You searched for book_author:"Alastair Reynolds"
Every single review panning this story for not making sense is entirely deserved. Time travel stories are difficult to write and, even when written well, difficult to parse and read. If it’s not your thing, that’s fine.
But Permafrost is so very much my thing.
In structure, it reminds me of Palimpsest, by Charles Stross. Both are novellas with a single protagonist recently initiated in time travel. Both are fairly convoluted in terms of…
Not exactly what I was expecting from Alastair Reynolds (though I should probably know better) but maybe what I needed. It has been a hot 5.5 years since I read one of his books, and that is too long! I finished off the trilogy of main Revelation Space novels at the extreme tail-end of my enjoyment of high space opera. So it is fitting that, with Revenger, Reynolds introduces what might be a good…
I love fierce sister duos. You know, the kind where the two sisters have complementary skills and get on each other’s nerves yet always have the other’s back? That kind.
Yeah, Shadow Captain isn’t quite that kind of story.
Adrana and (Ara)fura Ness have managed to dispatch the fearsome space pirate Bosa Sennen, taking her ship in the process. These young women are way out of their league, however, and now that they are in…
One of those books that picks you up and takes you on a journey. I was ambivalent about it at first, but I quickly became enthusiastic. Reynolds' style allows for an ease of exposition: in a couple of sentences, he can give you an idea of the nature of several different civilizations without going too in depth. This skill allows him to construct the epic scope required for a space opera of this nature.
And…
In case you haven’t heard yet, I love hard science fiction, particularly in space opera form. I could digress into some hefty analysis of how designations like hard are loaded terms that only exacerbate science fiction’s precarious position in the genre ghetto—but I won’t. Suffice it to say, I’m referring to stories that use advanced but plausible technology for technology’s sake, stories whose events span millions, if not billions, of years and can affect the…
We all have triggers, certain topics in our beloved genres that instantly make us sit up and pay attention. Artificial intelligence is one such trigger for me; identity is another. (Both touch on philosophy of the mind, a field that fascinates me, and I suspect this is why they intrigue me.) There is scant AI in Chasm City, but there is plenty of reflection on identity and the ramifications of using technology to alter…
I actually read this soon enough after Redemption Ark that I can still remember some of the details of that book! Absolution Gap picks up two generations later. The Nostalgia for Infinity is parked on Ararat, and its occupants have set up a “temporary” settlement. Little do they know that, in the space around them, Conjoiners and Inhibitors battle to a standstill, until a lone craft breaks the silence and crashes into Ararat’s ocean. Clavain,…
Big bad killing machines are coming into your section of the galaxy. Intelligence is a plague they mean to wipe out, because otherwise, intelligence is doomed.
If Revelation Space is a high-concept space-opera archaeological mystery, then Redemption Ark is more of a straightforward thriller. Several of the surviving characters from the first book are scattered across the two systems, Epsilon Eridani and Delta Pavonis, with the Inhibitors closing in and most of humanity none the…
Last week, Atlantis lifted off for the final space shuttle mission ever. The space shuttle program is older than I am, and to be honest, it's overdue for retirement. The Challenger and Columbia tragedies underscored how cantankerous and dangerous this method of low-Earth orbital delivery can be. The numerous delays in the final flights of Discovery and Atlantis emphasized the fragility of the aging shuttle fleet. So we should not be mourning the loss of…
A new Alastair Reynolds novel is always a cause for celebration, even if my enjoyment of them is inconsistent. In Eversion, though space is a part of the setting, time is far more important. Reynolds takes your classic science-fiction trope of a time loop story, and he spins it just enough to keep things fresh. Thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the eARC!
Silas Coade is the assistant surgeon (well, only surgeon) aboard the …