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)

Interesting world, unsatisfying central character

Reynolds always constructs extraordinarily intricate and ultimately logical worlds, and his central characters are usually fully drawn and complex as well. In this instance he nailed the world building but presented us with a leading character who is limp and unsatisfying. Always the thoroughgoing altruist and nearly terminally naive, he wanders along, captive to the plot throughout, functioning primarily as a conduit for information between the various factions with whom he interacts. He is so passive that he is hard to believe as a survivor. It is not the poor sap's fault since the author keeps him restricted and controlled throughout the entire book, but looking back on it I realize just how sick of him I was by the end.

There were secondary characters who were more dynamic and with whom readers would happily throw in their lot if given a chance, but they never emerged from their supporting roles. Did someone say there will be a series? If so, perhaps the interesting world and the situation in which we are left hanging at the end of the book will provide a stage for giving one or more of the other personae the room to strike out on their own and give us someone to relate to and invest in. That could be worth a credit.

Far into the future, the world has a bad day

I keep getting Alastair Reynolds books because I know that even though they take a while to get into, you eventually get sucked in and dragged along for a thrilling adventure.
Somehow the the man reading this does all these different voices and characters, quite convincingly.

A stand alone, shorter book WELL worth the listen

Reynolds wroite one of my favorite SF series -- the Revelation Space Inhibitor books. Those are dark and VERY long. This is somewhat lighter, easier to get into -- but crammed full of fascinating ideas. Almost like he is considering a long series.

It has a little techno-cyber punk-steam punk feel. But it is a solid piece of science fiction and as always has a fascinating mix of hard SF, wild flights of imagination and characterization.

Have you ever read a book and thought to yourself: Oh crap! now I have to wait patiently for the next two in this series -- and really hope that they come.

The construct at the center of the story and the main character are two of Reynolds best -- and this is the best SF I have read this year.

OK...so I'm waiting for more in Hamilton's Pandora's Star/Void series, or Revelation Space, or Hyperion or this.......let's get going folks.

Another good book by Alastair

Where does Terminal World rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

"Terminal world" is a very good book featuring a deep, well thought through story. It's one of the books you want to open again after you closed it couple of minutes back to learn what happens next.

What did you like best about this story?

It has an interesting story with a lot of things to think about. Even in this book the author doesn't leave sci-fi component aside (although I haven't read many books like one).

Which scene was your favorite?

I guess, the last couple of pages of the book (or the last chapter of the audiobook, to be correct), where... well I'd better let potential readers learn for themselves ;-)

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

I'm not the best at this so I skip the question.

Any additional comments?

While I was expecting the book to be one of the space-opera it appeared to be an example of steam-punk. I was never a big fan of steampunk as a genre but I find the story to be very interesting and with time I definitely going to listen to it again (or maybe, read it, for a change)

Hard sci-fi and good story

I have come to expect Alastair Reynolds to give a hard scientific edge to a rousing good story. He has not yet disappointed me. This book is interesting, thought provoking, and could be the beginning of a game series or book saga, but he prefers to let us think those thoughts ourselves.

another wonderful story narrated by the best

One of my favorite sci fi authors showing he cant write a bad story. ive put off reading this for a while. but i regret itso much. such an interesting premise!
Also. John Lee is prblly my favorite narrator. Ever.

Strange (but good) story in steampunkish setting.

Any additional comments?

I like the very slightly steampunkish world Al Reynolds created in this novel. There's lots to chew due to a wide variety of characters and motivations. The plot was well paced and not rushed to tie all loose ends at the end of the novel. Lots of detailed descriptions that make the book about twice as long as it needs to be.

Well written, well read, but unsatisfying

As a Reynolds fan I thought I'd try this, knowing it was different from his other novels. Sadly, I've been disappointed....
This story is very much a science-as-fantasy travelogue, as the protagonist (who goes from loner into someone who hopes to save all his friends) crosses a post-holocaust/steampunk style landscape on a future "earth" (actually Mars)....

While the writing style is up to Reynolds usual excellent style, and John Lee's reading is very good, the story itself is the weak point ;
The unusual sights the protagonist sees (dirigibles, sadistic post-apocalyptic punk gangs) have appeared in a multitude of stories before and unfortuantely Reynolds doesnt do anything particularly new with them. In addition, what ideas he does have that have potential new uses (for example, Angels) are not really used to any great extent and are more or less irrelevant to the majority of the book....

As a result the storyline itself is over-familiar, and ultimately unsatisfying. While not actually bad, this is not a strong selection from Reynolds otherwise excellent stories.....

For fans of cyberpunk/steam punk or fantasy, I'd recommend anything by William Gibson or Michael Moorcock over this . For Reynolds fans, I'd say this is the weakest of his stories I've come across - I'd recommend most of his other work over this.( I particularly recommend 'The Prefect' as a far better story which is read by the same vocal talent)

Great story but distracting narration

I'm a great fan of Reynolds and have read/listened to most of his books. So it was with great anticipation that I downloaded Terminal World. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, but the narration was a distraction. The narrator's use of regional accents from around the UK (and a couple of other countries) became so annoying at times I almost gave up. I could understand the use of these accents in a story set in the UK of the near future, but in the context of this story it just struck a discordant note. Perhaps a more nuanced tone to distinguish between characters would have been more believable.
Having said that, I would still recommend Terminal World as a captivating and enjoyable listen, and worth the credit.

A new style for Alastair, and its great!

so this is a new style of writing for this author, I have read everything he has on Audible and I love everything, now this new book and its not in the normal format and the author said about this book is its "SF ... weird, and it doesn't have spaceships" - well thats OK because this is just awesome----

The Zones they talk about in this book arent explained more then to say certian ones allow more advanced things to work, and others make things like gears and pistons in engines fuse together and become useless even if you go back to a "higher" zone - this is a little confusing but without spoiling to much I think that the "zones" are sections of atmosphere that are infected with nano-bots or something like that and are running a muck of things because somehow it got screwed up thousands of years ago and they escaped the pace they were----

stuff that is really advanced like AI controlled guns or other things that would require really advanced technology only works in the "celestial" levels and the further down you go the the more and more less advanced things get until you get to "horse town" which is like the old west without as many guns----

there are some unanswered questions left, hopefully a sequel or 2 or 3 would be nice - I have asked the author and he said he plans to do some more in this world and I cant wait for that----the story starts off strong and keeps going that way till the end, with only a couple of places that were slow paced but thats needed from time to time - there isnt really a sense of "time" here as in how much time has passed in the story as in there are some balloon rides and you have no idea of how long this took but it is assumes that it didnt take that long----

this combines Steam Punk, New Wierd, and Alastair Reynolds style all in one and I love the Steam Punk parts even though I am not that a huge fan of that style of writing, but I love the style in function - google Steam Punk and look at the images things are beautiful looking