Absolution Gap (Revelation Space, #3) by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds ends his space opera trilogy with Absolution Gap. Many of the characters from the last book are desperately fighting the Inhibitors, but humankind seems to be losing the war. In a final hail Mary, the Conjoiners and a new member of their race seek a distant star system where a planet seems to disappear and the phenomena is worshiped by a group of fanatics led by a prophet with religious fervor literally in his bloodstream.

For a fraction of a second something inexplicable had occurred. A sensor anomaly. A simultaneous hiccup in every sensor that happened to be observing Haldora as the ship made its approach. A hiccup that made it appear as if the gas giant had simply vanished. Leaving, in its place, something equally inexplicable.” pg 54

Reynolds weaves two main story lines together to create an adequate, but perhaps not entirely satisfying, ending. The science in his books is impeccable. But, like in my previous reviews, I wanted a bit more from the characters.

“Are you all right, sir?” he had asked. Clavain had looked at him sharply. “I’m an old man,” he had replied. “You mustn’t expect the world of me.” pg 77

Readers have come to care about Clavain, Anoinette Bax, Scorpio, and the myriad others characters in this world. The endings given to them are, in my opinion, abrupt and almost given as an aside.

But some of Reynolds writing is simply beautiful and it makes up for a variety of quibbles I had with the story telling.

“It was quiet now, but coming nearer, and he knew that when it reached its awesome crescendo it would fill his soul with joy and terror. And though the bridge looked much the way it had before, he could see the beginnings of stained-glass glories in the black sky beyond it, squares and rectangles and lozenges of pastel light starting to shine through the darkness, like windows into something vaster and more glorious.” pg 100

The broader themes are worth considering as well. What would happen to the human mind if the body becomes essentially immortal? Why does it seem like we’re so alone in the universe when there are so many inhabitable planets? What would advanced technological warfare look like? How would technology and its awesome capabilities change society, our modes of transport, and us?

“Brane theory suggested that the universe the senses spoke of was but one sliver of something vaster, one laminate layer in a stacked ply of adjacent realities. There was, Quaiche thought, something alluringly theological in that model, the idea of heavens above and hells below, with the mundane substrate of perceived reality squeezed between them. As above, so below.” pg 286

Recommended for science fiction readers who want to ponder those types of questions.

Redemption Ark (Revelation Space, #2) by Alastair Reynolds

In Redemption Ark, we return to the universe of Revelation Space in the second book of Alastair Reynolds’ science fiction series. Some of the characters readers will recognize, others are new. As usual, we are treated to Reynolds’ prodigious talent when it comes to heaping helpings of the science part of science fiction.

Those are the best parts of this book: the futuristic space battles and the mysterious machinations of the Inhibitors, machines designed by an alien intelligence to wipe out civilizations that develop the technology to travel among the stars. For the reasoning behind this decision, you’ll have to read the book. 🙂

They had never encountered another extant machine-using intelligence, nothing to measure themselves against. Until now. And what this machine-using intelligence did, so it seemed, was stalk, infiltrate and slaughter, and then invade skulls. pg 7

Humanity has divided itself into distinctive groups during its expansion into space, one of the most notable of these being the Conjoiners, a technologically advanced society that has linked its digital implants in a sort of hive mind. This link created a sort of “enlightenment” and connected the Conjoiners together in ways that aren’t quantifiable by those outside of the group.

“Down at the very deepest level Skade detected a few partitioned private memories that he did not think she could read. For a thrilling instant she was tempted to reach in an edit the man’s own blockades, screening one or two tiny cherished memories from their owner. Skade resisted; it was enough to know that she could.” pg 30

However, not everyone wants to allow the neural Conjoiner implants for fear of the loss of autonomy or privacy (see above) and embrace a more Luddite view of technology. This limited use of technology was pushed further by the appearance of a “melding plague,” an alien infestation that invades technology in an organic manner and consumes it, creating something else.

