Revelation Space
The breath-taking space opera masterpiece
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4.3 • 190 Ratings
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- £0.99
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- £0.99
Publisher Description
The legendary space opera that kicked off the ground-breaking, universe-spanning series.
Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin. For the human colonists now settling the Amarantin homeworld Resurgam, it's of little more than academic interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city and a colossal statue of a winged Amarantin. For brilliant but ruthless scientist Dan Sylveste, it's more than merelty intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth. Even if the truth costs him everything. But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and that danger is closer and greater than even Syveste imagines ...
REVELATION SPACE: a huge, magnificent space opera that ranges across the known and unknown universe ... towards the most terrifying of destinations.
Readers are hooked on Revelation Space:
'An amazing blend of space opera, hard SF, and gothic horror that reads like a cross between Frank Herbert's "Dune" and Ridley Scott's film "Alien"' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'Marvellous hard space opera. Slowly built, with three story lines which at some point merge together, it depicts a very dark universe, full of technological wonders, both human and alien' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'Revelation Space series is one of the favouritest favourites . . . Reynolds held me in thrall with his vision' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'The setting is a gritty, desolate, and unforgiving universe in which humanity finds itself in imminent danger of extinction . . . I highly recommend it to all adult fans of space opera, cyberpunk, and horror genres' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'A darn good, solid, well executed work of hard sci-fi . . . I really appreciate that Revelation Space ends in a satisfying and self-contained way' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'Awesome characters, awesome setting, awesome ideas, awesome awesome awesome . . .' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This distant-past/far-future, hard sci-fi tour de force probes a galaxy-wide enigma: why does spacefaring humanity encounter so few remnants of intelligent life? Excavating the 900,000-year-old Amarantin civilization on its home world, Resurgam, archaeologist Dan Sylveste discovers evidence of a splinter cult that abandoned Resurgam for the stars but returned, only to be swallowed up by a mysterious cataclysm that destroyed all the Amarantins. Aboard the Nostalgia for Infinity, a vast light-hugger ship in interstellar space, the ominous Triumvirate of cyborg starfarers seeks Sylveste to heal its captain, afflicted by the deadly Melding Plague, which turns once-humans into their own semisentient spaceships. In Chasm City on the slum-ridden world of Yellowstone, assassin Ana Khouri joins the Nostalgia's crew intent on killing Sylveste. Clearly intoxicated by cutting-edge scientific research in bioengineering, space physics, cybernetics Reynolds spins a ravishingly inventive tale of intrigue. Hard SF addicts will applaud the author's talent for creating convincing alien beings and the often uneasy merging of human and machine intelligence, depicted here as nearly too frighteningly real for comfort. Others, however, may find these human-cybernetic hybrid characters chilling, dispassionate (except for their built-in drives toward revenge and murder) and foreboding. Reynolds's vision of a future dominated by artificial intelligence trembles with the ultimate cold of the dark between the stars.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant space opera scifi.
Alastair Reynolds is a great scifi author. Highly recommended. I’ve read pretty much all his books. A couple of weaker than the rest, but most are strong stories filled with concepts and characters that draw the readers attention. His latest addition to the Revelation Space series, called Inhibitor Phase, was so good I couldn’t put it down.
The author is a scientist in his own right, which probably explains the various complex and heavy scientific theories he explores through the characters.
Cannot recommend him enough. If you even vaguely like scifi, give his books a chance.
Surprisingly poor
I came to this book from Iain M. Banks, hoping to find some of the things I love about his books; beautifully drawn worlds, epic set pieces, fascinating characters. It didn't happen. Difficult to know where to start, but i found this book dull. The story is plain boring. Weirdly, the importance of the activities the characters are engaged in is only revealed about 5 pages from the end, which means the rest of the book is totally lacking in suspense. The characters are neither well formed or interesting enough to sympathise with. The dialogue is weak and baggy. There's too much boring tech speak. And the worst thing was being annoyed by the author apparently using a thesaurus where one wasn't needed. He seemed to want to use an alternate word for everything, even when the obvious word would have been more suitable. I dragged myself to the end of this book through sheer bloody mindedness but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.