Unfortunately, it’s not a great book. The world-building is fun and imaginative, but the main character drifts through a strange world while relying on stronger, more active characters to repeatedly save his bacon. This passivity made it difficult for me to really get into the story. The plot also felt a little spineless, wobbling from one quest to another.
So I was ticked off to find the book, after over 400 pages, ends without resolving several important storylines. It felt as if it was the first book in a planned trilogy, but it’s a standalone.
Recommendation: Read one of Alastair Reynold’s books like Revelation Space or House of Suns, but skip this one.
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This breaks my heart. I’ve read almost all of Reynolds’ book and was planning on reading this one next. Guess I’ll bump down the list and read Peter Hamilton’s Salvation instead
The female assistant would need a truck to haul around all of her weaponry.
That's what I thought as well, until I realized it's set on a future terraformed (but decaying) Mars, which has gravity 38% of Earth's.