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Revelation Space #4
Inhibitor Phase
Miguel de Ruyter is a man with a past.
Fleeing the 'wolves' - the xenocidal alien machines known as Inhibitors - he has protected his family and community from attack for forty years, sheltering in the caves of an airless, battered world called Michaelmas. The slightest hint of human activity could draw the wolves to their home, to destroy everything ... utterly. Which is how Miguel finds himself on a one-way mission with his own destructive mandate: to eliminate a passing ship, before it can bring unwanted attention down on them.
Only something goes wrong.
There's a lone survivor.
And she knows far more about Miguel than she's letting on . . .
Ranging from the depths of space to the deeps of Pattern Juggler waters, from nervous, isolated communities to the ruins of empire, this is a stealthy space opera from an author at the top of his game.
Praise for Al Reynolds' Revenger
'A swashbuckling thriller' The Guardian
'A blindingly clever imagining of our solar system in the far flung future' The Sun
'A rollicking adventure yarn with action, abduction, fights and properly scary hazards' The Daily Telegraph
Fleeing the 'wolves' - the xenocidal alien machines known as Inhibitors - he has protected his family and community from attack for forty years, sheltering in the caves of an airless, battered world called Michaelmas. The slightest hint of human activity could draw the wolves to their home, to destroy everything ... utterly. Which is how Miguel finds himself on a one-way mission with his own destructive mandate: to eliminate a passing ship, before it can bring unwanted attention down on them.
Only something goes wrong.
There's a lone survivor.
And she knows far more about Miguel than she's letting on . . .
Ranging from the depths of space to the deeps of Pattern Juggler waters, from nervous, isolated communities to the ruins of empire, this is a stealthy space opera from an author at the top of his game.
Praise for Al Reynolds' Revenger
'A swashbuckling thriller' The Guardian
'A blindingly clever imagining of our solar system in the far flung future' The Sun
'A rollicking adventure yarn with action, abduction, fights and properly scary hazards' The Daily Telegraph
432 pages, ebook
First published October 12, 2021
About the author
Alastair Reynolds
281 books8,597 followersI'm Al, I used to be a space scientist, and now I'm a writer, although for a time the two careers ran in parallel. I started off publishing short stories in the British SF magazine Interzone in the early 90s, then eventually branched into novels. I write about a novel a year and try to write a few short stories as well. Some of my books and stories are set in a consistent future named after Revelation Space, the first novel, but I've done a lot of other things as well and I like to keep things fresh between books.
I was born in Wales, but raised in Cornwall, and then spent time in the north of England and Scotland. I moved to the Netherlands to continue my science career and stayed there for a very long time, before eventually returning to Wales.
In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. I also dabble with paints now and then. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales. We live surrounded by hills, woods and wildlife, and not too much excitement.
I was born in Wales, but raised in Cornwall, and then spent time in the north of England and Scotland. I moved to the Netherlands to continue my science career and stayed there for a very long time, before eventually returning to Wales.
In my spare time I am a very keen runner, and I also enjoying hill-walking, birdwatching, horse-riding, guitar and model-making. I also dabble with paints now and then. I met my wife in the Netherlands through a mutual interest in climbing and we married back in Wales. We live surrounded by hills, woods and wildlife, and not too much excitement.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 494 reviews
June 25, 2022
I kept coming across Alastair Reynolds’ name in the reviews of a few trusted SF-reading friends for a while, and eventually gave him a try myself — and yeah, I found his hard-ish SF books fascinating but honestly difficult, a read you have to work for. So maybe it’s why up until now I’ve only read one book in his Inhibitor universe - just the first one, Revelation Space, and my memory of it is beyond murky since I neglected to review it (see, that’s why I write reviews - so that there’s a more permanent account of my memory of the book rather than my apparently unreliable brain).
When approaching an established series from an almost-newbie vantage point, you risk being hopelessly lost. Lucky for me, Reynolds kindly provides a brief orientation for the newbies on this universe set-up (and if you flip to the back, there are quite a few details filled in in the glossary - although it’s spoilers galore for the rest of the series), and eventually my vague memory of Revelation Space did resurface in bits and pieces, helping me along (that uber-weird John the Revelator, for instance). Plus Reynolds showed things just well enough for the reader to be able to piece things together nicely — and yet it is done without any obvious handholding. Yes, I missed a few Easter eggs there (as I’ve learned from Revelation Space wiki later), but it did not affect the understanding and enjoyment of the story, and that says quite a bit about Reynolds’ skill as a storyteller.
