Revelation Space

well i was shocked ive always seen his books on the shelf wjen ive been looking for, Banls, Brumner and Dick but i had always assumed that his books would be on par with the same drivel as Cussler, but i picked this book up by accident one day and read it, as a first foray into his works i found it stupidly brilliant, its like reading Iain M Banks without the humor

i definitely recommend this book to anyone and cant wait to throw myself into his series, good character development, fantastic writing style, reveals itself slowly and keeps you guessing, it was a really enjoyable read, its a lengthy book and sometimes very rarely you find yourself trawling throw it, but on a whole i cant fault it, i do hope he explains the molecular plague in one of the other books in this series, definitely worth a look if you enjoy books by Banks and Hamilton

Reynolds creates a wonderful universe in Revelation Space. It's a great book (as the whole series is) to get lost in. It's not easy to create such depth to the universe, but Reynolds has done so... he ought to have considering the word count of the bloody thing. So yes, it's a great book to get lost in.

However, the dialogue between characters is quite ridiculous and lengthy at times. Many, if not all, the characters were unlikable, which I enjoy a great deal. Creating characters which are easy to like to just an easy task to perform. But hating many aspects of lead and supporting characters takes dedication, to which Reynolds succeeds. Kudos to Reynolds for either his word usage or giant thesaurus, but as a crossword puzzle aficionado, his word usage stimulated me.

His plot jumping leaves one on ones heels quite often, awaiting for the story to story to the point at which it left. There are numerous cliffhangers throughout the book with mysteries that the reader can try to solve before the answers are revealed... and most the time I thought I had the answers nailed down but Reynolds always kept me on my toes and forced me to review my aspect on the scenarios. The entire plot has a significant amount of troughs and crests... like a wave function.

As a fan of "hard" scifi, I was so thrilled to have found Alastair Reynolds. Particularly his Revelation Space storyline. These books are rich with astrophysics and political sub plots. Highly intelligent people doing really compelling stuff all wrapped in innovative interpretations of astrophysics. Perfect. I will say that Reynolds does not "write women" very well and tends to over simplify his characters' emotional structures. Nonetheless, I've not read nearly every book he has written and have not been disappointed. These are not scifi fantasy, however, so don't expect sweeping love affairs and heroic men and women with long flowing hair. His books are pure science.

This was way better once the plot actually got moving. It took me three tries to get into the body of the novel, but once I didn't want to put it down.

Surprising new tech that makes sense popping up all of the time. Exciting ending. Lots of gravity without resorting to gravimetric plating or some such. No FTL travel used. Attention paid to relativistic travel. I enjoyed it very much.

Some people write big reviews. This book is fantastic. It is back to big space opera and addresses real questions , which few do... why isn't the universe or let alone the galaxy full of life. but i wax on. i commend the writer on sticking to the physics of the universe - this is proper sci-fi not sci-fantasy

Wow, what a novel. Some new concepts, some old, very good book. To paraphrase: Never knew how slow light speed was until [I] travelled between planets.

It's actually better when the characters are talking, as then you don't have to suffer through the self-indulgent, Willa Cather-esque descriptions of each planetary landscape and various other examples of poor language economy. The astronomy-centric, overly academic "star-speak" and generally unconvincing assertions about space-travel and amorphous ship shape-shifting further detract from what little excitement and anticipatory build-up there might otherwise be. When they say "Space Opera" on the back cover blurb, I think they may mean the overwrought, melodramatic sort analogous to the "Soap Opera" genre, rather than the Opera of classical musical tradition. It's long, and you feel it.

This series breathes new life into space opera. Not a page is wasted on folderol. If you like your science fiction writ large, you'll love this series.

I was really disappointed with the characters and plot. There's plenty of imaginative biochem and computer tech stuff, but only a whiplashing kind of plot to really link it all together. The author should scrape off some of his constant technological discriptions and rework those words into building some depth into his characters. For goodness sake, leave a little for the imagination!