"Your tenancy here has expired." If you've ever looked up at the night sky and asked yourself "Where the hell is everybody?" this novel proposes a toothsome solution. "Revelation Space" lacks the sense of mischief that something like Iain M. Banks “Excession” has but has just as strong a love of Big Ideas, here given the added kick of being - one feels, due to Reynolds’ scientific background - rather close to the actually possible; if Dawn Wars and Inhibitors squishing uppity child species are your bag. Compared to other hard SF efforts like, say, “Seveneves” or “Luna” this definitely delights in more narrative pyrotechnics right to the end and rationalises more dizzying ideas but there is a sense Reynolds is firmly on the reader’s side, he isn’t more in love with his ideas than the ride. Plus he sticks the landing. Thank the maker.

A cursory glance at the Wikipedia page for “Revelation Space” gives you some (spoilery) indication of the sort of world-building going on here - there's factions vying for terraforming control of Resurgam, ancient civilisations, star-destroying weaponry infected with viruses, cloned personalities, ectoptics, buried cities, Pattern Jugglers, the Shrouders, the Event - but this heady stuff is all accompanied by a solid (and very well plotted) mystery-box narrative which turns out to be a walkthrough of one of the proposed solutions to...well, I'm sure other reviewers will blow the surprise. Mercifully, he builds in subtle recaps as he goes along and the lore is delicious enough to keep you hooked. I felt Sylveste’s eventual descent into Cerberus had more than a little feel of “Rendezvous With Rama” to it and kudos for Khouri and Pascale deciding to just get pissed when they’re realise they’re on a one-way trip to the neutron star Hades. There is humour and any sex or violence is painted in abstract strokes and, frankly, comes across as more mature for it. The novel ends in the SF version of a battering ram on a mysterious castle, Reynolds throwing in a bit of horror in a surgical unit and a tsunami of rats and with various characters asking each other "is he on our side?" but since all the throw-forwards are actually answered and the narrative revolves around a genuine, and interesting, scientific question any first novel birthing pangs are forgiveable. Mostly, this puts me in the mood for more from this incredible universe and from the groaning Alastair Reynolds shelf in Foyles.

Well, given that I tried to read Pushing Ice and ended up DNFing it, I liked Revelation Space a lot more than I expected to.

Which isn't to say, mind you, that I particularly liked Revelation Space.

Oh, I liked the core of it well enough. Alastair Reynolds has one heck of an imagination, that much is clear. The worlds he imagined, the Amarantin, the Inhibitors, even something as simple as the Assassin game that Khouri played in early on... all absolutely fascinating.

...and all mostly crushed under the man's inability to stop repeating himself and to not spew forth of a river of verbiage when a mere trickle would do.

I don't regret reading it, but I won't be picking up any more works from him. I'd rather read KSR instead. He's got a bit of extra weight around his middle too in his books, but I don't mind it quite as much.

This is the sort of book that makes me glad that I participate in a book group, as I wouldn't otherwise have read this. It's a superb space opera, though it is nowhere as melodramatically silly as the label might suggest. And while Alastair Reynolds's scientific expertise contributes to the strengths of the novel, what makes it such an engaging read is his willingness to trust in the intelligence of the reader, both in his development of multiple storylines and his introduction of plot devices (such as the Melding Plague) without extended exposition, leaving the details to be pieced together over the course of the novel. Though it functions nicely as a stand-alone work, I finished the book eager to start the next novel in the series, which I hope will develop further the rich universe which Reynolds created.

I love stories that are able to combine large scope, hard approach to scifi tech, mythology or a spiritual element, and enough of a mystery to provide suspense. RS delivers on all of the above.

Quite simply the best science fiction novel I have ever read, and I've read some great ones. Dan Sylveste sets out on a quest to find out why an ancient alien society was wiped out soon after they discovered space travel. What he discovers was one of the more original concepts I have ever come across in reading science fiction. Great characters, great story, fast paced and just damn interesting to an old geek like me. This one blew me away.