Rating: 
Summary: Good Read - Mediocre Trilogy Ending
Review: A satisfying read, with a very interesting storyline about a religious cult based on the mysterious, momentary disappearances of a gas-giant planet. In some ways I found this book more enjoyable than the previous two, although I believe all three are worth reading. My biggest complaint would be the ending which seemed to come out of nowhere and didn't get the development it deserved. In some ways, I think Absolution Gap is better read as a standalone novel. In that sense it was a great book. As a conclusion to a 1500 page trilogy, however, it was a bit of a disappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: The Vanishing Planet
Review: Absolution Gap is the fourth novel in the Revelation Space series, following Redemption Ark. In the previous novel, the Inhibitors found the colony on Resurgam and, since the previous sterilization had been incomplete, the machines started penetrating the star so as to produce a jet of plasma to sterilize the planets. Ilia Volyova and Ana Khouri forced the planetary populace to evacuate to the Nostalgia for Infinity. When Clavain first arrived in the Zodiacal Light, he demanded the cache weapons, but Ilia refused to hand them over. Clavain then launched an attack, but Volyova used one of the cache weapons to break the Zodiacal Light in two. Clavain surrendered and began assisting in the evacuation. When Volyova died from radiation and wounds, Clavain led the evacuees in the Nostalgia for Infinity to a nearby double star, p Eridani A. On the way out of the system, the evacuees are attacked by Skade's ships; they received only slight damage to the Nostalgia, but destroyed one of her ships and damaged the other two. After the refugees fled, the Zodiacal Light repaired itself in the Resurgam system. During the wait on the repairs, Khouri and Thorn reestablished contact with Dan Sylveste and friends within Hades, the neutron star and supercomputer. When Khouri became pregnant, Sylveste and company stored the blueprints and instructions for various hyperweapons within the brain of the unborn baby. After Remontoire provided conjoiner implants within the brains of mother and baby, the unborn was able to communicate to some degree with her mother and pass on hints that led to a series of more powerful weapons. In this novel, in 2615, near 107 Piscium, Horris Quaiche has not delivered on his promises, so Queen Jasmina of the lighthugger Gnostic Ascension puts his girlfriend, Morwenna, in the scrimshaw suit, welds it shut, and installs it on the tender Dominatrix. Then he is put aboard and they enter the system, where Quaiche discovers a fairy-like bridge on the moon Hela. Afraid that the artifact might be defended, he sends the Dominatrix with Morwenna aboard to the other side of the moon's primary, the gas giant Haldora, and goes down himself in the better armored and more nimble Scavanger's Daughter. Unfortunately, the bridge is well defended and the Scavenger's Daughter crashes on the rocks and ice. In 2675, on Arafat, twenty-three years after the refugees have landed, Scorpio and a young Security Arm, Vasko, go to retrieve Clavain from his retreat on an outer island. Something has slipped down from orbit and the elders want Clavain to probe it with his Conjoiner implants. They wonder if it is Skade or even Remontoire, but instead it is Ana Khouri. When the Zodiacal Light arrived insystem, Skade sent a peace delegation to discuss a truce against the Inhibitors, but this was just a ruse, for they ripped the baby out of Khouri's womb and took it back to Skade, who promptly implanted it in her own uterus. Then Skade's ship was forced down on the surface of Arafat by the Inhibitors. Khouri needs Clavian and his crew to rescue her daughter from Skade. In 2727, on Hela, Rashmika Els leaves home to catch a caravan to the Permanent Way, where the cathedrals travel constantly underneath the looming Haldora, waiting for the planet to vanish once more. Rashmika intends to ask what happened to her brother after he joined the First Adventist Cathedral. Moreover, if she can make the right contacts, she would also like bring to the attention of the scuttler artifacts committees some of her ideas on the scuttler extinction. This volume is the last in the series, but the pace never slows down. Despite a finale in which all the dangling ends are tied off, the epilogue raises new questions. Maybe there will be another series taking off where this one ends. In any case, the author is certainly imitating real life, for every ending is also a new beginning. Highly recommended for Reynolds fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of high tech adventures in a relativistic universe. -Arthur W. Jordin
Rating:
Summary: Great book, great series ... weak ending
Review: Alastair Reynolds has done a fantastic job of hooking me in as a fan (to the point of ebay auctions for the harder to find books). If you're familiar with Stephen Baxter, you'll know the problem that some excellent hard SF authors have with book endings. Absolution Gap suffers much as Baxter's books suffer: great build up and attention to both science and details of plot, character and world building but the let down at the end threatens to spoil an otherwise superb read.
