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Revelation Space (S.F. MASTERWORKS) by [Alastair Reynolds]

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Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space (S.F. MASTERWORKS) Kindle Edition

by Alastair Reynolds (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

1,399 ratings

Book 1 of 3: Relevation Space: The Inhibitor Trilogy

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Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin. For the human colonists now settling the Amarantin homeworld Resurgam, it's of little more than academic interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city and a colossal statue of a winged Amarantin. For brilliant but ruthless scientist Dan Sylveste, it's more than merelty intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth. Even if the truth costs him everything. But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and that danger is closer and greater than even Syveste imagines ...

REVELATION SPACE: a huge, magnificent space opera that ranges across the known and unknown universe ... towards the most terrifying of destinations.

Print length

596 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Gollancz
Publication date

10 Dec. 2009
Reading age

18 years and up
File size

1323 KB
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Product description

Amazon Review

Alastair Reynolds's first novel is "hard" SF on an epic scale, crammed with technological marvels and immensities. Its events take place over a relatively short period, but have roots a billion years old--when the Dawn War ravaged our galaxy.

Sylveste is the only man ever to return alive and sane from a Shroud, an enclave in space protected by awesome gravity-warping defences: "a folding a billion times less severe should have required more energy than was stored in the entire rest-mass of the galaxy." Now an intuition he doesn't understand makes him explore the dead world Resurgam, whose birdlike natives long ago tripped some booby-trap that made their own sun erupt in a deadly flare.

Meanwhile, the vast, decaying lightship Nostalgia for Infinity is coming for Sylveste, whose dead father (in AI simulation) could perhaps help the Captain, frozen near absolute zero yet still suffering monstrous transformation by nanotech plague. Most of Infinity's tiny crew have hidden agendas--Khouri the reluctant contract-assassin believes she must kill Sylveste to save humanity--and there are two bodiless stowaways, one no longer human and one never human. Shocking truths emerge from bluff, betrayal and ingenious lies.

The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defences to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons.

At the heart of this artefact, the final revelations detonate--most satisfyingly. Dense with information and incident, this longish novel has no surplus fat and seems almost too short. A sparkling SF debut. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Synopsis

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin. For the human colonists now settling the Amarantin homeworld Resurgam, it's of little more than academic interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city and a colossal statue of a wingest Amarantin. For brilliant but ruthloess scientist Dan Sylveste, it's more than merelty intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth. Even if the truth costs him everything. But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and that danger is closer and greater than even Syveste imagines ...REVELATION SPACE: a huge, magnificent space opera that ranges acrioss the known and unknown universe ...towards the most terrifying of destinations. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Book Description

'The span here is mind-boggling, cosmos-spanning concepts, a breathtaking journey' Good Book Guide --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Review

"Intensely compelling; darkly intelligent; hugely ambitious." --Paul J. McAuley, author of Ancients of Days

"A terrific treat. I was hooked from page one. Billion-year-gone alien wars, killer intelligences--and perhaps the most stunning and original alien artifact in modern science fiction--and all rendered with the authentic voice of a working scientist. Ferociously intelligent and imbued with a chilling logic--it may really be like this Out There." --Stephen Baxter, co-author of The Light of Other Days

"A striking first novel. Revelation Space delivers the goods. Certain to be one of the year's most impressive debut novels, and one of the most significant large-scale epics of the year. Reynolds is the next writer to watch in the resurrection of the conceptually intelligent space opera." --Gary Wolfe, Locus

"Complicated, and very clever and well-written...a spectacular first novel."--Aboriginal SF

"A delight. A refreshing and entertaining reconsideration of some of the genre's oldest tropes. An impressive first novel, quite possibly the space opera of the year. Watch for it at awards time."--Jonathan Strahan, Locus --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Amazon.co.uk Review

The trail leads to a neutron star where an orbiting alien construct has defences to challenge the Infinity's planet-wrecking superweapons.

Review

"Ferociously intelligent and imbued with a chilling logic---it may really be like this Out There." ---Stephen Baxter, coauthor of The Light of Other Days --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

Born in Barry, South Wales, Alastair Reynolds studied at Newcastle and St. Andrew's Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. A former astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, he now writes full-time. He is the author of many short stories and eight novels, including Revelation Space, which was short-listed for the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Chasm City, winner of the British Science Fiction Association's Award for Best Novel; and House of Suns. --This text refers to the preloaded_digital_audio_player edition.

Review

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0049MPHZI
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gollancz; UK ed. edition (10 Dec. 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1323 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 596 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 12,208 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 60 in Science Fiction TV, Movie & Game Tie-In
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- 86 in Colonisation

Customer reviews:
1,399 ratings

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Alastair Reynolds

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Alastair Reynolds was born in Wales in 1966. He has a Ph.D. in astronomy. From 1991 until 2007, he lived in The Netherlands, where he was employed by The European Space Agency as an astrophysicist. He is now a full-time writer.