It’s a tight book, despite its respectable size and the action taking place across lightyears and centuries. It steadily builds up and expands its scale in the ever-growing crescendo. It’s full of ideas that are smart, sharp and very strange — just wrap your mind around hyperpigs or Pattern Jugglers and ocean intelligences (was that a nod to Solaris, perhaps?) or John the Revelator or whatever Glass actually is.
It is the tried and true narrative form - a quest for relics (McGuffin, yes — but who cares?) to save the world, carried out by a ragtag band of survivors, but it’s done on a vast scale and with the entirety of whatever’s left of formerly spacefaring humanity at stake, and against a seemingly unbeatable foe for which millions of years might as well be eyeblinks. It’s rooting for ultimate underdog on cosmic scale — but scientifically enhanced underdogs in possession of lighthuggers and near-invincible spacesuits and implanted neural networks. And the world’s creepiest and most revolting interrupted space barbecue (yeah, I’m using levity here to distance myself from the horror).
It’s a cruel and bleak world that Reynolds depicts. And it’s populated by characters who are cold, cruel and unlikable — until you realize that despite all that you have formed connections with them and that you learned to see through gruff and offputting exterior to shreds of decency underneath.
It was a slow read for me, but overall quite enjoyable. Reynolds avoids the omnipresent elsewhere excitement of humor or sex or space battles, instead focusing on doggedly determined pursuit of the goal, friendship and alliance bonds and grim seriousness — and it all works very well for the atmosphere here.
And yes, I will have to return to this universe starting with the reread of Revelation Space and going on to actually meet all those people present here in tantalizing glimpses.
4 stars.
————
Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
“All our human adventuring was no more than a scuff on the final page; unwarranted, barely noticed.”
When approaching an established series from an almost-newbie vantage point, you risk being hopelessly lost. Lucky for me, Reynolds kindly provides a brief orientation for the newbies on this universe set-up (and if you flip to the back, there are quite a few details filled in in the glossary - although it’s spoilers galore for the rest of the series), and eventually my vague memory of Revelation Space did resurface in bits and pieces, helping me along (that uber-weird John the Revelator, for instance). Plus Reynolds showed things just well enough for the reader to be able to piece things together nicely — and yet it is done without any obvious handholding. Yes, I missed a few Easter eggs there (as I’ve learned from Revelation Space wiki later), but it did not affect the understanding and enjoyment of the story, and that says quite a bit about Reynolds’ skill as a storyteller.
After reading this, I ended up perusing Revelation Space wiki, which in addition to spoilers for the rest of the series (and before you gasp, I could not care less about spoilers; it’s my reading quirk) also gave me an insight into what happens after the events covered in this book, as it apparently fits somewhere in the last half of the timeline of that world — and all in an say is - okay then. Alastair Reynolds has a definition of optimism that’s different from standard.
About eight centuries in the future the human society, after briefly flourishing interstellarly and surviving the Melding Plague, has fallen prey to the Inhibitors (a.k.a. “the wolves”) - ancient entities working on eliminating spacefaring civilizations. Humanity now survives in tiny hidden pockets as the former hubs of life have been destroyed and ruins of former space habitats drift lifelessly, looking at eventual full extinction. Of course, there are those who find ways to fight back, and given far far future, there are enough ultra-augmented humans (and bioengineered sentient pig descendants, actually) to come up with a way to resist.
“We saw the lights go out, you and I. We have seen the ships stop flying and the worlds fall into silence. One by one we have watched the beacons of civilisation gutter into darkness. We have stood vigil in the twilight. There is no future for us now except a few squalid centuries, and only then if we are very lucky. But the Incantor buys us possibility. It hinges our history onto another track. It may be better, it may even be worse, but the one thing we can be sure of is that it will be different. And if after a few centuries we begin to understand that there have been consequences to our use of the Incantor, we shall meet them. We shall pay for our actions. But we shall have lived, and that is better than the alternative.”
It’s a tight book, despite its respectable size and the action taking place across lightyears and centuries. It steadily builds up and expands its scale in the ever-growing crescendo. It’s full of ideas that are smart, sharp and very strange — just wrap your mind around hyperpigs or Pattern Jugglers and ocean intelligences (was that a nod to Solaris, perhaps?) or John the Revelator or whatever Glass actually is.
