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Alastair Reynolds - Redemption Ark

I recently finished reading Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds. I read it in a record 2 days, but then I was very sick at the time. I've also read Revelation Space and Chasm City, and this book is set in the same universe, with many of the same characters.

In keeping with the Reynolds style - the story is epic in scope and scale. He pushes a little further in terms of scientific believability, but nevertheless weaves a majestic tale of political manoeuverings on a cosmic scale, driven by a very few but powerful actors.

I have cooled off a great deal on science fiction writing in the last few years, but there are a few writers left - Alastair Reynolds and Iain M Banks are the two that consistently retain my loyalty and attention, both for their clever use of science to motivate a story, and for their attention to plot and character rather than an obsessive focus on the sci-fi to the exclusion of all else.

There is a paradox in the universe. Given the huge number of life-sustaining planets in existence, how is it that so few are populated by sentient life-forms. Moreover, how is it that there are no interplanetary cultures when there are so many worlds where relics point to the past existence of space-faring organic intelligence?

The answer to this question is the Inhibitors. Machines that, when triggered by the detection of space-faring intelligence, set out to destroy that intelligence all the way to the source, with technological abilities that allow them to provoke massive solar flares, or to sanitize entire worlds. Their job done, these machines set further traps to detect future space-faring cultures, and disappear back into dormancy, their ultimate purpose a mystery.

As these ancient and powerful machines turn their attention to the human race, the Conjoiners - a faction of the now space-faring human race - go in search of weapons developed long ago, and hidden far away because of the awsomeness of their power. These 'hell class' weapons were stolen from their hiding place, however, by members of another faction, aboard a mutated, plague-ridden ship, with an agenda all their own, and Nevil Clavain must be convinced to recover them.

Meanwhile, the Inhibitors are drawing closer, and as they set about destroying the human race, their awesome technology is revealed as something that even the hell-class weapons may have trouble denting.

Covering light-years of distance and decades of time, this follow-on from Chasm City shows the human race facing off against an awesome force that seeks to destroy it for reasons even larger and more mysterious than the political machinations and manoeuvering within and between the different factions.

Although I preferred the previous books because some of the science fiction in this crosses the line into non-believable territory for me (and does so, I think, for reasons of internal consistency within the storyline), Alastair Reynolds remains one of the few modern masters of the space opera.

Posted by nlvp at April 18, 2004 06:25 PM