Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

this month's Random Read is Revelation Space by Welsh writer and former scientist, Alastair Reynolds. it is book one of the Revelation Space series.

please let us know what you think of the novel: plot, characters, style, themes, what worked and what didn't work. please mark spoilers accordingly.

i just started this book a couple days back. it's intriguing. i'm having some mixed feelings already, but the main thing that i've felt has been what is this all about? what kind of universe is this?. which, to me, is exactly what i want to feel when starting a book - i want that feeling prior to the world-building. so far, so good.

for some reason or another, i was also immediately reminded of Peter Hamilton's various series. imo, that is not a bad thing.

We already have a thread on this.

what the hell? um, THIS is that thread.

It's this one:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

But that one is more about the whole series. This one is about this particular monthly read.

ah, i see where your comment is coming from. Aloha, that is a separate thread by someone who created a thread on a book that they liked. anyone can do that. it is no problem of course.

if you'll recall (or check out the polls), Revelation Space was the winner for this month's Random Read. and so this new thread is within the "Monthly Read" discussions. two different conversations.

it appears we were typing responses to your post at exactly the same time! lol

Speedy fingers! LOL

you still won though, yours dropped first - i'm sure by mere seconds!

I bought this on my little book buying spree, but had a lot of drama this week so I haven't started it yet...hopefully tonight!

You can use it to whack those who were giving you drama. I buy huge tomes for that reason. I kept on having to buy new ones, because the old ones were getting worn out and stained from all the bloody whacking I had to do.

Yeah-but I would get all sorts of back lash for whopping the kids with big fat books, no matter how funny the image in my head is....lol

Yeah, you don't need child protective services in on the drama. LOL

exactly! Once they get involved it's double the drama

It's better to inflict damage where they can't show the bruises. I prefer mental terrorism myself.

lmaoooooo...well, they have had enough of that, thus explaining the drama factor

so i finished this one over the weekend. very interesting! i enjoyed it from start to finish. i gave it 3 stars, but that is not a negative thing - i give a lot of things that i've enjoyed 3 stars. "I Liked It".

for me, the strengths were clear: mind-blowing concepts, fascinatingly dark situations & mysteries, characters who were not even remotely loveable but were intriguingly obsessed, a narrative that was long and complex but kept me interested throughout the novel.

for me, the weaknesses were also clear: first novel-itis on a regular basis, with basic things like incorrect word usage to a lack of interest in establishing any kind of connection between reader and character. but overall i thought the weaknesses were minor.

i'm very curious as to what other folks think of this! i may need more time to digest the novel before posing specific questions, ideas, etc.

i came across some interesting GoodReads reviews of the novel that are worth checking out:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I gave up on this about 1/4 in. I picked up Solaris, instead, and am devouring it. Solaris is more of my flavor.

why? was it because the subgenre (space opera) is not your thing?

although i'm not surprised actually, at least after giving it some thought. i think there is something about really long, wordy novels that leave you cold. or that frustrate you. at least that's what i've noticed over the time that i've known you!

obviously this is not a critique of why you didn't get into this one - it's just an observation.

Long, wordy novels with a lot of fillers do frustrate me. If it's going to be that long, I want it to have a good reason. Otherwise, I prefer the novel to be edited down. After reading a long novel, I go over it in my mind, and I realize that all of that could have been expressed in a more compact, potent way. My favorite novels are ones that pack a punch with no words wasted, with beautiful elegance.

i remember thinking that (your last sentence, specifically) about you when you talked about Do Androids Dream in this group. that is an awesome novel and definitely 'packs a punch with no words wasted'.

I'm not adversed to thick books. I only want every words to go towards something, instead of being pretty fillers. I've read thick books that were satisfying, but they happen to be non-fiction because there were so much information to squeeze into one book.

Been meaning to get back into reading more science fiction so decided to just do so already...:)
I am only 6% into it so far but I like it. Sylveste and mystery behind the Amarantin and The Event definitely has my interest. Volyova and the ship and the strangeness of the captain. I thought "Calvin" was interesting. To borrow a fantasy term, I'm liking the worldbuilding, the imagery, so far.

I started the book again from the beginning in audio as I was unpacking. I am now enjoying the world building. He really is good at building his SciFi world.

Confession time, :) As a primarily fantasy reader I tend to read science fiction the same way. Asimov is a favorite author of mine but the science can go over my head. Sometimes I treat it like "magic". I was expecting this book to be very technical but so far strangely it's reminding me more of a "space fantasy", or maybe it's just how I read.

