Scan barcode
A review by mburnamfink
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
5.0
Revelation Space is a grandiose, paranoid, cosmological space opera that stares directly into the abyss.
Dan Sylveste is an genius archaeologist, stranded on a frontier colony where he is investigating the dead civilization of the Amarantin, a species of avian-descended sapients who were wiped out a million year ago by an unspecified event. Sylveste's obsession makes him vulnerable, and he runs afoul of expedition politics, becoming a prisoner. His past is tangled with another galactic anomaly, the Shrouds, areas of fractally tortured space time that appear to be protecting something. Sylveste went near the shroud, near enough to be given a message he cannot comprehend, in a place he calls Revelation Space. Also intertwined with his past is the starship Nostalgia for Infinity, a kilometers long flying city fallen into near complete degeneracy, inhabited by a handful of cybernetically altered crew.
Ilia Volyova is one of the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity. Her job is the care of the cache-weapons, 40 artifacts of unknown origin with capabilities that start at "planet-cracking" and escalate from there. Her last gunnery officer was driven insane, scrawling messages about an entity called the Sun Stealer, and Ilia needs a new recruit. She also needs to find a cure for their captain, who has fallen ill to a virulent nanotech disease called the Melding Plague. Sylveste, or more properly an AI-backup of Sylveste's father, is the only man with the cure.
Ana Khouri is a former soldier turned assassin. With a paperwork error separating her from her husband by lightyears, she sees no point in living, which makes her the ideal recruit for an entity called the Mademoiselle. Her mission is simple: infiltrate the Nostalgia for Infinity, take it to Sylveste, and kill him.
Their stories and secrets build towards a conclusion around an alien artifact disguised as a small planet, an array of machines protecting a threshold to an unspeakable truth. The galaxy of Revelation Space is sprinkled with ruins, but empty of life. That is because something called The Inhibitors, ancient machines from the dawn of time, control organic life by destroying any cultures that advance too far. The Amarantin tripped this threshold; humanity has done so as well.
I've parodied Reynolds as "war-criminals war-crimeing", and this a dark book, but it's also an incredibly stylish piece of imagination.
Dan Sylveste is an genius archaeologist, stranded on a frontier colony where he is investigating the dead civilization of the Amarantin, a species of avian-descended sapients who were wiped out a million year ago by an unspecified event. Sylveste's obsession makes him vulnerable, and he runs afoul of expedition politics, becoming a prisoner. His past is tangled with another galactic anomaly, the Shrouds, areas of fractally tortured space time that appear to be protecting something. Sylveste went near the shroud, near enough to be given a message he cannot comprehend, in a place he calls Revelation Space. Also intertwined with his past is the starship Nostalgia for Infinity, a kilometers long flying city fallen into near complete degeneracy, inhabited by a handful of cybernetically altered crew.
Ilia Volyova is one of the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity. Her job is the care of the cache-weapons, 40 artifacts of unknown origin with capabilities that start at "planet-cracking" and escalate from there. Her last gunnery officer was driven insane, scrawling messages about an entity called the Sun Stealer, and Ilia needs a new recruit. She also needs to find a cure for their captain, who has fallen ill to a virulent nanotech disease called the Melding Plague. Sylveste, or more properly an AI-backup of Sylveste's father, is the only man with the cure.
Ana Khouri is a former soldier turned assassin. With a paperwork error separating her from her husband by lightyears, she sees no point in living, which makes her the ideal recruit for an entity called the Mademoiselle. Her mission is simple: infiltrate the Nostalgia for Infinity, take it to Sylveste, and kill him.
Their stories and secrets build towards a conclusion around an alien artifact disguised as a small planet, an array of machines protecting a threshold to an unspeakable truth. The galaxy of Revelation Space is sprinkled with ruins, but empty of life. That is because something called The Inhibitors, ancient machines from the dawn of time, control organic life by destroying any cultures that advance too far. The Amarantin tripped this threshold; humanity has done so as well.
I've parodied Reynolds as "war-criminals war-crimeing", and this a dark book, but it's also an incredibly stylish piece of imagination.