As you can tell from my rambling, Reynolds has created a universe populated with fascinating cultures, technologies and relationships. My main quibble with this book, as it was with his last, is his seeming inability to write about emotions. The extraordinary breakthrough of the Conjoiners was intimately connected to emotion and sharing it in a way that was impossible prior to the neural implants- an evolution of mankind. Reynolds puts all that depth into one or two lines of one paragraph of the book, which was fascinating to me, but also infuriating.

“Once you’ve touched someone else’s mind, walked through their dreams, seen the world through their eyes, felt the world through their skin… well… there never seemed to be any real need to go back to the old way.” pg 528

He could have written a whole book about that one idea if he wanted to- I’d read it.

Another issue I had was the conclusion, which I won’t spoil for anyone here, but he writes it as almost an afterthought. For more than 500 pages, he built to this spectacular conclusion, which he then tossed away.

I was so mad.

On the other hand, he sets up the next book in the series beautifully, which must have pleased his publisher.

Highly recommended for science fiction readers. There are few who write the science better than Alastair Reynolds, but don’t expect too much in the way of emotional depth or exploration.

Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1) by Alastair Reynolds

Through the interweaving stories of a scientist, soldier, and weapons expert, Alastair Reynolds explores classic science fiction themes in Revelation Space, a space opera and mystery.

“Despite being buried for nine hundred thousand years – at the very least – the chambers were almost intact, with the bones inside still assuming a rough anatomical relationship to one another. They were typical Amarantin skeletons.” pg 11, ebook

Nearly a million years previous, an entire species called Amarantin disappeared in a mysterious celestial-based disaster called, by those who study the geological record, “The Event”. Dan Sylveste, a scientist with unique machines for eyes, is trying to unearth the truth of what happened to them.

Khouri, a former soldier turned assassin for a semi-secret agency, goes on a routine assignment, only to have the experience turn into something entirely unexpected.

“Assassins, it turned out, had to be among the sanest, most analytic people on the planet. They had to know exactly when a kill would be legal – and when it would cross the sometimes blurred line into murder and send a company’s stocks crashing into the Mulch.” pg 45, ebook

Meanwhile, on an enormous space ship capable of traveling across the universe at nearly the speed of light, Volyova has a serious problem. Her captain has a strange disease that is assimilating his ailing body into the ship itself and the man she hired to run the ship’s guns has gone insane. Could these two disasters be connected somehow?

“It was not something to which she was ever going to become totally accustomed, Volyova knew, but in recent weeks visiting the Captain had begun to take on definite tones of normality. As if visiting a cryogenically cooled corpse infected with a retarded but potentially all-consuming plague was merely one of life’s unpleasant but necessary elements…” pg 35, ebook

Throughout the story, Reynolds asks the reader to imagine a humanity that has split itself into factions. Some groups travel among the stars, assimilating rare machines into their bodies, losing touch with what it means to be human as they spend years in frozen animation while the rest of the universe ages as usual.

Other groups are just as isolated on far-flung planets and develop their own cultures, ways of government, and quickly-shifting alliances.

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Also, through the story of the extinct Amarantin, Reynolds examines what it would mean if humanity discovered aliens were real, but mysteriously absent from huge swathes of what is otherwise inhabitable space. Are we really as alone in the universe as we appear to be? And why is that so.

“Something had reached into his mind and spoken to him. But the message that was imparted to him was so brutally alien that Sylveste could not begin to put in human terms. He had stepped into Revelation Space.” pg 100, ebook

The broad themes of Revelation Space are fun questions to ponder, but Reynolds’ storytelling suffers in some of his more technical moments and during a truncated love story. A couple times during the beginning of the book, I had difficulty picturing scenes because I would get so bogged down in the details. But that became easier as the story progressed.

The love story though, was one of the worst I’ve read in science fiction literature. It made me feel like the woman was just a plot device for Reynolds to be able to explain some of the more complex plot twists. That’s fine if that’s what she was meant to be, but it was rather off-putting. I do enjoy a good love story and felt like, if you were going to make it so awkward, maybe it didn’t belong in there.

Otherwise, I enjoyed this read and intend to start the next soon. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy science fiction and stories that make you want to go stand outside and stare at the stars for awhile.

