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.

Revelation Space is the first of (so far) five Sci-Fi books by Alastair Reynolds that take place in the same universe, but only book one (Revelation Space) and book three (Redemption Ark) are about the same people. Reynolds have also written several other Sci-Fi books in other variations of a future universe. Reynolds has a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and his books clearly reflects his knowledge of physics as there is very little bullshit science in them. A few stretches, sure, but a lot less than what is common in Sci-Fi. As I am a physicist myself, I greatly enjoy this change from the common techno-babble

The Revelation Space universe is a fascinating one. Human nature is still much the same, but humanity has split into different branches depending on how much technology they put into their bodies. Regardless, they all have the capability to regenerate and thus live for centuries while also backing up their consciousness into so-called alpha, beta and gamma simulations depending on how advanced and similar to the original they are. Humans have also discovered many ancient alien ruins on other planets, but no aliens. Something has systematically been keeping intelligent life from becoming too advanced. In the first book you will discover the disturbing reason why there is no intelligent life to be found in our galaxy besides ourselves.

I have so far read the first book and also the third book which deal with this pruning force of the universe. I am currently reading the fifth book, “The Prefect”, and have the second one , “Chasm City”, next on my list. (No, they’re not chronological in that sense, except from one and three.) If you enjoy Sci-Fi, you cannot afford to miss out on these books. They’re about as good as Sci-Fi gets. Reynolds himself has bagged a book deal recently, and will continue to produce books for the coming years. I’ll be looking forward to every single one of them!