Alastair Reynolds
Revelation Space (2000)
Reviewed: 2003-11-01

I dislike taking up cover blurbs, but on my copy Paul J. McAuley is quoted as calling Relevation Space a "gonzo cybergoth space opera", which is probably as apt an description as any. Alastair Reynolds' first novel is a tasty dish with spicy ingredients:

There is the mad scientist. Dan Sylveste, brilliant and ruthless, fiercely dedicated to solving the mystery of the Amarantin, an alien species that perished a million years ago when their sun torched the planetary surface. Accompanied by an AI simulation of his dead father, Sylveste even had a colony set up on the Amarantin home world, but opposition against his autocratic rule has turned into mutiny and revolution.

There is the lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity, an interstellar ramscoop ship. The deteriorating vessel and bizarre crew, including a frozen captain, are clearly an appreciative nod by Reynolds towards John Carpenter's Dark Star, but there is nothing humorous about the Infinity. Ruled by a sinister mood, equipped with powerful technology, and suffering no moral qualms, the ship's team is on a mission to restore their captain, by whatever means necessary.

There is the assassin. Ana Khouri had a military background when she ended up marooned on another planet, her husband gone for good. Now she has taken up licensed killing as a business, but an unscrutable entity will soon convince her of taking on a less legal and more challenging mission.

The time is centuries in the future. A web of settled planets is connected by ramscoop ships, hugging the speed of light. The ships are crewed by Ultras, an offshoot of humanity deeply involved and frequently merging with high technology. Other groupings and subspecies are elsewhere on the technological ladder. Alien species are extinct, their remaining artifacts mostly boring but occasionally wondrous, and the only living kind, the Pattern Jugglers, are so strange that nobody knows whether they even have a mind.

It looked like a biology lesson for gods, or a snapshot of the kind of pornography which might be enjoyed by sentient planets.

The fates of Sylveste, the Infinity, and Khouri soon intertwine and various struggles eventually retreat to permit a mission to an extraordinary artifact that will lead to the absurdly literal rape of a planet and culminate in unimagined revelations.

A dark tale and a strong debut.

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