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

The Three-Body Problem is an inventive science fiction read that suffers, in my opinion, from some translation issues. None of the characters feel quite right. Their dialogue seemed wooden and stilted. And, perhaps this was just my Western mind, I never really understood some of their motivations.

“She could no longer feel grief. She was now like a Geiger counter that had been subjected to too much radiation, no longer capable of giving any reaction, noiselessly displaying a reading of zero.” pg 22

My quibbles with the characters aside, some of the concepts in this book were utterly fascinating.

There’s a mysterious government installation, video game with a deeper, hidden meaning, unexplained deaths, numbers appearing out of thin air, and, my favorite part, an in-depth imagining of what unfolding a proton in different dimensions might look like. For fans of the genre, I can see why the The Three-Body Problem would be appealing.

“All the evidence points to a single conclusion: Physics has never existed, and will never exist. I know what I’m doing is irresponsible. But I have no choice.” pg 61

In the library copy I read, some of the major cultural issues needed to understand the text are included in footnotes. It helped, but it made me wish I could read this in its original form.

“Everything that’s happening is coordinated by someone behind the scenes with one goal: to completely ruin scientific research.” pg 135

I particularly liked Liu Cixin’s descriptions of the landscapes contained in the video game of the story. The desolate vistas and civilization-ending weather were fascinating to explore.

The idea that there was a world where the law of physics didn’t apply was also mind-bending. Cixin has created a place where suns swirl through the sky in no discernible pattern and pendulums don’t swing in the expected pattern. In a world like that, anything could happen. And it does.

“Even if God were here, it wouldn’t do any good. The entire human race has reached the point where no one is listening to their prayers.” pg 205

Recommended with reservations for fans of science fiction. There’s much to enjoy in this read, especially if you favor the “science” part of the genre.

For readers who enjoy book to screen adaptations, this novel has already been made into a film. It is also slated to become a television series.

Thanks for reading!

Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

“Not only can we defeat entropy, but the universe, in a way, wants us to use our powers as conscious beings to make things better. And part of that is defeating death.” pg 50

I finally finished Neal Stephenson’s latest book, an opus about the nature of reality that uses mythology, archetypes and technology as the instruments of that examination. Coming in at a hefty 896 pages, it will most likely be the longest book I read this year.

“Far from being a source of frustration, this comforted him, and made him happy — perhaps even a little smug — that he lived in a universe whose complexity defied algorithmic simulation.” pg 19

Richard “Dodge” Forthrast, one of the many protagonists from Reamde, suffers an unexpected injury and dies — to the horror of his loving family. Immediate complexities reveal themselves in his will, which contains very specific instructions on what is to be done with his corpse and living brain.

These instructions will lead to a technological coalition of companies and big money in an effort to create another reality for the “recently diseased”. And, what happens in that new world is beyond anyone’s (among the living) control… isn’t it?

Stephenson, as usual, has created a complex science fiction novel that not only makes you think again about where technology is headed, but also compels you to ask yourself what that exponential development means.

“It’s really only since wireless networks got fast enough to stream pictures to portable devices that everything changed,” Enoch said, “and enabled each individual person to live twenty-four/seven in their own personalized hallucination stream.” pg 236

And lest one think such changes are so far off, you only need to take a look at someone else’s Facebook newsfeed. The difference between what I see on that platform and what my husband sees is shocking. Our “own personalized hallucination stream” is already a reality.

Stephenson is at his best when he’s mixing science fiction and fantasy in Bitworld. He’s at his worst when he’s clocking the changes going on in the real world or “meatworld”, as his characters call it. One likes to think that he had reasons for including the myriad of details that he includes, but readers could also suspect that he needed a good editor.

The first portion of this book moves agonizingly slowly, which prevented it from being a five-star read for me. But that was its only downside in my view.

“So he went into the room where the disciples of Greyhame and Pestle scratched out words on paper, and told them to go through all of their documents and make him aware of any mention they might find of angels, or the One Who Comes, or Daisy, or death.”pg 482

I can’t say I completely understand the ending of the story, but it is epic. I find myself still thinking about it and taking pieces apart in my mind. And, for me, that’s one of the hallmarks of a good read.

