Revelation Space

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.

A great read. As another reviewer said, this is very much in the style of Peter F. Hamilton's books. Epic and complex. I started getting frustrated at the beginning since things don't seem to make sense, but if you stick with it then everything falls into place.
I wish a knew what some of the tougher scientific concepts mean because there's some stuff here that is beyond my understanding but in a way that made it even more interesting.

I love John Lee's narration and characterization in the book, although I do agree that the cuts between scenes are so short that you get confused when things end and start. Other than that I look forward to the next book which I'm downloading as I write this.

If you've ever listened to any other John Lee recordings, you'll know he's one of the best narrators in the business. He does an excellent job with this book.
As to the story itself, this is good sci-fi... I am really not sure where a lot of these other reviewers are coming from, maybe they were looking for the huge space battles from Star Wars. This book is more about the mystery of discovery and the politics and dangers that go along with it. Enjoyed it very much!

This book is about one person's quest to find what disaster befell an ancient civilization and how it is relevant to the human race. The story describes this future world quite well, with some imaginative technologies and situations. It all seems very possible that such a future could come about - some of it at least. The reader, as usual, is very good.

The problem I had with this book is that there is not a clear protagonist. The main character is not such a likeable guy and you don't get to know him well enough to understand his motivations for this life long search, hence it seems a little contrived. The other characters are ambiguous as well. It is not that I want all the characters to be one dimensionally good or bad, but you do want to identify yourself with them and that did not happen for me.

Then a lot of the explanations of why/what happened are given near the end of the book. One person or another just fills in the blanks by recounting some of the salient facts. This never works well in a book of fiction. It is much more interesting to let a character experience something, instead of a documentary style of offering up just facts. I found myself scrambling to put it all together; too many facts all at once (of course an audio book does not help here, since it is hard to re-read a sentence or passage).

The end was a little disappointing too.

All in all though, it is still a story worth listening too; but it could have been made a lot better with some good editing and sharper characterizations.

This book exceeded my expectations. When I picked this audiobook, I was looking for a science fiction novel leaning more towards hard science fiction and less Star Trek (though I do like Star Trek). I thought it might be somewhat dry with details but it wasn't. I want more... :)

For someone looking for a science fiction novel that combines a good amount of detail scientific (lots of detail in some areas) with futuristic fantasy and suspense, this is a good audiobook to get. The audience of this book should be mature as the book is graphic and dark in some areas but nothing too extreme, would make a good R rated movie as it has lots of oportunity for great space scenes and CGI.

The author does a good job of revealing just enough details and forshadowing to keep up the suspense without being predictable, puts you on the edge of your seat. The story is very emmersive and I look forward to continuing on in the world with Revelation Ark.

The book so far is very good. However, the combination of the narrating and one particular editing decision has turned me off of the audio version. So far I have only been unable to finish one audiobook I've purchased from Audible.com (out of about 150) and I may now have to change that number to two.

The Narrator: John Lee has never been my favorite, but I've had him read four other books in my collection, and he did fine. On this one, the voices for the characters are goofy even more often than in the narration of Peter F Hamilton's "Pandora's Star" and "Judas Unchained". In many scenes, there's just not enough vocal differentiation between characters to follow the scene clearly.

The biggest problem: Some "genius" editor decided that there would be NO pause, NONE at all, when the book changes scenes. Since there are multiple plot threads and not quite enough vocal variety between some characters, and the scene changes rather frequently, this editing decision is really disruptive to the listening experience. I was so confused about which characters were where and doing what that I had to start over after getting about five hours in, and it was only the second time through that I began to recognize that there were even scene changes!! There's less of a pause between scene changes than pauses between the end of one sentence and the beginning of another. Nerd that I am I timed it! If the aforementioned genius editor hadn't decided to cut 5 minutes from the total length of the book in this manner, I might have bought the other four books from Audible. No chance now, unless some reviewer of the other books can tell me whether there are pauses at scene changes.

Revelation Space has three main characters one of Russian decent, one of French and one Indian, with many Japanese characters figuring prominently, and the narrator portrays each one with the appropriate accent. The perspective of the novel shifts between these characters liberally within each chapter. Further, future tech flies fast and furious with explanations dispersed (sometimes) over several chapters. Taken together these factors make for a challenging read, but the fast-paced intricate and mind-bending ride is incredibly rewarding. The Revelation Space universe is proof that Reynolds' space operas are equal to the likes of M. John Harrison's or Iain M. Banks'.

Alastair Reynolds is one of the leading lights writing this generation's space opera, and his perspective (European, a PhD in Astronomy) gives his stories a very contemporary feel. I like the hard SF setting, with slower-than-light starships and ancient, dead civilizations instead of living aliens, and parts of this book were quite spooky and sinister. When the crew is prowling the corridors of the huge spaceship Infinity avoiding "rats" and other creatures controlled by a hostile intelligence, it felt like one of those old sci-fi horror movies.

Revelation Space is full of great ideas, especially in the conclusion, where it turns out that the small and large intrigues of the main characters have all been leading them to a confrontation on a much larger scale than they imagined: a threat that could end the human race. I like high-stakes stories like this. So this book was basically a recipe for everything I should love in a sci-fi novel.

So why only 3 stars? Because another crucial ingredient for me (and this is very much my own preference, which is why other people may love this book) is characters who feel real and who I like at least a little. Reynolds's characters aren't as wooden as those of some other hard SF writers, and he gives them plenty of background and motivation and personality, but after describing all those things, he doesn't spend much time letting them live and breathe and reminding you why they are interesting. They just go about their business executing the plot. As soon as the book ended, I was thinking about the story and the technology, but the characters were mostly forgettable.

Unfortunately, there were also parts of the book that just plain bored me; listening to the audio, sometimes my mind drifted and I didn't catch (or care about) all the details. Also, I just did not like John Lee's narration. He gave everyone an accent, not always distinct ones, and I didn't like all the voices.

While I am sure that this is a very well written novel, I am having a great deal of difficulty with it in the audio version.
The voice changes between characters is somewhat confused, with imitation accents being the main difference. Sometimes though, the accents used are inappropriate for the particular character.
It is difficult to follow the reading here. Whether this is due to my hearing loss in specific frequencies, or just the continual drone of the reader, I am not sure.
Do listen to the audio clip before downloading this book. I think it might be better in written form.

I loved this book. It was my first from audible.com, and I was not only immediately sucked into the story, but I also really enjoyed the narration. Regardless of what other reviewers have said, I found the accents and dialects to be well done, unlike many contrived and corny variations. John Lee's voice acting is subtle and properly punctuated, without all the histrionics that usually ruin audiobooks. Moreover, although lengthy, Reynolds moved the plot along well while dipping into details that thoroughly paint just the right picture. The description and detail is vivid and expansive, and I frequently felt as though I was wandering the Nostalgia for Infinity spacecraft when some corridor or facility was described. The characters were compelling and interesting, and you really want to know each one's story as the plot thickens. And with no real "good guy," I still empathized with the various protagonists, wanting them each to succeed at their respective goal - even when it meant contradicting or conflicting with other characters' motivations. Really great. I'm suggesting it to all my SF fan friends, and moving on to Chasm City.