Rating: 
Summary: Actually closer to 3.5 stars
Review: Alastair Reynolds, in my humble opinion, is one of the best SF writers to come along in a long time. Over the years, I had become bored with most of the newer SF authors due to the abandonment of hard SciFi stories for some rather, shall I say, goofy themes (eg intelligent civilizations living on atoms, etc). That all changed for me when, on a whim, I ordered Reynold's first full novel, and found an author who penned sweeping, believable, grand 600 page stories, with engimatic, unstoppable aliens, and well-developed characters.
I was a bit disappointed with this latest effort and agree with what the majority of the other reviewers have mentioned. This isn't to say it is a bad book--it isn't--it just isn't quite up to par with the others in the series. Sadly, since Reynolds has said that this is the end of the series--at least for awhile--it's weaknesses are all the more evident.
The good news is that he wouldn't have much trouble continuing where this book left off.
Having said all of this, this is the best series I've read in many, many years and the Revelation Space universe he has crafted
is believable and easy to accept as real. This isn't one of those "cartoon" universes all too common with many of the modern authors (yeah, at 43 years old, I'm old school). This is were much of the magic is--a very detailed, believable universe that, is fascinatingly odd and is not so far out of the realm of possibility that you find yourself wondering what the author was smoking when he wrote the book. In short, this is intelligent stuff and the series, as a whole, should not be missed.
I can't imagine reading the other 2 books in the series without including this, despite some of the accurate comments made by the other reviewers. If you have not read Reynolds and don't want to commit to a series you're afraid you may not enjoy, simply get Reynold's Chasm City which occurs in the same universe and start there to see if you enjoy Reynold's style and the Revelation Space universe he has constructed.
Rating: 
Summary: Writing to a deadline
Review: First point; this book is the last of a massive trilogy, and it won't make a bit of sense if you don't read the first two volumes, in order. Imagine reading "The Return of the King" as your first foray in Tolkien. You wouldn't want to.
Second point: After almost 2,000 pages, a feat worthy of Proust, Reynolds just gives up. The resolution is short, undeveloped, and unsatisfying. As other reviewers have noted, it's a deus ex machina ending. Apparently Reynolds's publisher told him to either send them manuscript, or a check refunding their advance.
Reynolds creates an interesting future world, which we'll probably see a lot more of (vide Ian M. Banks), but this book left me feeling let down.
Roger Rensvold
Rating:
Summary: Incredibly disappointing.
Review: First, I'd like to mirror what many of the other reviewers have said. Specifically a correlary between Stephen Baxter and Reynolds. He does seem to have a bit of a problem continuing this story.
I think what nobody has mentioned here, and bears mentioning, is that Reynolds left his job as a scientist to pursue writing full time to write this book. It seems that perhaps he got a little cocky.
Where the previous two books (I disagree that this is a four book series) were cold, realistic, hard science fiction (with the notable, but forgivable exception of Skade's FTL escapades and the cache weapons), his resolve to write concise books simply disappears with the third. Bizarre weapons ("hypometric" weapons, "bladder mines", "cryo math", and so on) and forces peek out and begin to play very large parts in this book.
Additionally, characters are spun through very strange trajectories not expected from the previous books. Scorpio is nearly a different character entirely. Brannigan is, well, a person again. Khouri is almost maternal, and rather boring. Clavain is near useless, and certainly uninteresting, and Skade is implausible(er) and not nearly as formidable.
