476 pages

English language

Published Nov. 11, 2000 by Victor Gollancz.

ISBN:
978-0-575-06876-6
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
42912141

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (119 reviews)

Alastair Reynolds's critically acclaimed debut has redefined the space opera with a staggering journey across vast gulfs of time and space to confront the very nature of reality itself.

6 editions

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Reading this right after Tchaikovsky's Children of Time was perfect. I understand CoT's praise, but I felt that it's writing fell flat time and time again. Reynolds not only creates vast, fascinating worlds, but has the storytelling skill to keep me interested and imbue everything with a sense of mystery. This was a great book.

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I was expecting a similar style to Reynolds' other books like Blue Remembered Earth (one of my favourites) and I found it to be very wordy. The story is interesting but coming off The Expanse books (I've read the first two so far), Revelation Space felt like a bit of a slog at times and a little too caught up in itself. I keep thinking of it as very European with somewhat drawn out dialogues where the characters seem to opt for this excessively honest, oral interaction.

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I really wanted to like this book much more than I do - I've read much praise for the author and the series. It has all the right elements to be a good book in theory - an intriguing and well thought out plot, interesting characters, a great pace etc. But in practice it just didn't work for me for a variety of reasons.

The biggest problem I had was with the exposition - the author deliberately withheld key information, privy to the characters we were following, for the vast majority of the book just for a final reveal at the end. It was an annoying trick and he did it not once but twice - it was blatantly obvious, jarring and very frustrating. Other completely obvious plot elements were also held back and revealed as if they should be some kind of surprise - these were not and they …

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I really liked this.

But I can't help comparing it to Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth saga, which had more verbose world building, and many more parallel plot lines which converged in the end, and a lot more Chekov's guns(maybe used in other books of the universe).

Revelation space was darker, the plot was tighter, and it had a a bit of an edge on the science over Commonwealth saga.

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

An old rule is that the first sentence of a book should suck you right in. In this case, it's “There was a razorstorm coming in”, which is right at the top.

In fact, Reynolds manages to continue this for the whole book: each paragraph sucks you right in to the next. The sense of urgency is so palpable that it's almost impossible to put this book away. I know, it's a clichée, but it's absolutely true for this one. In addition, there is an abundance of ludicrous ideas that he somehow manages to make seem plausible. That way, he creates a living universe where everything is possible – and actually happens.

One of the best of the decade.

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Subjects

  • Space colonies -- Fiction.
  • Life on other planets -- Fiction.