Tag Archive for 'books'

As a quick aside, I slammed through Dan Brown’s latest novel, prior to Absolution Gap.  Not much to be said there.  Heh.

[ This post will contain possible spoilers.  Nothing too glaring, but be warned regardless! ]

Absolution Gap is the final part of the Inhibitor story arc in Reynolds’ Revelation Space universe, granted other (later) novels touch on the ending aspects.  We start off the novel picking up where Redemption Ark left off, roughly 20 years in the future.  We find out the Inhibitors are still focused on humankind’s annihilation, yet some remarkable technological advancements have occurred.  The remainder of the novel is straightforward.  Leaps of time occur as he does so well as a writer, and it’s not too hard to keep up with.

Reynolds seems a bit too focused on ramping up humankind’s technology with massive leaps and bounds.  It felt rushed.  Sure it was necessary to what his goals were story wise, but it was too much of a leap of faith on his part.  Part of Alastair’s charm, for me at least, is how he can write brutally technical passages explaining very difficult concepts and ideas.  We’re left to sit back in awe at these technological MacGuffins, but if anything their lack of explanation was too distracting this round.  Yes it’s neat what they did, but his quick wash over the nitty-gritty details disappointed.

I was also dismayed at how his voicing of the Inhibitors in Redemption Ark did not translate over to Absolution Gap.  Reynolds has a remarkable gift when it comes to non-human voicing, and approach to trying to convey alien thinking.  It would have been fantastic to see this pushed further in this novel, especially when it came to some of the actions performed by the Inhibitors.  They lost their evil, and coldness in this novel, and to me it’s a shame.  They were personified so well in previous novels, chillingly so.

The rest of the novel is fairly well done, but again we see some tarnishing of ideas as they develop.  The Quaicheist religion was interesting at first, but failed to deliver.  The demise of Clavain was heartbreakingly simple, but again felt way too rushed.  The Captain of Nostalgia For Infinity countered with some excellent development, but then we’re left with a lame closure.  The rest of the characters continued along their merry way, most of whom we had been introduced to in Redemption Ark, but over all they were flat.

The most common theme of people discussing or reviewing this book is the ending.  For me it was suitable, and left the reader pondering the relationship between the shadows and our universe.  I’m surprised that people couldn’t see beyond the boundaries that Reynolds had written about all this time.  He was never far from pushing the idea of just how fucking big the universe is.  He hinted, quite often, about using the space BETWEEN the stars.  Perhaps people expected the utter annihilation of the Inhibitors.  I was reminded about Asimov’s inability to close things appropriately (hi2u Foundation series).  Closure appears to have been beyond Reynolds writing, and I can’t quite figure out why — I would have to ask the chap about it, heh.  This could be a similar case that befell Asimov.  I could have done without the epilogue.  It seemed totally disjointed from the entire concept of the book.

Over all there is a common theme of things being rushed.  Perhaps it was a result of a real world deadline, or perhaps pressures from other agencies in his life (editors, other stories in his head, etc).  One thing is for sure, it’s still a solid book.  Just don’t expect a blockbuster, knock your socks off read.

In my previous post, I gave my thoughts on Revelation Space. Given that I particularly enjoyed Reynolds’ first novel, I dove in to his second work named Chasm City. This next installment places us back in to the Revelation Space universe. It’s a stand alone novel, following the perspective of Tanner Mirabel, a war hardened sniper turned mercenary vowed to avenge the death of his employer.

Challenging the reader in a beautifully constructed series of iterations, we soon find out that Tanner is not all he thinks he is and more importantly who he is. We track Tanner from Sky’s Edge, his war torn backwater home, to the now similarly scarred world of Yellowstone. Once revered for being a beautiful culmination of cultural and technological marvels, Chasm City now lies as a twisted and contorted shell of its prior self, made horrific by the alien Melding Plague.

Reynolds’ approach to mixing the environment with the characters is great. We’re soon figuring out how much of an impact of the Melding Plague had, and all the mysteries involved with it. We’re also never far from tiny hints of history we’ve been introduced to in Revelation Space. But more importantly the characters, from all sects of man, and all levels of society are all entwined expertly.

It must be noted that the time frame involved across the Revelation Space universe is roughly a 300 year period spanning from 2427 to 2727 across all five novels. Much like Asimov’s efforts with his Foundation series, there’s some inconsistencies. But in truth, they are easily dimmed by the quality of detail Alastair produces. I’ve done some background reading in to these things, but I can safely say unless you are a super snob of details, it shouldn’t worry you too much. They aren’t glaring as far as I am concerned.

Over all Chasm City was great. We were given a wonderful story of revenge that spans the stars, the dark and twisted past of Chasm City, a life inside a complex mind, and a slash of humanity that’s figuring itself out after a brutal alien plague.

Next up: Redemption Ark, the third installment.