What happened? I don't think anyone but Reynolds can really answer this. As somebody who went to amazon.co.uk to get copies of his books which were unavailable here in the US, I am definitely somebody who is a fan of his. After reading this, however, I'm not sure I'd read another of his books. My hope is that he will realize from the vast majority of reviews of his recent book, that he has taken a turn that was unexpected, and that perhaps he should reconsider.
At any rate, I would also suggest buying as a paperback. Or borrowing. This isn't worth the cost of admission, and it really wasn't worth the time I spent reading it. The suspense at the end of the book (a paltry 60-80 pages) is roughly the same quality as the middle to end of the second book, but is completely blunted by a weak, anticlimactic ending. This series needed a solid ending, regardless of whether it was a lead in to another book. What we have here is loose ends gummed up, rather than sewn up.
Suggested for hardcore fans who have to know, recommend against it for anyone else.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Sci-Fi Stuff in Decades
Review: Haunting. From the opening of Revelation Space to the last sentence of Absolution Gap, I couldn't put this stuff down. The last twist in the series was wonderfully inevitable...just like the heat death of the universe. And that is where I think others have had difficulties dealing with this series.
As the Greeks said, tragedy is the highest art form. Classic literature is reborn here as the hubris of humanity is time and again the agent of destruction.
I do not want to spoil anything for any potential readers, but I find the imagery oily and organic. There are scenes and personal conflicts here that were unique in my experience. For the first time in decades these books plumbed the darker portions of my own psyche. The characters are wonderfully human; frail, stupid, arrogant, intelligent, and indestructible all at once.
If you have any doubt at all about this series, start with his two novellas; Diamond Dogs and Turquoise Days. This is a wonderful introduction to the Melding Plague and the Pattern Jugglers as well as other common elements to this universe.
I can understand why some people might not be able to keep up with the narrative, but I would not change a word of these tomes. My only hope is that there is more coming from this master of science fiction.
Rating:
Summary: A flat and dissapointing novel, not Reynolds at his best.
Review: I am a huge fan of the previous 3 books in this series, but felt this book was by far the weakest novel of all. As most other reviewers had mentioned, there was very little lead up to an unsatisfying ending. This is not terribly surprising, I would say that Reynolds' previous books all suffered from weakness in their conclusions in some form or another. What I really enjoyed about his previous books, though, was Reynold's ability to formulate big bold cerebral visions of the future, his complex and intriguing characters that develop richly in his gothic world, engrossing story lines, and his ability to create rising tension and action (especially the ending of each chapter with an intriguing cliff-hanger). Unfortunately, this novel let me down in all these respects.
The main characters are much less intriguing than the previous novels. I felt outright revulsion for some, especially Grelier and Quaiche, and the serious flaws in the others made if hard to feel empapthy towards them. The deaths of the main characters seemed terribly contrived- I completely agree with another reviewer who felt this was just a means of 'wiping the slate clean' to give room to newer characters.
As for bold new ideas, I felt there were very little in this book, nothing on the scale of melding plagues, intricacies of Conjoiner's/Ultra's society, Pattern Jugglers, etc. All these big ideas are regurgitated in this book. We are introduced to new civilizations like the Scuttlers, Shadows, and Nest Builders but we spend very little time in their worlds, other than through omniscient summary narratives that the characters never get the luxury of understanding (though we get a little more interaction with the Scuttlers in the Hela storyline). For the most part, it felt like all the brilliant ideas were laid out in the previous novels, and this one was trying to rest on their laurels to cap the series in some sort of hastily constructed conclusion.
The action was also a letdown. I didn't get the 'edge of the seat' feeling I had reading the previous novels. I was bored to tears over the storyline evolving on Hela. The Quaichest religion Reynolds lays out was, sorry to say, ridiculous at best.
All in all, if you enjoyed the previous books you will no doubt read this for the conclusion of the series. I found it a good read but nothing compared to the quality of his previous books. Given the large amount of backstory it provides, this book could be read by itself, but I would never recommend it. In almost all respects it felt much flatter than his previous novels, more like something he had to force himself to write in order to complete the series.
Rating:
Summary: Decent Ending to Best Space Opera Series With Major Gaps....
