Impressive and interesting conclusion to the Revelation Space trilogy. At first I was a little disappointed by the low key ending, but after a couple of days I find this perfectly human ending, very appropriate and satisfying.

Absolution Gap is a decent novel on its own merits, but a disappointing conclusion to the Revelation Space series.

The best parts of the book follow Rashmika, a 17 year old girl on the frontier pilgrimage world of Hela. Hela orbits a gas giant that occasionally vanishes, revealing hints of some immense machinery inside. An entire religion has grown up on Hela, centered around moving cathedrals that keep the gas giant perpetually at zenith and the strains of an indoctrination virus floating through the population. Hela has it's own xenoarcheological paradox, a local culture of extinct scuttlers who seem to have been killed by something other than the inhibitors. Rashmika is driven to find out why the scuttlers are extinct, what's happened to her brother, and the true nature of the church, all of which seem to center on a immense bridge of unknown construction over a massive canyon, the titular absolution gap. Meanwhile, the survivors on Ararat are trying to make sense of their mission, as the Inhibitors and Conjoiner war catch up to them and Captain Brannigan takes over the Nostalgia for Infinity. The plot lurches along towards a conclusion that has about three simultaneous deux ex machinas.

It's a shame, because while Reynolds sets up a fascinating universe, he never quite figures out how to tell good stories in it. The paradox of the Inhibitors is that they're a lot like zombies, an unthinking horde that can be slowed but not stopped. The point of zombie movies is not the zombies, but the survivors. Who do you become in a moment of survival? Who will betray you? The paranoid BDSM war criminals who populate the Revelation Space universe would space each other with more ease than drinking a cup of tea, so there's not much depth to be found there. The universe is also populated with enigmatic hints that the Inhibitors are not as all powerful as they seem. Tinned apes, as space faring H. Sapiens are, might not have a spitting chance, but there seem to be civilizations which have foiled the Inhibitors through migration into alternate biological forms, cybernetic uploads running on exotic substrates, or para-dimensional spaces. The theme that transcendence is salvation pokes up again and again in the series, but is ultimately dropped.

Instead, survival is assured by two previously unknown hyper-powerful alien societies. Our heroes pick the 'right ones', and survive the Inhbitiors, buying a few centuries for another form of rogue terraforming mechanical life to threaten the galaxy.

These books have their moments, but those moments are buried in ideas that should have been cut in the draft.

Well that was a disappointing end. After such a long descriptive narration of every aspect of the story, the story's end is just a footnote in the epilogue? Ugh...
As a trilogy, there's good and there's bad. I found the universe-building to be great. The technology and science, distinctions between humans who have become their own species based on the planets they came from, and the space-dwelling humans are all well thought out, and expanded upon.
As for the bad, I think the books are way too long, too descriptive at times with actions and storylines that don't matter in the end. Reynolds could have easily cut down his books by about 100-200 pages if he wanted, without losing anything of importance.
Some people say: "It's the journey that matters, not the destination". True for the most part, but that god awful ending left a bitter taste in my mouth. Like Game of Thrones Season 8. Sure the series was good, but the last episodes ruined the whole thing, and I'd never go back and rewatch, knowing the ending.

I got a sinking feeling as I reached the last 20 minutes of this book and realized it couldn't possibly wrap up the overarching story. Was I confused, was it tetralogy instead of a trilogy? I wanted to know how it ended but wasn't up for putting another ~15 hours into it right now.

I needn't have worried, though. You do find out how the great crisis is resolved... via a brief high-level summary in the epilogue. What!? The previous book had a tendency for major events to happen 'off-screen', but this one takes it to a whole new level.

There are some interesting ideas here, like the faith-inducing viruses, but overall I don't think the series lives up to the promise of its first installment.

This book dropped the interesting plot threads and characters from the previous book and dragged on to a wholly unsatisfying conclusion. This was a waste of time to read.

A worthy sequel with some nice twists. Mostly existing story threads and personalities are deepened. This is fine, but the next part should (and will, if I count right) wrap it up.

As others have stated before, this book was so frustrating. It was, at the same time, extremely interesting and dreadfully boring. Reynolds has turned into a self-styled artistic genius who has decided to write an immense book that focuses on the mundane, the trivial, and the pointless while hand-waving over the major events. Plus, he

Spoiler

commits the cardinal sin of bringing in major plot developments in the epilogue!

I really wanted to like this series but I feel cheated by an author who seemed to deliberately set out to not answer any questions that he himself asked.

Unless I hear something very positive about them, I doubt I will read his prequel trilogy.