It is the tried and true narrative form - a quest for relics (McGuffin, yes — but who cares?) to save the world, carried out by a ragtag band of survivors, but it’s done on a vast scale and with the entirety of whatever’s left of formerly spacefaring humanity at stake, and against a seemingly unbeatable foe for which millions of years might as well be eyeblinks. It’s rooting for ultimate underdog on cosmic scale — but scientifically enhanced underdogs in possession of lighthuggers and near-invincible spacesuits and implanted neural networks. And the world’s creepiest and most revolting interrupted space barbecue (yeah, I’m using levity here to distance myself from the horror).
It’s a cruel and bleak world that Reynolds depicts. And it’s populated by characters who are cold, cruel and unlikable — until you realize that despite all that you have formed connections with them and that you learned to see through gruff and offputting exterior to shreds of decency underneath.
“We’re fighting monsters. We don’t have to become monsters ourselves.”
It was a slow read for me, but overall quite enjoyable. Reynolds avoids the omnipresent elsewhere excitement of humor or sex or space battles, instead focusing on doggedly determined pursuit of the goal, friendship and alliance bonds and grim seriousness — and it all works very well for the atmosphere here.
And yes, I will have to return to this universe starting with the reread of Revelation Space and going on to actually meet all those people present here in tantalizing glimpses.
“Presumably none of their previous funeral ceremonies had had to contend with an overly loquacious pig, and they had no contingency in place.”
4 stars.
————
Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
May 31, 2021
Me happy, happy? No. I think ecstatic would be a better word. Or is there another one more comprehensive to describe the bliss I'm feeling right now?
“I saw alien skies, alien suns, birthing nebulae, the scattered ashes of worlds and stars, vistas of great magnificence and equally great desolation. Time dizzied me. I had thought I understood time, but now my ignorance left me reeling. Time was vaster and colder and lonelier than anything I had ever imagined. There had already been much of it: heavy oceanic layers of time, plunging into deep, still blackness, and my consciousness was just a feeble thing drifting in the highest sunlit layer. A galaxy’s worth of history had already passed into this ocean and been memorialised. All our human adventuring was no more than a scuff on the final page; unwarranted, barely noticed.”
I couldn't agree more with the main character: this is exactly how I feel every time I read something set in this universe. No other SF author describes time and space better than Reynolds. No other makes you choke thinking about the vastness of the universe like he does. Revelation Space is the most wondrous, bleak, frightening, mind-blowing sci-fi universe ever created.
He says in the foreword that this book can be read as a standalone: it does and it doesn’t. Yes, it has a beginning and a closure, a timeline of its own and an independent story. But it also encompasses past and future events from the main trilogy, Chasm City and Galactic North. They are not absolutely necessary to understand this one, but it would be a huge loss not to read them all, because no matter how gripping and mind-blowing are the events, without having in mind the bigger picture, I don’t think one will understand what truly is at stake here, and most certainly will be deprived of the joy discovering all the Easter Eggs.
It has a slow start, but as always, Al Reynolds builds the dread step by step, until it leaves you breathless, keeping the best for the second half of the book. It almost literally blows your mind toward the end.
I don’t think I can say more about it without giving away not-exactly spoilers, but for those who already read the above-mentioned works, it would be best to dive in without any knowledge of what waits ahead – the thrill of discovery would be tenfold not knowing.
That said, I am more than thrilled that I got the chance to read another story in the Revelation Space universe, and I really hope he will write some more.
And here is Al Reynolds’ blog post about this book; it doesn’t contain spoilers, but a Wordcloud teaser and some influences which he used in the story, and here are my guesses, all of them based on the titles:
>>> ARC received thanks to Orion Publishing Group / Gollancz via NetGalley <<<
------
Me happy, happy! 🥰
“I saw alien skies, alien suns, birthing nebulae, the scattered ashes of worlds and stars, vistas of great magnificence and equally great desolation. Time dizzied me. I had thought I understood time, but now my ignorance left me reeling. Time was vaster and colder and lonelier than anything I had ever imagined. There had already been much of it: heavy oceanic layers of time, plunging into deep, still blackness, and my consciousness was just a feeble thing drifting in the highest sunlit layer. A galaxy’s worth of history had already passed into this ocean and been memorialised. All our human adventuring was no more than a scuff on the final page; unwarranted, barely noticed.”
I couldn't agree more with the main character: this is exactly how I feel every time I read something set in this universe. No other SF author describes time and space better than Reynolds. No other makes you choke thinking about the vastness of the universe like he does. Revelation Space is the most wondrous, bleak, frightening, mind-blowing sci-fi universe ever created.