I find SciFi Fantasy and Fantasy similar, except that with SciFi, you have these techno stuff, which is how I see Revelation Space. The format of Revelation Space and fantasy is very similar, from what I've read.

63% into this and getting kind of bored. Great set up. Interesting world and ideas but story is lacking. Seems to set up mysteries that either go nowhere or deflate. And characters that never come to life. I like it. Will finish. Probably, might, continue with author but not right away.
The Event and the Amarantins made me think of The Engines of God and I was expecting something along this line.

Okay, then I'm not crazy, then. I'm crazy, but not about my books. LOL I felt the same way, Traci.

I wouldn't judge the standard of sanity, or lack thereof, against mine. :)

Finished! And glad to be done. The last half really dragged for me. But I did like the conclusion, for the most part, but wish the book could have gotten there sooner.

Traci, I'm listening to the audio and I"m still bored. In fact, I spent all day long listening to music so I can feel stimulated in my unpacking, instead of dragged down. I think I'm going to switch to another audiobook, because I hate to waste any precious book time just because I couldn't get into a book. It takes me forever to finish a book when I can't get into it.

I give up on, skim, and just plain skip chapters on more books than I care to admit. Part of me feels like a highschool student cheating on a class project. But life is too short to read anything I don't want to. Time is too precious. And I could be reading a book I actually like.

I'm still hovering in the maybe I'll finish it. But not today. I have to find an audiobook that will make it pleasurable to unpack all those boxes of stuff I hadn't seen in a year.

I just finished it and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have even started the second book in the series.

While I do agree with the characters being a bit hard to attach yourself to, the worlds he builds and the twists that occur are well worth finishing the book.

I hope the rest of the series only gets better.

Unicorns were roasted! I thought I was going to give this a 3rd go if only to see how he does the world building, since that is the best part of the book, IMO. But roasting unicorns!!! God forbid! The horror, the horror....

Aloha wrote: "Unicorns were roasted! I thought I was going to give this a 3rd go if only to see how he does the world building, since that is the best part of the book, IMO. But roasting unicorns!!! God forbi..."

:-D

Jon, that is hilarious.

personally, i did enjoy this one quite a bit. but i do understand where you're coming from. the universe of Revelation Space is so much more grim than the shinyverse of peter hamilton (who i do love and actually prefer). i like to think of the universe of RS as similar to that portrayed in the Alien films...a dark, uncaring, cruel, just rather appalling overall universe overall.

I read this a couple of years ago and I think the RS universe definitely takes some getting used to. The first time I read Revelation Space it took a lot of effort to finish it and absolutely hated it. Then I picked it up again a year after that, loved it and breezed through the whole series. Great world building and interesting concepts. My only complaint was I didn't like the casual approach he took in later books to some of the characters. It was almost like he was bored with them or didn't know where to take them next.

The Prefect is a good one for folks who might be intrigued by the setting but don't want to read the series.

Thanks, Bee. I added it to my to-read. I have it as an eBook, but never got around to putting it on my Goodreads shelf.

I just finally finished Revelation Space, and I have to say that I found it much less pessimistic than some others seem to have. I thoroughly enjoyed it - having just finished Pandora's Star before starting Revelation Space, I was reminded of Peter Hamilton, but was a bit relieved to see that Revelation Space didn't have nearly the sprawling cast of characters that Pandora's Star did. (That's not a criticism of Pandora's Star, just a feeling that I wasn't up to two such sprawling stories one right after the other.)

It surprised me how much I warmed to Volyova and Khouri as the book went on, and the ending of the book left me intrigued and delighted. The twists and turns along the way I enjoyed quite a bit, although I did get occasionally annoyed at the author's trick of showing blatantly that the characters know something important, but refusing to share it with the readers. It always strikes me as false drama.

But all in all, I'll probably go on and read others in the series. I didn't adore this book, but I did enjoy it.

I think I will read the others in the series (or at least the next one as I've bought it).

I did find Revelation Space to be a little long. It feels like a 400 page novel within a 560 page novel to me, the beginning is really hard work and as I stated in my review, reminds me of Cloud Atlas.

Simon's review linked above has this to say

"Another observation I had was that the first part of the book is quite hard work, not because it's particularly slow paced, but because it switches between the three narrative strands every page or two. This is too frequent in my opinion and makes it bitty."

I completely agree. However when it all came together it was very good, and the world building was fascinating.

I might go back to it, but I don't know when. Too many SciFi classics to catch up, along with great new releases.