Recommended for science fiction readers who can tolerate a very slow build-up for a potentially puzzling end.

Thanks for reading!

The Test by Sylvain Neuvel

The Test is a science fiction short story detailing a sinister new type of citizenship test and a possible dark future humanity could face.

“I am the only one taking the test. Only men. Only between the ages of sixteen and forty-five. She said it was unfair. I told her it was a blessing. I do not care what their motivations are; it is a simple matter of probabilities.” pg 12

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Idir Jalil was a dentist in Teheran. He wants to immigrate with his wife and children to the United Kingdom. But first, he has to pass the test.

“Guns and impunity. This is why we’re here.” pg 21

As technology advances, one can’t help but wonder what sorts of new programs are going to be created. Passports with radio frequency identification chips already exist. Will we soon start putting computer chips in ourselves?

And with all of these changes, how do we hold on to our essential humanity? The test Idir receives has significant consequences for him.

Beyond the question of technology, Sylvain Neuvel also tackles how immigration procedures have a dehumanizing effect. When you’re reducing people to statistics and probabilities, you dismiss everything else that makes someone a person.

Countries around the world continue to struggle with immigration issues. I wish there were easy answers. Aren’t we all citizens of this planet?

Thanks for reading!

Animosity, Vol. 2: The Dragon by Marguerite Bennett

The plot thickens for Sandor, the hound dog, and his human, Jesse, as they attempt to make their way across the country to reunite Jesse with her half-brother.

“Jesse is growing up, and signs of it frighten Sandor more than they even frighten her. Sandor fears, so much, that he will be unable to protect Jesse from all pain, all terror, aware that he will not be there for her adulthood.”

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Now that all of the animals are sentient, the lines between human and animal, predator and prey have blurred. Certain species are starving to death. Other species are being farmed for their meat. It’s a dark story, but still fascinating in the way it flips reality on its head.

“The honeybees have retreated to some secret place, and the ants threaten blistering violence for the paw that reads the wrong mound, yet each seem unusual in their clannishness to their own kind.”

Along with their new sentience, some of the animals are considering the state of their souls… do they have one, and where do they go when they die? Others are banding together to fight against the humans or each other. And still others are protecting the only person or thing they care about, like Sandor.

My favorite part of this issue was the series recap at the end where the author, Marguerite Bennett, gives a brief glimpse into what’s going on in every state and country since the animals “woke”. Highlights include my home state of Illinois trying to figure out how to regulate the new reality (you know they would) and her description of the new Mongolia: “Little has changed.”

Honestly, this book is worth reading if only for that section. I can’t help but be impressed by the imagination it took to combine the cultures, unique creatures and people of each corner of the world and provide its own mini-story.

The artwork, as you can tell from the cover, is haunting in places. You see animals wielding human weapons and wearing clothing. But it’s not cute, the overall effect is very disturbing. I won’t soon forget a deer lobbing a hand grenade into a group of shadowy figures in the forest and I think that’s probably the point.

Recommended for fans of dark science fiction graphic novels. Thanks for reading!

To read more of my reviews of graphic novels, go to
https://thehelpdeskbookblog.wordpress.com/category/comic-or-graphic-novel/page/1/

Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira

In a dystopian world where the once powerful countries are now scrambling for fuel, the helium3-rich fields of the moon are a godsend. But when an American miner turns up dead, it may become the new front in a war, not just for control of the Earth, but also the galaxy.

“Cold enveloped him. He opened his eyes in Moon shadow and had to blink to make sure they weren’t closed.” pg 5

This is a story that could have been a thriller, but it gets bogged down in the technical aspects of life on the moon. I imagine the science is sound, but, unlike “The Martian”, I felt like it slowed the action down to a crawl rather than speeding it along.

The characters were problematic. There are half a dozen of them and I couldn’t seem to connect with any.

“Dechert wondered for the hundredth time if the people back home had any clue what it was like to live on the Moon.” pg 15

The mystery wasn’t all that mysterious and is tied up in one paragraph towards the end. I was disappointed. I like my mysteries with more twists and turns, an unexpected bump or two.