He says in the foreword that this book can be read as a standalone: it does and it doesn’t. Yes, it has a beginning and a closure, a timeline of its own and an independent story. But it also encompasses past and future events from the main trilogy, Chasm City and Galactic North. They are not absolutely necessary to understand this one, but it would be a huge loss not to read them all, because no matter how gripping and mind-blowing are the events, without having in mind the bigger picture, I don’t think one will understand what truly is at stake here, and most certainly will be deprived of the joy discovering all the Easter Eggs.
It has a slow start, but as always, Al Reynolds builds the dread step by step, until it leaves you breathless, keeping the best for the second half of the book. It almost literally blows your mind toward the end.
I don’t think I can say more about it without giving away not-exactly spoilers, but for those who already read the above-mentioned works, it would be best to dive in without any knowledge of what waits ahead – the thrill of discovery would be tenfold not knowing.
That said, I am more than thrilled that I got the chance to read another story in the Revelation Space universe, and I really hope he will write some more.
And here is Al Reynolds’ blog post about this book; it doesn’t contain spoilers, but a Wordcloud teaser and some influences which he used in the story, and here are my guesses, all of them based on the titles:
>>> ARC received thanks to Orion Publishing Group / Gollancz via NetGalley <<<
------
Me happy, happy! 🥰
July 4, 2021
'All civilisations move to an accommodation of their past atrocities.'
It is incredible to think that Revelation Space was published originally in 2000. Setting a new benchmark in noir space opera, it was shortlisted for the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. The subsequent trilogy also got a mention in Damien Broderick’s Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010.
If, like me, you have been reading Alastair Reynolds since then, you will appreciate what an incredible journey it has been, from Revelation Space to Poseidon Children’s to Prefect Dreyfus and Revenger (which I have yet to read), not to mention singular novels like Century Rain, House of Suns and Terminal World. Reynolds also collaborated with Stephen Baxter on the superlative The Medusa Chronicles (2016), an extrapolation of a 1971 Clarke novella that for me is still one the finest New Space Operas written to date.
Hence it was with a bit of trepidation that I first read about Reynolds’ return to the Revelation Space universe with Inhibitor Phase. Being decades since the titular novel and Chasm City (2001), Redemption Ark (2002) and Absolution Gap (2003), my grasp of the details was understandably a bit fuzzy.
Reynolds does include a detailed timeline right at the end, but advises readers not to dip into this before the novel itself, as the supplementary material contains spoilers. What the heck, so I took the plunge and trusted Reynolds to drip-feed me just enough background to keep me going by the seat of my pants.
And boy, does he deliver. The book not only brought back many wonderful memories of those earlier books, but contains quite a few surprises along the way as well. This is probably one of Reynolds’ most tightly written novels to date, despite the sprawling narrative, numerous setpieces and diverse locations. Miraculously, it also concludes within a single volume. Granted, there is room for more, but the ending as it stands is utterly perfect (and one that would make Arthur C. Clarke himself proud.)
Reynolds clearly had huge fun writing this. Writers tend to follow a developmental path, making a splash with one or a series of novels, and thereafter often experimenting or branching out into other directions as their talent and inspiration multiplies. Returning to one’s roots, as it were, can be equally rewarding.
At this point the established author has proven his or her chops and can just let rip. The Reynolds of Inhibitor Phase is not the brash newcomer storming the genre ramparts with his original trilogy. This is the veteran writer who has honed his craft and his audience, taking them expertly on one of his wildest rides ever, in the company of a unique ragtag bunch of characters that the reader comes to know and care for deeply.
It is incredible to think that Revelation Space was published originally in 2000. Setting a new benchmark in noir space opera, it was shortlisted for the BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards. The subsequent trilogy also got a mention in Damien Broderick’s Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels 1985-2010.
If, like me, you have been reading Alastair Reynolds since then, you will appreciate what an incredible journey it has been, from Revelation Space to Poseidon Children’s to Prefect Dreyfus and Revenger (which I have yet to read), not to mention singular novels like Century Rain, House of Suns and Terminal World. Reynolds also collaborated with Stephen Baxter on the superlative The Medusa Chronicles (2016), an extrapolation of a 1971 Clarke novella that for me is still one the finest New Space Operas written to date.
