- Hardcover: 512 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz (25 Nov 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0575074361
- ISBN-13: 978-0575074361
- Product Dimensions: 24.8 x 18 x 5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 548,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Century Rain: Totally Space Opera
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Product Description
Review
"Century Rain is a darkly brilliant love story, set in worlds we think we know but don't." (Jon Courtenay Grimwood GUARDIAN )
"Further proof that he is shaping up into one of SF's best and most ambitious novelists". (Jonathan Wright SFX )
"This is an intelligent space opera" (Roz Kaveney Time Out )
"Century Rain is an absolute cracker of a novel. Reynolds has always been a consistently bright star in the firmament of British sci-fi but now he has suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, gone supernova. (OUTLAND OTTAKAR'S )
"Century Rain is an exciting, thought-provoking novel, an audacious synthesis of genre forms. Alastair Reynolds is now in his novelistic prime." (Nick Gevers LOCUS )
While science ficiton and mystery have often been combined, no writer has done so with such intelligence or originality as Alastair Reynolds. In a single novel, he steps from the mean streets to the far future." (Rick Kleffel Interzone )
"Century Rain demonstrates the growing maturity of his talent" (Edge Magazine )
"Leaves you wishing that more science fiction was this good. A genuinely great book." (Brigid Cherry Dreamwatch )
"With Century Rain, Alastair Reynolds continues the coruscating path he has blazed through SF skies. This a whopping 500-pager, brimming with ideas." (Barry Seddon Manchester Evening News )
"Further proof that he is shaping up into one of SF's best and most ambitious novelists". (Jonathan Wright SFX )
"This is an intelligent space opera" (Roz Kaveney Time Out )
"Century Rain is an absolute cracker of a novel. Reynolds has always been a consistently bright star in the firmament of British sci-fi but now he has suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, gone supernova. (OUTLAND OTTAKAR'S )
"Century Rain is an exciting, thought-provoking novel, an audacious synthesis of genre forms. Alastair Reynolds is now in his novelistic prime." (Nick Gevers LOCUS )
While science ficiton and mystery have often been combined, no writer has done so with such intelligence or originality as Alastair Reynolds. In a single novel, he steps from the mean streets to the far future." (Rick Kleffel Interzone )
"Century Rain demonstrates the growing maturity of his talent" (Edge Magazine )
"Leaves you wishing that more science fiction was this good. A genuinely great book." (Brigid Cherry Dreamwatch )
"With Century Rain, Alastair Reynolds continues the coruscating path he has blazed through SF skies. This a whopping 500-pager, brimming with ideas." (Barry Seddon Manchester Evening News )
Jonathan Wright, SFX
"Further proof that he is shaping up into one of the SF's best and most ambitious novelists".
Inside This Book
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was my first Alistair Reynolds book, but definitely not my last. I was gripped from the start by its 'film noir' style exploration of 1959 alternate history Paris. Reynold's work is easy to read without being in anyway linguistically dumbed down. The first two-thirds of the book in particular were very good and the characters believable. Without wanting to give too much away and spoil the plot, I was pleased by the inventiveness of the book e.g. the Anomalous Large Sphere (ALS) idea and the swarms of Slasher nano-bots. I do have a few issues with this detective/space opera however. As a minor point I found some of the names a little twee. For example, the main groups of protagonists are called Threshers and Slashers, and you will come across beings known as war-babies ( sweet Lord!) Furthermore, the space chase sequences towards the end of the book ( although relatively short ) lack the excitement and pace of earlier chapters and the bag guy ( won't reveal his name ) becomes nothing more than an anonymous sensor blip. The ending nagged at me a bit too - it left a few too many plotlines hanging e.g. what happens to Custine and how does the ALS proceed through time. Also, I thought Floyd ( the main character ) behaves in the final sentence a bit uncharacteristically callous - maybe I just prefer a happy ending to a morally ambiguous one, maybe Reynolds actually got the ending spot on and I'm a bit too immature to accept it!
I was tempted to give the book a 3 ( 3.5 not possible unfortunately ), but I'm going to throw it a 4 because it's introduced me to a new author who I'm sure will not disappoint in future.
