Revelation Space
The breath-taking space opera masterpiece
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4.1 • 121 Ratings
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- $12.99
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 their homeworld, their predecessors are of little interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city.
For brilliant and ruthless scientist Dan Sylveste, the long-dead race are more than a merely intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth of their demise.
But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and the danger is closer and greater than even Sylveste can imagine...
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.' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'Revelation Space series is one of my favouritest favourites . . . Reynolds held me in thrall with his vision' Goodreads reviewer, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
'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
Revelation Space
An awesome tour de force and a ripper of a story.....but a little let down by slim character development and the fact that the characters are often of no great appeal to the reader. Most are also apparently on vows of chastity. Where's a bit of romance and hero characters to go with such amazing story-telling?
Imagine Raiders of the Lost Ark with no real hero and heroine nor any URST or romantic interest....
Neat concepts but a bit heavy handed
A neat ride, and I'm looking forward to continuing with the series but the writing can be quite frustrating at times. Unlike most books which hide information from the reader by hiding it from the POV characters, this book will often simply just skip over it. Chapters will often end with "And so John told them everything" without going into the detail for the reader. It felt very clunky and frustrating at times.
Revelation space
Alistair Reynolds , in my view has replaced Peter.f.Hamilton, Greg Bear, William Gibson, Iain.m.Banks, etc etc, as the new modern day space operatic writer. Not only does his imagination run riot through the pages of his books ,but , as an astrophysicist there is a fair amount of hard science you can pick up along the way. There's nothing better than space opera mixed with hard science, although reader beware, sometimes it hard to discern where fact slips through the cracks into Alistair's awesome imagination.
The only downfall to Reynolds writing is, well for me at least, he doesn't write fast enough!!