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)

Hard SciFi at its Finest

if you like the cerebral concepts of deep astrophysics and the laws of the universe that we are only just coming to grasp, let alone understand, Let Alastair Reynolds take you on a great operatic journey across space and time to experience them! one of my favorite pieces of his work!

Better than reviews suggest

Great book with some mind bending sci-fi concepts. The editing was a little jarring with a tendency to jump between perspectives without a breath, but I stopped noticing it a few hours in. John Lee did a fantastic job, although his accents are more affectation than perfect renditions of an accent.

Great, Unique Plot With Unfortunate Narration.

I loved the story, but the cacophony of unnecessary accents made the story nearly unlistenable at times. There’s only one reference to accents in the book, meaning there’s no need for most of the characters to sound French, or most concerning, Japanese.

incredible dense story boring narrator!

it was so difficult to keep up with all this book throws at you but if you liked his other books it's worth the effort. I prefer house of suns but if you like this author give it a go. very boring and difficult narration you've been warned !

good premise but iffy execution

perhaps I'm a bit skewed by already experiencing the Expanse series, but there were a few things about this story that seemed a bit disjointed. to begin with, the technology seemed to be far beyond what we could expect a few hundred years from now as human kind has comfortably inhabited a vast area of the galaxy, with some far flung, antiquated cities and ships that themselves seem centuries old.the characters' interactions are inconsistent as well. Anger out of nowhere and sudden forgetfulness over recent events make the characters very inconsistent in their relationships to eachother and the world around them.

the whole story ended up being underwhelming and confusing at times. throughout, I kept wondering if it were the narrator who was at fault. He tried very hard to create deep accents for all the characters (which at times were unintelligible) instead of just focusing on his rhythm and delivery which often left me wondering who was talking and when a new scene had arrived. the accents, in a way, were pointless because all triumvirates had a Russian accent (except for Sajaki who was more Japanese) and everyone else had a French accent. in the end, these various people sounded exactly the same at the expense of clear diction. Also, a very simple editing fix, there is absolutely NO pause when starting a new scene. many times I had to rewind because I didn't realize we had shifted to a new place and time. Similarly, there was absolutely no rhyme or reason as to chapter structures. they all started with a place and year but the chapter quickly jumped around to different times and places, meanwhile, many chapters simply picked up exactly where the last ended making the chapters nothing more than a means to divide the book into equal parts.

SPOILERS on the plus side, I really enjoyed the obvious Lovecraftian inspiration: ancient, tentacled beings living in another "dimension" getting into the minds of humans.

overall, an ok start to what may be a decent series. I may stick to reading the rest since I cannot get over the narrator's performance.

Disappointing. Poor audio editing.

Two observations. First, the story was annoyingly convoluted, polluted with characters that wandered seemingly aimlessly for 90% of the book. The story only got coherence in the last 30-60 minutes of the reading. It left me frustrated at the lost opportunity the rest of the book represented. Confusion and obfuscation is not the same as mystery.

Second, the audio performance was disastrous for the writing style. The book frequently jumps from scene to scene, plot line to plot line, character group to character group. I assume a printed version would visually accent these jump-cuts. Unfortunately the vocal performance, while trying to distinguish characters by language accent, provided no modulation of tone, frequency, or gender. All the characters sounded the same. Worse still, the editor provided no break at these jump-cuts. Frequently there was less audible separation from one scene to another than would have been heard at a paragraph break. After dozens of Audible books I believe this one required more backing up and replaying than any other book. The story, taken as a whole, was creative and interesting. But the execution was disappointing, and the audio performance was infuriating.

Complex and compelling

Hard science, fantastic characters, situations, excellent dialogue and beautiful word smithing. What a writer and brain Alastair is!

Great Story

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. the pace of the story kept me engaged. John Lee's performance was very good.

Great story, tip for listening enjoyment.

Reduce narration speed to . 95 instead of 1. this in my humble opinion, helps with story flow and comprehension. Enjoy.

Brilliant science fiction

This is an amazing book. I like all types of science fiction but I have a particular affinity for galactic-scale adventures. This scratched that itch without employing all of the cliches that science fiction often falls into. I really love Reynolds as an author. His descriptions in this book are a level above my other favorites of his. Mind bending, riveting, entrancing, thought provoking. I also love the narrator, although as others have mentioned the editing of the recording is not 100%. The ends of sentences fall off which is annoying, but everything is still audible.