Alright, time for another review of an Alastair Reynolds book. This time Chasm City, the second book in the Revelation Space series. This book is independent from book 1, Revelation Space and book 3, Redemption Ark, but takes place in this same universe. The book is about the legendary city on the planet Yellowstone, an earth-like planet orbiting the close star Epsilon Eridani, a star often used in Sci-Fi. The city is located inside a big chasm on the planet surface and has been hit by the melding plague, a plague that attacks technology, even nanotechnology in humans.

The main character, Tanner Mirabel, is from the planet Sky’s Edge, the first planet to be colonized by human beings. The story of this fist colonization is a key element in the book, and we follow the journey of the first settlers in parallel with the main story, a writing style Reynolds use in most of his books. Mirabel is a gun for hire chasing someone into the complex post-plague social world of Chasm City. The story takes us through his introduction to this complex social structure, and as always with Reynold’s stories, it has many fascinating layers of technology, politics and faith. The people we follow turn out not te be quite who they appear to be at first, and as always, Reynolds make everything come together at the end.

This is probably one of the best books yet by Reynolds, and a favourite of mine together with Pushing Ice. It is highly recommended for any Sci-Fi fan, and it can be read as a standalone book without following the series as there are little of the story that depends on book 1 besides a few references.

Terminal World is the latest book by Alastair Reynolds. The book is set some time in the future in a time when humans are struggling to survive on a cooling planet where zones restrict where advanced technology or even biological life can survive. The main human city is located on the surface of a large spiralling spire reaching out into space. Both the zones and the spire are remnants of earlier times when humans were more technologically advanced. That time is gone, and little knowledge remains of this time. Most of humanity live in primitive zones where only primitive machinery can function.

The main character of the book, Quillon, is an angel. Angels are descendants of some modified and enhanced part of the human race. They can only survive in the zones that allow the highest level of technology. Quillon has been modified to serve as an infiltrator in the lower level zones, and now someone is out to kill him. The story first takes us through his flight, and then we follow him as he learns about the story of humanity and the remnants of ancient technology.

As usual, Reynolds has written a magnificent story. Very imaginative. However as too often with his books, the ending feels a bit rushed and too much left to be explained. Still, a very good read.

A very different book by Alastair Reynolds. In this book humans have long colonized our galaxy and split into many different sub-species and sub-civilizations. One such sub-civilization is the shatterlings. They are clones who’s purpose are to explore the galaxy. The particular faction we follow are all clones of a woman who’s childhood is one of the parallel storylines in the book. These clones live for millions of years, both due to relativistic time dilation and cryogenic technology. But something threatens their existence, most of them are killed in an attack, and the survivor are left to figure out what happened.

The setting of the book is brilliant, but this time I think Reynolds got a bit lost in his storylines. I felt too much time was spent on less significant tracks, and too little on the conclusion. The end of the book comes really fast and while magnificent, a bit hasty. Still a very good book.

Catching up on my book reviews, so here is yet another book I just read by Alastair Reynolds. This book is the continuation of the story in “Redemption Ark”. In that book we left a shipload of refugees on a habitable planet after fleeing from the Inhibitors, a machine intelligence who’s task is to prevent intelligent civilizations to arise in our galaxy in an effort to prevent galactic wars. In “Absolution Gap” they’ve caught up with our refugees. We follow these people as well as the story of a man employed by a Conjoiner to survey solar systems for treasure. He has a religious experience involving a gas giant that seems to periodically vanish from existence for a fraction of a second. On an orbiting moon he forms a cult of believers who sole purpose in life is to observe such a vanish. The two storylines meet at the end to form a grand finale.

I have to say I enjoyed this book the most of the 3 Revelation Space books involving the same characters. The characters in this book are even more colourful than the previous, and the story is entertaining and involving in every substory and side tracks. Reynolds description of futuristic technology is more imaginative than ever, and his attention to details is as great as always.

Well, since I’m on a book review roll here, I might as well review another book I read this summer (mostly on the train to and from Oslo). “Pushing Ice” is one of the books by Alastair Reynolds who does not take place in the Revelation Space universe. It was published in 2005.

Summary: The story revolves around the crew on the mining vessel Rockhopper who’s job it is to mine comets for resources. On a mission their orders are changed. One of the moons of Saturn, Janus, has broken off and is accelerating away into interstellar space! Rockhopper takes up the pursuit in an attempt to find out what or who is doing this, and it soon becomes apparent that Janus is not a moon after all. At least not one made of rock. The is an intriguing collection of interpersonal conflicts, the birth of a new society, strange alien encounters and a struggle to grasp the relativistic effects like time dilation. What has happened to humanity while they were on their way?

This book was very hard to put down. It is the first of Reynolds books I’ve read (the other two are on my iPod). It’s the kind of story where you just have to read the next chapter. In the end I felt that the story was a bit rushed towards a conclusion. Although the prologue and epilogue are a brilliant wrapping of the story that I personally greatly enjoyed. I see a potential book just from what’s outlined there. I also understand that there are plans for a follow-up of this book too, which may account for the somewhat sudden end to this one. I look forward to it.