Photo by Robert Day [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customer reviews

5 star		54%
4 star		29%
3 star		10%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

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M. King

Blinded with science

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 August 2018

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You are inundated with scientific (or pseudo scientific for all I know) facts from the very start of this book which I think serves two purposes:

1) To pad out the story. e.g. a character is told to arm herself at a tense part of the story and we then get a 3 page explanation of how the armoury builds its guns...goodbye tension.

2) To hide the fact that, at its heart, it’s the simplest of plots driven along by people acting strangely just to get to point B. We are told so and so is brutal or so and so is a megalomaniac but this traits are never seen...the whole bunch of characters are bland plot following imbeciles.

It’s dull as dish-water and the author has a dreadful habit of dragging out the reveals by interrupting an explanation with a cut away to what’s going on with another character.

20 people found this helpful

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Erik Peterson

Something missing.. maybe slightly better story telling required

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 November 2018

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The writing was good enough to keep me reading and in its own way, is original. Also, not sure why they say 'hard sci-fi' about this. There is plenty of character writing, and an interesting story (I'd really give this three and a half stars). The descriptions are good and there are some interesting scifi tech ideas (original and diverse) though I feel the emphasis on these can reduce the quality of the story telling. Some parts were just poorly designed, for example a main character suddenly starts a relationship with an enemy, but the whole tension or build up literally is not there (just skips to the future). Also, it's not necessarily 'hard scifi' in that it's necessarily a believable future.

The wordiness is slightly too much for me. This writer has interesting concepts and can write a story (though he loves to bring several parallel stories together) and some of the reveals in the story are just predictable and not done in an impactful way. Also, I can't say I really felt much emotional connection with the characters. Thus, all the way through the book I felt that this is a person that could write brilliant work with a co-author. Really - with another eye and someone who could tweak the writing to bring out emotion and impact, this could have been brilliant. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if this was made into an interesting TV scifi series.

Should you buy it? Well, ignore the reviews about 'hard scifi'. I'd say, yes read this, and you'll enjoy it, but it's not special - not because it's not unique - but because it really just needed some tweaks to make the story telling better.

11 people found this helpful

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Djgos

Pity about the flaws

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 February 2019

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Initially I loved the book, until the transformation of the Lighthugger into the Bridgehead. For a what is essentially a hard sci-fi story, and believable in that, it's hard to understand why Reynolds fell into the Star Wars/Star Trek style of suspending credulity - in this case hugely modifying the ship in a dis-believable time scale. Likewise how could Sylvester read the inscriptions on the shaft wall if they were so big and he falling do fast? Hardly Points to thrash the whole book, yet they compromised it for me.

That being said I did really like the story; enough to give the book 4*'s, and will read the sequel:)

One person found this helpful

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Derek Smith

A well written old style sweeping epic - excellent

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 October 2017

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This is old style science fiction; a sweeping epic full of ideas. I don't often go for a first novel but a personal recommendation made me opt for this one, and I'm glad I bought it. Great characterisation, a story that unfolds gradually, a mix of well developed characters, few of whom are actually likeable, and a great climax. On top of that, the grammar was faultless. Other reviewers have explained the core plot so I won't bore you, but it is unusual.

I liked the switching backwards and forwards in time, almost a necessity for the book given Einstein's universe. It helped to place the events oddly enough.

I don't often give five stars but this book deserved it. Quite a revelation one might say.

4 people found this helpful

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Richard BJ

Great epic space opera

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 July 2019

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I loved the book, well done Author. I thought it was pitched nicely and fear not... by the end all will be revealed! It is quite a complex story and I would have been really irritated if it wasn’t all spelt out by the end. But it was!
I felt the all the hopping between scenes and time points was quite tricky to follow early on (first half), but it all fitted into place eventually. As with so many long-ish novels, I also felt the tale untold at a leisurely pace until the end when we suddenly raced through the end.
I did like it though pitched as, I guess, hard sci-fi with plenty of science and imagination thrown in.
I look forward to his next one!

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F. M. Havicon

Not as good as his short stories

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 May 2018

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Reynolds's true writing skill lies in his shorter fiction, of which a number of anthologies are available. Disappointingly, this novel doesn't make the grade for me, its cast of characters are off-the-shelf retreads, its adventure situations are cliches dressed as diamonds, and the only "science" available (that which officially makes it science fiction, as opposed to just fiction set in the future) comes as background information to the various settings he uses in his "future history". This is little more than an adventure story. His writing style tends towards a generic style much-used by long-winded novelists these days, plain and simple, easy to absorb, with only the occasional twist of dialogue or turn of phrase that imparts some individuality. Understandable, since reading a 600 page novel is an investment of time, and you don't want to be put off by a dazzlingly inaccessible writing style -- and the same goes for writing it in the first place, too.
If its just a futuristic adventure yarn you want, complete with ramjets and robots and heavy artillery and wheeler-dealing bad guys, this is for you. If you prefer your science fiction to be fiction about science, maybe just stick with his short stories.

One person found this helpful

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