Chasm City (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

Alastair Reynolds has written another fantastic novel in "Chasm City" - it's just like "Revelation Space," except better, its hard-edged science fiction with great characters, we get the vastness of space, inner and outer. Alastair Reynolds is indeed a brilliant writer. I found it gripping, very clever, with wonderful descriptions that create a strong visual dimension as you read the story. Alastair's imagination really stretches you.

Every time I thought the story had crested, some new twist and turn kept occurring. Throughout this 524-page novel, the various story lines kept coming together, there was obviously so much more of the plot to unravel. Two-thirds into the story and I just couldn't put the book down. I just stayed up till 2 a.m. to finish "Chasm City," eagerly turning each page, drawn to each word like a caterpillar crossing a blade of grass, to see what new part of the story would be revealed.

I can't sleep as I'm still reeling from this magnificent book. Wow, what a feeling! Even after having read Alastair's first debut novel "Revelation Space," I was completely unprepared for the many wonders within "Chasm City." Parts of this novel reminded me of "The Fountains of Paradise" by Arthur C. Clarke, "Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville and "Metal Fatigue" by Sean Williams.

Tanner Mirabel was a security specialist who never made a mistake......until the day a women in his care was blown away during an attack by a vengeful young postmortal named Argent Reivich.

Tanner's pursuit of Reivich takes him away from his homeworld, across light-years of space, to Chasm City, the domed human settlement on the otherwise inhospitable planet Yellowstone. But Chasm City isn't what it used to be: the one-time high-tech utopia has become a dark, Gothic nightmare, victim of a nanotechnological virus, which has corrupted the city's inhabitants as thoroughly as it has, has the buildings. Now the city is a place of steam-driven machines, shadowy factions and deadly new games.

With only his wits to help him - not to mention the odd piece of heavy firepower - Tanner narrows the distance between himself and Reivich.

But before the chase is done, Tanner will have to confront disturbing truths, which reach back centuries, towards deep space, and an atrocity history barely remembers.

I rate this book highly, and recommend it to all science fiction fans. I cannot remember how long it has been since I discovered a new voice such as Alastair, a new writer whose vision is not only new but also exciting. Alastair Reynolds is one such writer. Beg, borrow or steal it; but read Chasm City!

This book suffers from verbosity, not so much the descriptive prose but from the mouths of characters who all seem to have an unlimited intelligence and massive vocabulary. It acts like a barrier to any empathy a reader may have with say Tanner Mirabel. Despite everything that happens to him he seems to change very little, and after reading the ending I didn't get the point of the revelation of who he really is/was. Interestingly enough the passages from Sky Hausmann's story and Tanner's past are much more interesting and seductive than what happens to Tanner in Chasm City and I wonder if that is what ultimately stops the book from being a classic. It has to end in the present and that just hasn't been anything more than a rudimetary adventure compared to the tales from the past. The 'fight' at the end is deeply, deeply unsatisfying, how many times have we seen this, and why when everything else is spectacular is this so brief and unimaginative? The 'bite' at the end is ridiculous.

This is almost a Dan Simmons novel and it borrows a fair few ideas from him, but it doesn't quite do it. Not for me anyway.

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This book is set over a much shorter timescale than his first book (Revelation Space) and the story is much tighter and more pleasurable to read for it.
There are three interesting storylines that converge toward the end, but I must say that I thought the 'twist' was obvious from the middle of the book.
The universe this book is set in is the same as Revelation Space, although in a slightly different period and there are plenty of references to the first book to help place this story. However, this is an entirely independent story from Revelation Space.
Chasm city is a horror - it's buildings, machines and society ruined by the melding plague. There is an almost Dickensian feel about the poor, Mulch dwellers and the upper class Canopy society. Chasm City is quite well described and has many interesting features.
However, the characters are too shallow. We never really know what motivates most of them. Tanner Mirabel is supposed to be a professional soldier/mercenary but his professional detachment goes out the window as he vows to avenge his boss's assassination, travelling across space for 15 years in suspended animation to track down the killer, Reivich. The motley crew he links up with variously want to mislead him, kidnap him or/and kill him, but all end up going off together to confront the big baddy near the end on Tanners side. For the most part, it is not clear why they each have a change of heart.
There are other oddities as well - mutant pigs who pop up now and again to save Tanner, then are never mentioned again. The Mixmasters scan his body for physiological changes and injuries and spot his retinal modifications but miss his poisonous fangs and his missing arm. Still, no one's perfect. I also lost count of how many times Tanner Mirabel was captured by someone, or lost consciousness.
The other storylines suffer similarly. One is the earlier story of Tanner and the other is the complex tale of Sky Haussman. Not sure what turned Sky into a psycho - was it the lights failing as a boy, his father dying of his injuries or was he just predisposed to instant psychosis? We don't know.
I'm afraid this all sounds a bit negative, BUT actually I was thoroughly gripped by this book. Try to glide over the plot holes and lapses in logic and it's basically a good yarn.

If you liked Revelation Space, you'll like this. If you didn't like revelation Space, it's still worth giving this one a go.