The Recollection [Kindle Edition]

not to speak of hateful characters that become the good guys.. no reason given. Words that appear (the big boat) and then reappear (Trafalgar!) ... with no place in the story. Unexplained sabotages. The abrupt ending is really the least of its problems. It's a pity because the reading flows and the ideas are nice, just he doesn't seem to take the time to do something with them.

An all-action mainstream SF novel featuring teleportation to other planets that isn't instantaneous but happens at light-speed, so all sorts of ageing themes. Totally unbelievable main characters.
The interesting thing is the similarities to another book. "The Recollection" features a super-power alien intelligence taking over humans on a planet called Strauli Quay, with a bio-machine built by aliens and powered by one human being overcoming it. Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep" (a BRILLIANT book, if you've not read it! - A Fire Upon The Deep (Gollancz S.F.)) features a super-power alien intelligence taking over humans on a planet called Straumli Realm, with a bio-machine built by aliens and powered by one human being overcoming it. Homage? - pay your money and take your choice!

"The Recollection" is Gareth L Powell's second full length novel, following on from "Silversands" (Pendragon Press) and his acclaimed short story collection "The Last Reef". And it is from "The Last Reef" that "The Recollection" draws most heavily, particularly from the short story Arches. It's fascinating to see the genesis of a novel in a short story, and the collection, from Elastic Press, is worth seeking out.

"The Recollection" opens with Ed's brother Verne falling through a mysterious arch at the bottom of an escalator at a London Underground station, leaving his brother Ed, and his wife (and Ed's on-off lover) Alice, to solve the mystery of his disappearance. Arches are appearing all over the world, and they lead to other planets, other arches, drawing Ed and Alice through the universe in their quest to find Verne.

Meanwhile, in a distant future, Kat Abdulov and her psychically linked spaceship, Ameline, are in a desperate race with her former lover to a remote planet. But what they find when they get there is shocking, throwing them back together in a most unexpected way. And on a crystal spaceship, a race of aliens search for a way to save humanity from a deadly, relentless foe...

"The Recollection" is an epic story, spanning time and space, cramming ideas into its multi-layered plot. In the hands of writers like Alastair Reynolds or Ian M Banks, it would be the opening to a five-volume epic space saga. But in Powell's hands, the story whizzes along, barely pausing for breath as it hurls the reader far into the future, and from one end of the galaxy to the other. In a way, it's almost too fast, the ideas, of the Arches, and of the mysterious Recollection itself, may have benefited from more leisurely examination, and it's to be hoped there will be spin-offs from some of the ideas not fully explored in the novel.

It's certainly an exciting major-label debut from a promising author at the start of what will hopefully be a long and fruitful career, with plenty of time to slow down and stare wide-eyed at the fascinating universe Powell has only begun to sketch here.