I’ve read half a dozen Alastair Reynolds novels and became quite a fan of his. Chasm City and House of Suns stand out as his most remarkable achievements for me. After the masterpiece that was Chasm City, Redemption Ark is the third book in the Revelation Space trilogy.

To me Redemption Ark was a huge let down. The idea of the book is certainly worth exploring; that of a race of Inhibitor machines that periodically wipe out sentient life once it has grown beyond markers. Some of the characters were familiar faces from Revelation Space, while the new characters were Conjoiners, who are a faction that has their minds linked via neural implants. We are introduced to Clavain, who is a renowned military commander who continues to subtly defy his superior Skade; whose secretive and dark motives are a cause of friction.

The principle of an impending catastrophe was used as the basis for moving forward; the attempt of the Inhibitor machines to wipe out all life. I felt that this crisis and how it affected the characters was not made clear through cataclysmic or life-altering events. The characters’ relevance to the story was through complex inter-connecting occurrences, which I usually like about the author’s novels, but the relationships seemed removed from the main plot of the story to me. The sub-plots regarding powerful weaponry, defection, and the background of a war; didn’t reach out to me.

I will likely be reading Absolution Gap next, but maybe not for a while because I was disappointed with this.