“I’m going to catch a quick two hours,” he said. “Wake me up if something bad happens.” pg 29.

A nap was starting to sound pretty good to me too.

I read David Pedreira’s bio and it seems he’s a journalist, or was. I could tell from his writing. The sections read sort of like mini-news stories. Lede, information, kicker, repeat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that format, but I wish the story had been shaken up somewhat.

Oh well. On to the next book! Thanks for reading.

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

Author Brooke Bolander takes two unrelated historical events and ties them together in an effort to make a statement about the inherent darkness in humanity. Historically speaking, an elephant named Topsy was actually put to death by electrocution. The radium dial painters, whom you can read about in The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, actually existed.

In this science fiction/alternative history story, elephants are a sentient race, forced to work where the radium girls once worked. And to bear the same lethal doses of radiation. It leads to a sad conclusion.

“The ‘greater good’, as you put it, was also used to justify the use of my people in your radium factories during the war, was it not? To save costs. To save your own from poisoning.” pg 32

This new history is reflected in a future narrative that takes place between the historical portions of the story. (You’ve got three stories being told from three different narrators. I didn’t find it confusing once I figured out that the author switched stories after each break on the page. But prior to that, I was grasping at straws.)

In this new future, the government is looking for a way to warn humankind away from nuclear waste sites. They decide to ask the elephants if they can alter their DNA, to make them glow in a version of a living “keep away” sign.

And so here Kat sits, tie straightened, hair teased heaven-high, waiting to meet with an elephant representative. Explaining the cultural reasons why they want to make the elephant’s people glow in the dark is going to be an exercise in minefield ballet…” pg 12

I felt like this book lessened each historical event rather than making them stronger by tying them together. They were both awful, yes, and sentient elephants deserve their own story. The women who suffered and died because no one shared the dangers of radiation with them, deserve their own story. Something far more than the simplistic alternative future Bolander gives them in which, yet again, elephants were about to be abused by human beings and confined to a nuclear wasteland.

“They will see how we shine, and they will know the truth.” pg 59

In some ways, it all reminded me of what was done to the Native American tribes. Which was also awful. And also deserves its own write-up.

Another quibble I had with this story, Bolander takes aim at the males of both species, painting them as both stupid and addicted to violence.

“The bull rolled one red eye to look up at her. He laughed with malice and with scorn, but most of all with madness. As is the way with bulls. … Furmother looked at him with sadness — because then as now We pitied the bulls, our Sons and Fathers and occasional Mates.” pgs 30-31

Can you imagine if those pronouns were reversed? “The Furmother rolled one red eye to look up at him. She laughed with malice and with scorn, but most of all with madness. As is the way with Furmothers…” I don’t believe in hurling hate or blame from either end of the spectrum. We’re all in this together.

On a more positive note, the curious collective intelligence of the elephants that the author hinted at was fascinating, as well as their different methods of communication. But this short story format doesn’t allow for an in-depth examination of this aspect of the story.

“They had blown raw red holes through the Many Mothers, hacked away their beautiful tusks, and the sky had not fallen and she had not mourned the meat. She was She — the survivor, the prisoner, the one they called Topsy — and She carried the Stories safe inside her skull, just behind her left eye, so that they lived on in some way.” pg 14

Elephants are something special. I’m reminded of the Romans and how they loved to kill people and all manner of animals in the Coliseum, except elephants. They banned killing elephants because they couldn’t stand to look the creatures in the eye as they died. There was something too sad to be borne that was communicated in the moments before an elephant’s death, something that crossed species lines.

That’s why I wanted this story to work. And, sadly, I just didn’t connect with it.

Thank you for reading!

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Category: Science Fiction

Absolution Gap (Revelation Space, #3) by Alastair Reynolds

Redemption Ark (Revelation Space, #2) by Alastair Reynolds

Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1) by Alastair Reynolds

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Fall, or Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

The Test by Sylvain Neuvel

Animosity, Vol. 2: The Dragon by Marguerite Bennett

Gunpowder Moon by David Pedreira

The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander

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