Revelation Space

, #1

Mass Market Paperback, 585 pages

English language

Published May 28, 2002 by Orion Publishing Group.

ISBN:
978-0-441-00942-8
Copied ISBN!
Goodreads:
89187

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(152 reviews)

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin.

For the humans now settling the Amarantin homeworld, it's of little more than academic interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect city and a colossal statue of a winged Amarantin.

For brilliant, ruthless scientist Dan Sylveste, it's more than merely intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth. Even if it costs him everything.

But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and that danger is closer and greater than even Syveste imagines...

The original novel in the epic series, Revelation Space was nominated for both the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke awards. Reynolds' PhD in astronomy and experience with the ESA means that his space operas present hard science spins on intergalactic adventures and have impacted SF for years.

9 editions

reviewed Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, #1)

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

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.

reviewed Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, #1)

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

Character motivation was a problem throughout the book (just freaking kill people once you defeat and capture them over and over, jeeze!) and the author is a little too impressed with his own vocabulary but the setting and some clever storytelling redeem the story

reviewed Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, #1)

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

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'

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'

GoodReads recommendation engine has been suggesting Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space to me for a couple of years now and it's not hard to see why, after all it's epic scaled science fiction written by a British author, and that is kind of my thing. Well it finally made it to the top of my to read pile and I'm glad it did. While it starts slow by the end it's gripping stuff.

So What's It All About?

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight. Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes …

reviewed Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds (Revelation Space, #1)

Review of 'Revelation space' on 'Goodreads'

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'

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

  • Fiction
  • Science Fiction
  • Space Opera

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