Rating: 
Summary: Made me look for more like it!
Review: I am not what I consider a hard-core fan of science fiction. I've read a fair amount of it, but you're much more likely to see me engrossed in a dark fantasy or horror novel. A day or two after finishing this book, though, I was on Amazon shopping for similar works. I won't go into a lot of plot detail, but the central story is basically this: there's this very very smart but arrogant and not always likeable archaeologist named Dan Sylveste who obsessively seeks to find out why an ancient alien species, the Amarantin, was annihilated nine hundred thousand years ago; and there are two opposed and hidden factions, other aliens, subtly manipulating events from behind-the-scenes, one to help Sylveste find his answer, the other to kill him before he does. The more I read, the more unsure I was of whether I wanted him to succeed or not. Towards the end, it looked like there was a strong possibility that he shouldn't! I was never really sure, though, until the very end, and then the resolution was something I never anticipated. Some of the other reviewers fault this book for being overlong, full of "needless verbiage", but I thoroughly enjoyed every single one of its five-hundred and fifty-eight pages. There's a lot of action in the book, always something happening that more often than not is a life or death situation. Not that there isn't plenty of dialogue too, because there is, but it's almost always in response to some action that has just taken place or is about to, or the characters are trying to figure out some mystery key to the story. You won't find the kind of extraneous, meandering conversations that you might be made to imagine by some of the reviews. There's just always too much going on for the characters to sit about for long periods boring you with a bunch of inane small-talk. As for the criticism some have aimed at the characters: sorry, but I can't fault Reynolds for not making his characters likeable or very sympathetic. Like a lot of real people today, they are morally ambivalent and respond to things and events on a case-by-case basis, selfishly heeding their own emotional and mental states of the moment when reacting, rather than always acting according to some noble ideal. And since very little is mentioned in the book about religion, the argument could be made that most of the people in such a future wouldn't likely be very concerned by heavenly rewards for good behavior. No, there is no real hero in this book, but I don't think that makes the story it has to tell any less interesting. One of those books I bought after reading it was Reynold's Chasm City. I loved it too!
Rating: 
Summary: An uneven and overlong debut, but not without promise
Review: After more-or-less neglecting mainstream science fiction for a couple of years, I picked up REVELATION SPACE both because I'd enjoyed Alastair Reynolds' short fiction and because, based on what I'd heard about it, the novel was a spiritual heir to the plot-heavy, widescreen, and irrepressibly fun space-operatic epics of Dan Simmons (HYPERION) and Vernor Vinge (A FIRE UPON THE DEEP). And it almost is - but not quite. The plot itself is fine, as far as it goes - an obsessed scientist who rules (badly) a feeble backwater colony is first deposed by his subjects and then abducted by a starship crew who need his technological expertise to cure their Captain of a strange nanotechnological disease; in return, he demands that they transport him to a strange moon that seems to hold the secret to the mysterious demise of an ancient alien civilization. This summary is hardly more than a thumbnail sketch. The motion of the plot is, at times, as dense as the neutron star that figures prominently in the novel; and the scope is as widescreen as one could wish, careering anarchically between worlds and centuries. But the fun, the spontaneity, is absent. It feels like Reynolds is going through the motions, like he's reduced the modern baroque space opera to its component bits and is merely dutifully and rather joylessly reassembling them. At first it's hard to pin down exactly where REVELATION SPACE falters, because so much of it works quite well. While Reynolds, a practicing astronomer, lacks the focused, laserlike literary brilliance of a Gene Wolfe or a Michael Swanwick, neither is his prose colorless and oatmeal-bland (as happens all too often to scientists-turned-writers). In fact, he's quite witty, and, in the tradition of British SF, his writing has an entertainingly cynical edge to it - it doesn't fall prey to the cheesy over-earnestness that afflicts many American hard-sf writers. The flaw, I think, lies in the characters. It's obvious both from his writing and from his public comments that Reynolds is well-versed in the history of the space opera and has concluded (correctly) that the problem with a lot of the genre's supposed classics lies in their bland, white-bread, Heinleinian "competent-man" heroes. But Reynolds' characters are just as flimsy; it's just that he's given them motivations that are more perverse or arcane than the norm. Like the "competent men" before them, they tend to be defined more by their disciplines (the soldier, the scientist, the engineer, the captain, et al) than by their actions and personalities. REVELATION SPACE's other main affliction is one common to sf - too much exposition. In fact, EXPOSITION SPACE is a far more accurate title, as little in the book feels like a revelation. One of the big draws of this sort of novel is the much-discussed and ever-elusive "sense of wonder" - and while Reynolds reaches for it over and over again, stretching his story to fit bigger and bigger canvases, he murders it with the cement overshoes of needless verbiage and explication. I think HYPERION is so fondly remembered by sf fans in part because Dan Simmons, originally a horror writer, understood that the sense of wonder is best achieved by the strange, the half-glimpsed, the dreamy and the irrational, not by the thoroughly- and conscientiously-explained. REVELATION SPACE is a difficult book to form a coherent opinion about, because there's much here to like; but ultimately it falls into the category of "interesting failure." That said, as it's Reynolds' first novel, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially as the general consensus seems to be that his subsequent novels are far superior.
Rating: 
Summary: Deeply Disappointed...