I was tempted to give the book a 3 ( 3.5 not possible unfortunately ), but I'm going to throw it a 4 because it's introduced me to a new author who I'm sure will not disappoint in future.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is the first book by Alastair Reynolds I've read, but I'm half-way through Chasm City so I've got that to compare it against. Century Rain, as an earlier reviewer mentioned (hardback edition), does seem more upbeat, or light-hearted (perhaps), than CC - which is quite a grisly affair (but undoubtly with a lot of quality and detail).
To cut to the chase the book centres around an alternate 1959 Paris discovered at the end of an ancient wormhole/portal. There's two main chracters, Floyd - a part-time private detective and part-time musician from the alternate Earth and Auger - an archeologist studying Paris on our own Earth (now covered in ice and suffering from the remnants of a nano-technological virus) a couple of hundred years in the future. Needless to say their two worlds collide as expeditions are sent through the portal to learn about the alternate world and to find out why an agent, sent through the portal earlier, has beem mysteriously murdered. It's gripping stuff with some very good action (not just of the fire-arm kind) and not without a fair dose of classic film-noir paranoia thrown in too.
The quality isn't 100% though, there some bits that near the end that seemed a bit silly, Reynolds seems to "over tell" things at a few points "Floyd stood up, walked to the door and opened it, then walked down the stairs" - that's not a quote but it's the general idea. These flaws are however few and far between. I genuinly felt some of the wonder that these characters from the future must have felt as they walked the streets 200 years in the past for the first time, and there's some vivid surreal imagery on offer.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The Paris detective stuff is really not bad: believable characterisation, trademark snappy dialogue and organic plot development. Genuinely page-turning stuff.
As other reviews have noted, at the half-way point it's all change. We get into an extended hi-tech chase sequence and the plot development stalls. The editor should have been harsher here. More serious is the collapse of plot credibility. Why would the "extremist slashers" want to unleash their genocidal plan on E2? Both revenge and the quest for real-estate are equally implausible as motivations. And the ending is scrappy.
A shame really - this had potential for audience crossover, but SF folk will like it, even those who hang out at /.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Great Concepts
Don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll try not to give details.
Alastair Reynolds is one of my favourite authors and I've read almost everything he's written. Read more
Alastair Reynolds is one of my favourite authors and I've read almost everything he's written. Read more
Published 11 days ago by J. Adams
Golden Age pulp quality and predictability
Reynolds' Revelation Space universe was an excellent foray into a deep, broad and rich universe with intricate detail, wondrous technology yet with unrealistic dialogue. Read more
Published 7 months ago by M-I-K-E 2theD
Magnificent film-noir science fiction.
As a die-hard Reynolds fan, there was little doubt that I would enjoy Century Rain. I was not disappointed; it is a masterly novel combining his unique vision of a hard sci-fi... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Willy Eckerslike
Pretty stupid but I finished it
I picked this up in a charity shop, tempted by the word 'nanocaust' which sounds COOL
It isn't too bad - I did want to know what would happen and wasn't sure what would... Read more
It isn't too bad - I did want to know what would happen and wasn't sure what would... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Paul R. Chalmers
Good idea but missed execution
I only read it, and painfully, up to the end because I wanted to know what was behind the premises. Well ... I won't say more. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Roger Jay
One half builds tension, with depth of character and description,...
Well, before reading CR I glanced at some of the reviews on Amazon, including those that are non-complimentary. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mr. J. C. Buckley
More Please.
I was introduced to Reynolds by a friend during gaps between reading Banks. I really enjoy good science fiction and like most of us I have picked up some rubbish. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Anglo
Very readable, very interesting
I am a big Alistair Reynolds fan and I enjoyed this book a lot. It is rather different to his Revelation Spaces series (Chasm City is, for me, his best work), but the inventiveness... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Byron Geoffrey Farrow
Read the last few lines carefully!
I am an avid reader of science fiction. I have a small library at home of around 1000 books of which around 80% are sci-fi. Read more
Published 23 months ago by S. Horrigan
Alastair Reynolds is very good at what he does.
Century Rain kept me hooked until the very last page. Take a step out of your reality and let Alastair fully transport you to a mid twentieth century Paris. Read more
Published 24 months ago by Mr. Symon Michael Winter
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