Revelation Space is a sprawling, hard-SF tale with enough original ideas for three thick novels. Seriously, it’s overflowing with the stuff. And it’s written by a guy with a PhD in astronomy, so all the science feels solid.
It’s got aliens, artificial intelligence, megastructures, colonized planets, ancient mysteries, cyborgs, big-ass spaceships, intrigue, betrayal, and murder. Reads don’t get much more satisfying than this.
Recommendation: Buy it or get it at the library. Then read the other four Revelation Space books and buy the box set when it comes out (this is my current plan).
Man, you are great. Your “Best of …” gave my ebook reader a new life. Hard to imagine but I ran out of ebooks, and did not know what to read next. So I took on other activities, but… there are no better activities than book reading. And of course photography 🙂 Now I have a bunch of new books to read.
Dan,
This book just kills it on every level. Too good to pass up > and it can lead to Chasm City (stand alone), one of my top ten best SF books.
Mik
I adore the series and i am far overdue for a reread. Revelation Space is most certainly one of my top ten reads. Reynolds gets a lot of flack for his lack of characterisation, but in this one i think he does a pretty decent job. I think the plot threads on this one tie up quite nicely, too.
It has become my fantasy that Alistair Reynolds goes back to the Nostalgia for Infinity and tells the story of Captain Brannigan and his crew.