling. The story line is much the same as all others of this genre, with a few more unexpected twists and turns.

4th listen

enjoyable every single time I listen. AR is definitely one of the top sci-fi authors of this age. John Lee is a master of sublety