Hence it was with a bit of trepidation that I first read about Reynolds’ return to the Revelation Space universe with Inhibitor Phase. Being decades since the titular novel and Chasm City (2001), Redemption Ark (2002) and Absolution Gap (2003), my grasp of the details was understandably a bit fuzzy.
Reynolds does include a detailed timeline right at the end, but advises readers not to dip into this before the novel itself, as the supplementary material contains spoilers. What the heck, so I took the plunge and trusted Reynolds to drip-feed me just enough background to keep me going by the seat of my pants.
And boy, does he deliver. The book not only brought back many wonderful memories of those earlier books, but contains quite a few surprises along the way as well. This is probably one of Reynolds’ most tightly written novels to date, despite the sprawling narrative, numerous setpieces and diverse locations. Miraculously, it also concludes within a single volume. Granted, there is room for more, but the ending as it stands is utterly perfect (and one that would make Arthur C. Clarke himself proud.)
Reynolds clearly had huge fun writing this. Writers tend to follow a developmental path, making a splash with one or a series of novels, and thereafter often experimenting or branching out into other directions as their talent and inspiration multiplies. Returning to one’s roots, as it were, can be equally rewarding.
At this point the established author has proven his or her chops and can just let rip. The Reynolds of Inhibitor Phase is not the brash newcomer storming the genre ramparts with his original trilogy. This is the veteran writer who has honed his craft and his audience, taking them expertly on one of his wildest rides ever, in the company of a unique ragtag bunch of characters that the reader comes to know and care for deeply.
October 18, 2021
Glorious. Reynolds trimmed all the fat from this one. It is tight, fast moving, bold and thrilling, packed with big ideas and mind blowing hard sci-fi. A chilling atmosphere pervades, with the story taking shape as a kind of desperate galactic scavenger hunt across the ruined planets and settlements of the known galaxy, all destroyed in a devastating war with the implacable Inhibitor self replicating machine intelligences which have pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.
Even more than previous novels the story excels due to a well developed, eclectic group of characters representing the array of wondrous and diverse mix of fascinating transhuman sub-species from across Reynolds' Revelation Space universe. Not to mention several species of mind bogglingly bizarre aliens (the Pattern Jugglers in particular have always been a favorite, reminiscent of Stanislaw Lem's sentient sea in Solaris). Ever so deftly, Reynolds gradually reveals the myriad of secrets that each character holds in his/her long and mysterious past, linking them in some surprising and unexpected ways. This is a story of self sacrifice and of the far flung remnants of humanity overcoming their seemingly immense differences and long histories of conflict in a final bid to save the future of sentient life in the galaxy.
A great read for both fans of Reynolds' Revelation Space series, for whom the world and history and even some characters will be familiar, and newcomers alike.
Even more than previous novels the story excels due to a well developed, eclectic group of characters representing the array of wondrous and diverse mix of fascinating transhuman sub-species from across Reynolds' Revelation Space universe. Not to mention several species of mind bogglingly bizarre aliens (the Pattern Jugglers in particular have always been a favorite, reminiscent of Stanislaw Lem's sentient sea in Solaris). Ever so deftly, Reynolds gradually reveals the myriad of secrets that each character holds in his/her long and mysterious past, linking them in some surprising and unexpected ways. This is a story of self sacrifice and of the far flung remnants of humanity overcoming their seemingly immense differences and long histories of conflict in a final bid to save the future of sentient life in the galaxy.
A great read for both fans of Reynolds' Revelation Space series, for whom the world and history and even some characters will be familiar, and newcomers alike.
September 11, 2021
This new book by Reynolds is going to be slightly difficult to review. If you haven't read any of the previous novels in the Revelation Space universe, or the short stories or novellas, then you might have a perfectly fine time with the read.
It takes us on a long trip through time and space, letting us still feel the horror of the Melding Plague, passing through the time of Chasm City and through the ruins of Yellowstone back when it used to glitter in The Prefect and heads us right through the Wolves and the self-replicating ancient horror that is destroying all sentient life, more than touching on the events in Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap and sending us through Galactic North, as refugees and later as a kind of resistance front.
The writing is tight and the story is nearly perfect.
But. Nearly halfway through, I kept getting this nagging feeling that I had read this before. I was really enjoying everything about Glass, but just seeing Clavain return made me wonder how he was involved in all this. Mind you, I loved him in the earlier books and while I didn't read them when they came out, I did read them almost a decade ago, so maybe I was thinking that my memory was messing with me. That may still be the case, of course, and I would have to re-read the other books I mentioned again, side-by-side with this new one, to see the real differences, but I'm pretty sure that I just read a pretty extensive re-write of Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap. A lot must have been cut out and even more was tightened up, turning Inhibitor Phase into ... dare I say it ... a superior product.
