Pushing Ice
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4.4 • 168 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Pushing Ice is the brilliant tale of extraordinary aliens, glittering technologies, and sweeping space opera from award-winning science fiction author Alastair Reynolds.
2057. Humanity has raised exploiting the solar system to an art form. Bella Lind and the crew of her nuclear-powered ship, the Rockhopper, push ice. They mine comets. And they're good at it.
The Rockhopper is nearing the end of its current mission cycle, and everyone is desperate for some much-needed R & R, when startling news arrives from Saturn: Janus, one of Saturn's ice moons, has inexplicably left its natural orbit and is now heading out of the solar system at high speed. As layers of camouflage fall away, it becomes clear that Janus was never a moon in the first place. It's some kind of machine -- and it is now headed toward a fuzzily glimpsed artifact 260 light-years away.
The Rockhopper is the only ship anywhere near Janus, and Bella Lind is ordered to shadow it for the few vital days before it falls forever out of reach. In accepting this mission, she sets her ship and her crew on a collision course with destiny -- for Janus has more surprises in store, and not all of them are welcome.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As this spectacular, large-scale space opera opens, Janus, a moon of Saturn, now revealed as an alien artifact, has suddenly left orbit and headed for interstellar space. The Rockhopper, a comet miner commanded by Capt. Bella Lind, is the only spacecraft in the solar system positioned to catch the huge alien machine. Though a short exploration is all that's planned, the Rockhopper soon finds itself trapped in Janus's time- and distance-distorting slipstream. Determining that Janus is heading toward an even more gigantic artifact orbiting the star Spica, the comet miners settle down to form their own castaway civilization, a process marred by the bad blood between those who support Captain Lind and those who blame her for their fate. Janus soon proves itself to be an incredibly strange and ever changing environment. Eventually, the castaways reach the Spica artifact, encounter several very alien species and discover that their fate is even stranger than they could have imagined. Reynolds (Century Rain) is occasionally clumsy in his character interactions, but he has a genius for big-concept SF and fans of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Larry Niven's Ringworld will love this novel.
Customer Reviews
Needs a sequel
I have to say what is with all the references cigarette smoking... on spaceships? Is this 1960? I can’t imagine anything more unsafe and ridiculous and it seems absurd and out of place. Still it’s a great story and good hard sci-fi with some good tech ideas which is sadly missing these days.
Clearly there should be a sequel. The ending leaves us all wondering what happens next to the two main protagonists.
As shocking as Revelation Space
Majestic. One of Reynold’s most powerful works. Makes my mind explode.
Too long
I feel this story could have been wrapped up in fewer pages. I also found the ending somewhat disappointing, almost as if Reynolds did not know how to conclude the story. While I really like some of the author’s other books, I do not think this is one of his best.