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.