Am I just imagining things? I don't think so. Of course, it could be a combination of all the short stories and novellas and novels wrapped up in my head, re-formed into THIS, a fully coherent, streamlined tale of the extras, and I'm just tripping.
Either way, I enjoyed it. Maybe less than I thought I would because so much of it seemed so damn familiar, but I still enjoyed it. After all, I enjoyed all the others, too.
Even though I spent a lot of time on this issue, I should mention that the Revelation Space series, as a whole, is something REALLY huge and amazingly detailed for any kind of SF comparison. Indeed the complicated and subtle distinctions between what we call people, be they cyborgs, half pig-half human, uploaded minds, ocean intelligences, slugs, or so much more, is perfectly offset by the pitfalls of tech, enhanced by blood-as-physical-weapons, universe-devouring nanotech, and such large-scale constructions that would have sent Niven or Clarke into conniptions.
This SF is on another scale from most. My problems or praise with it are only expressed in a comparison with Reynold's other books.
Definitely worth the read.
It takes us on a long trip through time and space, letting us still feel the horror of the Melding Plague, passing through the time of Chasm City and through the ruins of Yellowstone back when it used to glitter in The Prefect and heads us right through the Wolves and the self-replicating ancient horror that is destroying all sentient life, more than touching on the events in Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap and sending us through Galactic North, as refugees and later as a kind of resistance front.
The writing is tight and the story is nearly perfect.
But. Nearly halfway through, I kept getting this nagging feeling that I had read this before. I was really enjoying everything about Glass, but just seeing Clavain return made me wonder how he was involved in all this. Mind you, I loved him in the earlier books and while I didn't read them when they came out, I did read them almost a decade ago, so maybe I was thinking that my memory was messing with me. That may still be the case, of course, and I would have to re-read the other books I mentioned again, side-by-side with this new one, to see the real differences, but I'm pretty sure that I just read a pretty extensive re-write of Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap. A lot must have been cut out and even more was tightened up, turning Inhibitor Phase into ... dare I say it ... a superior product.
Am I just imagining things? I don't think so. Of course, it could be a combination of all the short stories and novellas and novels wrapped up in my head, re-formed into THIS, a fully coherent, streamlined tale of the extras, and I'm just tripping.
Either way, I enjoyed it. Maybe less than I thought I would because so much of it seemed so damn familiar, but I still enjoyed it. After all, I enjoyed all the others, too.
Even though I spent a lot of time on this issue, I should mention that the Revelation Space series, as a whole, is something REALLY huge and amazingly detailed for any kind of SF comparison. Indeed the complicated and subtle distinctions between what we call people, be they cyborgs, half pig-half human, uploaded minds, ocean intelligences, slugs, or so much more, is perfectly offset by the pitfalls of tech, enhanced by blood-as-physical-weapons, universe-devouring nanotech, and such large-scale constructions that would have sent Niven or Clarke into conniptions.
This SF is on another scale from most. My problems or praise with it are only expressed in a comparison with Reynold's other books.
Definitely worth the read.
November 11, 2023
Extraordinarily terrific. Inhibitor Phase, though linked to at least five other novels as well as novellas and shorts in Reynolds’ Revelation Space Universe, was designed as a stand-alone novel at least according to the preface. It succeeds quite well on its own without necessarily needing more background but there are big broad hints that there’s hundreds of years of history lurking in the background.
It opens in a far off hidden corner of the universe where the last remnants of the human race have burrowed into caverns on a lonely planet, hoping beyond hope that they’ll escape the notice of the wolves. No signals, no radio are allowed to escape because of fear of detection. And, any prospecting craft must be swiftly dealt with.
We are barely given a glimpse of the ferocious wolves who have devoured the known universe, but they are not what you’d expect as Reynolds lets us readers know that life out there among the stars comes in many forms, some very unexpected.
Without giving too much away, the story is a grand adventure with a Gandalf like figure, glass if you will, gathering warriors and weapons for the great battle with the wolves. Almost like a Dungeons and Dragons Game, our not-so-merry crew has to go to different spots and gather these fearsome weapons, each of which requires adventures among hulking spacecraft, rescuing giant pig people from being the wrong kind of guests at a giant barbecue, and fighting off aquatic creatures.