Review: Had a lot of hope when I began to read this tome.. and tome it is... it just meanders on and on and nothing moves ahead... sluggish. I've only managed to get through the first 100 pages and when I put it down I was relieved... nothing has drawn me back to it since. Just didn't engage me for some reason...probaly because it's really a rather dull beginning... And (as other reviewers have stated) I'm sorry too because I really did want to like this book. It's just a big lump of something impenetrable... and so uncomfortable to hold it in your hands, it weighs a ton!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent start, but not a winner
Review: This book has received some astoundingly strong reviews, much to my surprise. In my view, it was ponderous, far too long for what it contained, and downright boring in many places. I really had to force myself to finish it, and only did so because I had heard such good things about it. There were touches of real brilliance, and a couple of highly charged and exciting passages, but they were imbedded in hundreds of pages of boring stuff. Personality development was weak - all the main characters seem to have been formed in the same mold, a not very interesting mold at that! While technology abounds, I found much of it unconvincing, for example, how digital simulations of human beings can inhabit the brain tissue of living ones. The story really fell apart for me toward the end: instead of tying up the many loose threads and resolving some of the inconsistencies, things just become more and more bizarre. Having said this, I also feel that Reynolds has the gift, and will almost certainly get better in time.
Rating:
Summary: ponderous
Review: This book was about 200 pages too long. Although the blurb talks about a threat endangering all humanity, I was about 350 pages into the story before any evidence of this threat even began to show. I'd have preferred a bit less "epic" and a bit more tension. In addition, the three main characters have essentially the same personality. There was very little in their characterization to differentiate them from one another. I really had to force myself to finish, and the climactic final scene was kind of a let-down. Sorry. I really did want to like this book more.
Rating: 
Summary: Go for a chilling ride...
Review: Alastair Reynolds' first book "Revelation Space" is well worth the read! Taking place far far in the future you have a story full of spies, cyborgs, aliens and all the hi-tech you can imagine. An epic that spans time and space, is truly thought provoking. The characters are well drawn and memorable. Easily, this novel would be considered "hard sci-fi" as it is in league with Gene Wolfe, China Mieville and Eric Nylund. In this story, one scientist named Dan Sylveste has made an arecheological discovery with far reaching implications of galactic proportions. As Dan Sylveste closes in on the answer to the mystery of the disapperance of the Amarantin peoples, an assasin lies hidden ready to strike. The story moves along but gets hung up at the end with too many unanswered questions and begs the sequel (Chasm City). The book deserves a rating of 3.5 stars where the benefits of the book outweighs the chaos at the end. A good purchase nonetheless. Enjoy... Makes you want to get an implant!
Rating:
Summary: A good if overlong first novel
Review: A very good debut novel by Alastair Reynolds. I really think that the book could've been edited by about 100 pages as it took a little while to get going. Once all the characters and plotlines get together the novel races to a stunning and satisfying conclusion. The novel could easily be adapted to the big screen especially with the cinematic ending. Lots of cool science fiction concepts are crammed into the book. There is lots of room to develop many sequels or just stories set in this interesting universe. Read it.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Sci Fi storytelling
Review: If you are looking for an exceptionally intelligent story and an amazing story writing style; this is the book for you. I read a novel a week at the least and this was one of the best I have come across in a long while. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Rating:
Summary: A tour de force
Review: Revelation Space is one of the best SF novels recently written. A archeological dig on an extinct planet reveals pieces of a puzzle suggesting that humankind could be in danger of extermination by forces eons old. The driven, megalomanical leader of the expedition, Dan Sylvestre, is the fulcrum of novel. Reynolds includes two other parallel story lines which initially are a puzzle as they are out of time sequence with Sylvestre. However, he skillfully weaves these strands together into a coherent whole. Some readers may be troubled by the initial shifts in story line. The first 60 pages or so can be confusing, but the author pulls the events and characters together like asteroids dropping into a gravity well. The pieces come together breathlessly and seamlessly. Each layer removed from the plot reveals another even greater mystery, like a Russia Easter egg. Trained in astrophysics, Reynolds has a superb command of the science as well as an outstanding command of the English language. If you liked books such as Jack McDevitt's "The Engines of God" or Greg Bear's "Eon", you will love "Revelation Space".
Rating:
Summary: Overboard and Manic First Novel
Review: I can agree with everyone here how well-written Revelation Space is. I give it three stars for the stellar quality of the actual writing style Mr. Reynolds possesses. But the novel's plot is exceedingly complex; characters come and go with astonishing rapidity; and the chapter units are far too short and clipped to sustain any kind of interest over the long haul. And it is a long haul. Like Vernor Vinge and a number of others (Peter Hamilton, Dan Simmons, Stephen Baxter) Mr. Reynolds crams in all kinds of science fiction conceits and mysteries as if we're watching a juggler trying to juggle as many balls as he can when he only cares how good he looks while doing it. Instead, a few less balls in the air might have made for a better performance. The ideas came fast and furious in this book, but what annoyed me more was Reynolds' habit of writing only a page or two on one character then shifting to another just as the action was getting interesting. He does this so much that after a while all tension falls from the book. I got about halfway through the book before I finally got tired of it and put it down. I suppose that to new readers of SF "Revelation Space" will appear like a breath of fresh air, but it's really not all that good or memorable. But, boy, can Reynolds write. I give him that.
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