lightreads (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lightreads) wrote2008-06-28 01:01 pm
lightreads) wrote2008-06-28 01:01 pm
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Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds
Sequel to the impressive but flawed Revelation Space. Another 550 pages of interstellar plotting – one of those rotating POV books tracking multiple factions all located somewhere along the sympathy-repulsion spectrum while they maneuver against each other for advantage while an external danger closes in. The external danger being the Wolves, ancient alien machines whose job it is to prune life from the galaxy for reasons not as evil as you might think.
The best part is still the worldbuilding – war propaganda sent by implanted dream! Alien oceans that imprint neural patterns! Awesome nanotech plague! Oh and the gender politics, by which I mean that there nearly isn't any. Women are just people who do jobs well and poorly, end of sentence, no flourishes, no grandstanding.
His timing has gotten better, but the people are still awfully difficult to really empathize with because they're so impressively and appropriately futurified. And the whole thematic arc is more of a vague gesture.
But still some of the best hard SF I've read this year, for the worldbuilding alone. You have to like hard SF to like this, but if you do, you should.
The best part is still the worldbuilding – war propaganda sent by implanted dream! Alien oceans that imprint neural patterns! Awesome nanotech plague! Oh and the gender politics, by which I mean that there nearly isn't any. Women are just people who do jobs well and poorly, end of sentence, no flourishes, no grandstanding.
His timing has gotten better, but the people are still awfully difficult to really empathize with because they're so impressively and appropriately futurified. And the whole thematic arc is more of a vague gesture.
But still some of the best hard SF I've read this year, for the worldbuilding alone. You have to like hard SF to like this, but if you do, you should.