All of these adventures are in secret to avoid detection from the ever-present wolves who are ready to react at the first sign of human life.
Reynolds is a gifted storyteller and this one engages the reader from start to finish on the edge of your seats so they say.
It’s also a universe where sentient life is anything other than you expect, often self-replicating or half genetically designed or machine-altered and consciousness is something possessed by many.
It opens in a far off hidden corner of the universe where the last remnants of the human race have burrowed into caverns on a lonely planet, hoping beyond hope that they’ll escape the notice of the wolves. No signals, no radio are allowed to escape because of fear of detection. And, any prospecting craft must be swiftly dealt with.
We are barely given a glimpse of the ferocious wolves who have devoured the known universe, but they are not what you’d expect as Reynolds lets us readers know that life out there among the stars comes in many forms, some very unexpected.
Without giving too much away, the story is a grand adventure with a Gandalf like figure, glass if you will, gathering warriors and weapons for the great battle with the wolves. Almost like a Dungeons and Dragons Game, our not-so-merry crew has to go to different spots and gather these fearsome weapons, each of which requires adventures among hulking spacecraft, rescuing giant pig people from being the wrong kind of guests at a giant barbecue, and fighting off aquatic creatures.
All of these adventures are in secret to avoid detection from the ever-present wolves who are ready to react at the first sign of human life.
Reynolds is a gifted storyteller and this one engages the reader from start to finish on the edge of your seats so they say.
It’s also a universe where sentient life is anything other than you expect, often self-replicating or half genetically designed or machine-altered and consciousness is something possessed by many.
October 19, 2021
3.5 rounded up to 4.
Inhibitor Phase pulled me in early with well-written suspense and mystery in the early chapters, but after The Swine House I got bored. Lady Arek's disappearing and re-appearing was totally unnecessary and should have been cut from the book. Charybdis was anti-climactic.
Worst of all was the tag-along treatment given to Scorpio. He literally did nothing the entire book but stand around making wisecracks. He had no action, no critical role in anything. It was almost like Al realized this, and had all the characters repeatedly tell him how important he was to the mission, and how much they relied upon him, and they REALLY hammed it up! He had one critical scene that could have been re-written so that Nevil saw the wisdom in Warren's argument without Scorp's input. I would have preferred he wasn't in the book.
Some of Al's wild imagination was on display with The Swine House, the Nestbuilder's ship, and the Merfolk. Even these scenes pale in comparison to earlier books.
The plot was linear, and a little flat.
Don't get me wrong, it was nice to return Revelation Space, and the first third of the book was excellent, but it is the weakest book of the series by far.
I'd say read it if you really want another trip to Revelation Space, but it's perfectly skippable. If it weren't a RS book, I would have DNF'd it around 50%.
Inhibitor Phase pulled me in early with well-written suspense and mystery in the early chapters, but after The Swine House I got bored. Lady Arek's disappearing and re-appearing was totally unnecessary and should have been cut from the book. Charybdis was anti-climactic.
Worst of all was the tag-along treatment given to Scorpio. He literally did nothing the entire book but stand around making wisecracks. He had no action, no critical role in anything. It was almost like Al realized this, and had all the characters repeatedly tell him how important he was to the mission, and how much they relied upon him, and they REALLY hammed it up! He had one critical scene that could have been re-written so that Nevil saw the wisdom in Warren's argument without Scorp's input. I would have preferred he wasn't in the book.
Some of Al's wild imagination was on display with The Swine House, the Nestbuilder's ship, and the Merfolk. Even these scenes pale in comparison to earlier books.
The plot was linear, and a little flat.
Don't get me wrong, it was nice to return Revelation Space, and the first third of the book was excellent, but it is the weakest book of the series by far.
I'd say read it if you really want another trip to Revelation Space, but it's perfectly skippable. If it weren't a RS book, I would have DNF'd it around 50%.
July 17, 2021
I am grateful to Orion for the ARC
Edit
So, I went back and finished the book out of misguided obstinacy. The book improves in the last 15%, but not significantly enough to change my opinion, so the original review stands.
Original Review
DNF at 83%
Al Reynolds is a titan of the space opera genre. His books are well-regarded and loved, yet I haven't had a chance to read him before. So, I dived into Inhibitor Phase with high expectations.
This novel is an entry into the Revelation Space universe, which already has an impressive 17 entries between novels, novella, and short stories. In the introduction, Reynolds explains that new readers need not feel deterred as the book can be read as standalone. There is an optional and brief description of the universe and some major events at the outset, which I found gives useful context.
