Revelation Space, the circa 2000 science fiction novel by the author Alastair Reynolds, is another book I read based on the recommendation of a friend, the same friend, in fact, who recommended Hyperion by Dan Simmons. These are two very different books, even if they are both science fiction, and they each held within different aspects that stuck with me post they’re reading. No spoilers for either going forward, so fear not words yet unseen.
For Hyperion, it felt an homage to past literary and philosophical greats wrapped in a brilliant science fiction package. The world building, or galaxy building, was great, undoubtedly. But at least for me, it was the characters and their turmoil, their secrets, their joys and pains, that made me need to read on. The interweaving of personal journeys dispensed a story at a time while the crew traveled a truly harrowing pilgrimage pulled at me, so much so by the end I found I didn’t much need to know whether the pilgrimage itself succeeded. I knew what led up to their final destination. I knew the pilgrims. That was enough.
Revelation Space felt a different experience to me, stunning in its own ways. I enjoyed the core trio of characters from whose perspectives the three strands of story intertwined – the xenoarchaeologist Dan Sylveste, the ship weapons master Illia Volyova, and the assassin Ana Khouri – but what made me feel the need to keep reading was the twisty science of it all, the traversing of the labyrinthine maze and the unwrapping of the onion to find one more secret after another. I read that Alastair Reynolds has a PhD in astronomy and worked at the European Space agency for years. That completely fits my perception of him after reading his work. He is clearly brilliant, and wielded that brilliance to create a universe-spanning mythos that felt deeply embedded in our understanding of space and time and all matters of matter. I particularly liked his willingness to keep the speed of light as the currently understood speed limit of the universe. But not just to adhere to that rule, to then make that restriction a key plot element in the intertwining of narrative threads. Without delving into spoilers, the novel opens on Dan Sylveste excavating an alien artifact on the planet of Resurgam in the Delta Pavonis system, looking to uncover evidence that the alien race known as the Amarantin were more than they appeared. This is year 2551. Another thread focuses on the assassin Ana Khouri first found on the planet of Yellowstone in the Epsilon Eridani system in the year 2524. The third focuses on Illia Volyova, a member of a triumvirate on an ancient behemoth of a space ship called the Nostalgia for Infinity, a ship whose descriptions of abandoned sections and decrepit corners lent the book a satisfyingly unsettling bent at times. This thread starts in the year 2540. These three threads and timelines join in a satisfying manner, and the restrictions of sub-light travel across the galaxy plays no small role in that.
To pull it all together, if you are interested in a sci-fi book that leans towards the hard side on the hard-soft sci-fi dichotomy with fantastic worldbuilding and a twisty plot with always another secret to uncover, I recommend a read.
All the best,
M. Weald
P.S. I’m taking a writing class and am now finished with the initial draft of chapter 1 of the fantasy novel that’s been percolating in my mind for years now! I’m aiming to have the initial rough draft ready by the end of April. This time around, I’m hoping to go the traditional publishing route, so that means, among other things, not another 250k word behemoth. I’m planning for this to sit around 80k-100k words. More to come on that later, but just to peak the interest, here is the tagline: When a priestess for human souls left adrift by forgotten gods is taken captive by the worshipers of a rising deity, she must navigate a city splintering under the schism between father and son, a city whose secrets are killing both human and spirit alike.
P.P.S. Side effect of focusing on the novel and well, you know, the job that pays the bills and everything else, means the YouTube channel is largely aspirational at this point. I hope to get back to it, so I’m not taking it down or anything, but I also don’t have any immediate plans to release more there. Regardless, the blog shall continue on! It is undead, stronger than my weak and fleshy self. I will escape whatever afterlife befalls me and come back in servitude to this blog. Forever shall it reign!
M. Weald 