Review: I am giving Alastair Reynolds' "Absolution Gap" highest honors merely for the quality of the writing, which is on par with China Mieville's. However, as others have noted elsewhere, there are major problems with the characters and the final resolution that will leave readers begging for more (or perhaps wishing that they had stopped with "Redemption Ark"). For example I was puzzled by the substantial changes in character seen in Neil Clavain, Ana Khouri, and especially, Scorpio, Clavain's sidekick, though a long-lost character from "Revelation Space" makes an unexpectedly welcome return here. Still, despite my concerns, I have to congratulate Alastair Reynolds for writing what is unquestionably the finest space opera saga I have seen in recent memory, composed in four big books, which will easily draw comparisons to work by the likes of Dan Simmons, Gene Wolfe and J. R. R. Tolkien.
Clavain returns from self-imposed exile on a tropical isle on the planet Ararat, rejoining the human colony settled by refugees from the lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity, which is now led by his human-pig hybrid sidekick Scorpio. Eventually Scorpio will lead tens of thousands aboard the Nostalgia of Infinity on a deep-space quest to a world mentioned by a mere infant, the brilliant offspring of Ana Khouri. Meanwhile light years and decades in the future, a young girl, Rashmika Els, probes the mysteries behind the unexpected disappearance of the alien scuttlers, the extinct, once prevalent, life-form on Hela, the air-less satellite of the gas giant Heliodora. Hela has become a remote human outpost ruled by a messianic religious figure Horris Quaiche. To his credit, Reynold deftly weaves plot twists and turns, which bring both major plot threads to a rapid, if somewhat unsatisfying, conclusion. And a conclusion which doesn't resolve neatly the conflict between the Inhibitors ("Wolves") and humanity, raising more questions than it answers. Still, despite its flaws, "Absolution Gap" must be regarded as one of the finest science fiction novels published last year.
Rating:
Summary: A Trilogy In How Many Parts?
Review: So many people complaining about loose ends, well-established characters dying in droves, big new ideas introduced and variously blown to bits or completely ignored and, just to add to the fun, if you don't realize what's going on with the chapter dates, thngs can get even more confusing.
The end result - a lot of disgruntled people who think the trilogy they've enjoyed so much ended in a rushed, patchwork, chaotic mess.
Except I've never seen anybody say it was a trilogy, and conveying utter chaos and a suitable sense of end-of-the-universe is inevitably going to be a bit disjointed. Add in the fact that in a story that has the potential to span tens of thousands of years, and that includes a fair number of apocalyptic battles, you're going to lose characters.
I can't help but feel that this was meant to be a longer book, or at least that Reynolds got the pacing wrong and had to cram too much new information into too little space towards the end of the book. I also get the impression that Reynolds wasn't so much tired of the worlds he'd created as he wanted to skip forward a bit - new ideas had arisen that required the current storyline to be brought to a close.
So while Absolution Gap seems the weakest of the series so far for the reasons listed above, I don't think we're going to get a real idea of the book's place in the scheme of things until we find out what comes next, or even the book after that. Reynolds is expert at planting tiny little hints, easily missed, in his books, which then reveal their significance several titles later. For example, he's not finished with Sky Haussmann thread, although if you miss the single relevant sentence you'd never know it.
I guess a lot of people are frustrated at the extent to which they've been left flailing - expecting the closure of a trilogy and instead getting a book that seems to be largely intended to skip the story ahead a few hundred years later. I've read what I thought was a two book series just to discover there was a third volume in the works before - but not until I hit the last page of the second volume. Maddening. However, if you go into the book expecting there to be more, the loose ends and the carefully dropped clues just make the wait to find out what happens in the next one even more tantalizing.
As for the rating - I give it a three for now. I'd rate my own enjoyment closer to a four, but I can see how the books disjointed nature and some of the plot twists and severances would frustrate others, so I have to assume that there are going to be more readers who feel the same way. However, if you read the book expecting it to finish with more loose ends than it started with, and even less idea about what's really going on than you originally did, and you pick up on the chapter dates early, I think you'll get a bit more out of it.
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