The story opens in strong fashion, with Miguel de Ruyter, a leader of a relatively small human community hiding from the xenocidal 'wolves', dealing with a crisis. The first 15% or so of the book moves swiftly, setting good momentum and tension to keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
Then begins the book's 'main story' as our protagonists set out to find a MacGuffin. What follows is a series of loosely-jointed fetch quests, that offer little character development, tension, or emotional heft.
It doesn't help that the main character, Miguel, is incredibly annoying. He is alternately vindictive, needy, sarcastic, naive, impulsive, and irrational. He appears to switch between complete mistrust and blind subservience in the blink of an eye. Other characters, with the exception of Glass, are hardly any more endearing.
I found most of the dialogue, especially in the middle part of the book, to be surprisingly poor. Some exchanges were so cringeworthy that it became uncomfortable to continue reading. I almost gave up several times, but kept going as I really wanted to like this.
Despite all the above, the world-building is first class. This is a universe that's been meticulously crafted, and positively abounds with ideological diversity and imaginative dexterity.
Regrettably, this was ultimately not my cup of tea. I might try the earlier novels in the future, hoping they might shed a different light on this entry, but for now, I need a break.
Edit
So, I went back and finished the book out of misguided obstinacy. The book improves in the last 15%, but not significantly enough to change my opinion, so the original review stands.
Original Review
DNF at 83%
Al Reynolds is a titan of the space opera genre. His books are well-regarded and loved, yet I haven't had a chance to read him before. So, I dived into Inhibitor Phase with high expectations.
This novel is an entry into the Revelation Space universe, which already has an impressive 17 entries between novels, novella, and short stories. In the introduction, Reynolds explains that new readers need not feel deterred as the book can be read as standalone. There is an optional and brief description of the universe and some major events at the outset, which I found gives useful context.
The story opens in strong fashion, with Miguel de Ruyter, a leader of a relatively small human community hiding from the xenocidal 'wolves', dealing with a crisis. The first 15% or so of the book moves swiftly, setting good momentum and tension to keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
Then begins the book's 'main story' as our protagonists set out to find a MacGuffin. What follows is a series of loosely-jointed fetch quests, that offer little character development, tension, or emotional heft.
It doesn't help that the main character, Miguel, is incredibly annoying. He is alternately vindictive, needy, sarcastic, naive, impulsive, and irrational. He appears to switch between complete mistrust and blind subservience in the blink of an eye. Other characters, with the exception of Glass, are hardly any more endearing.
I found most of the dialogue, especially in the middle part of the book, to be surprisingly poor. Some exchanges were so cringeworthy that it became uncomfortable to continue reading. I almost gave up several times, but kept going as I really wanted to like this.
Despite all the above, the world-building is first class. This is a universe that's been meticulously crafted, and positively abounds with ideological diversity and imaginative dexterity.
Regrettably, this was ultimately not my cup of tea. I might try the earlier novels in the future, hoping they might shed a different light on this entry, but for now, I need a break.
October 20, 2021
3.5 Stars
While Inhibitor Phase is part of the larger Revelation Space series, the author has stated that it can be read as a standalone or entry point to the universe. Knowing this, I picked up this new release as my first Reynolds.
However I have a strong feeling that my impression of this novel was lessened by my lack of previous knowledge about the universe. It was not that I was ever truly confused, but rather that I lacked a sense of full immersion. I just always felt like I was missing something. Saying this, I am intending to read through the Revelation Space books and will come back to re-review this one once I have a fuller understanding of the universe.
In terms of the writing and worldbuilding, I was immediately impressed. It's clear why Reynolds has built such a name for himself in the genre. The universe is detailed and expansive, which makes me excited to read more of work.
For such a sprawling piece of space opera, I was quite happy by the intimacy of the character work. I thought the main character was quite likeable and good perspective to read from
In terms of the story itself, I absolutely loved the setup but I lost stream about 30% in and struggled to hold my immersion. Again I feel my struggle with the plot largely stemmed from my lack of background with the universe.
Readers of the previous books will undoubtedly have a different experience than me and I would certainly recommend this book to them. For me, I still liked it, but it's clear that I need to go through the rest of the series before I can fully appreciate this one. Expect a re-review from me in the future.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
While Inhibitor Phase is part of the larger Revelation Space series, the author has stated that it can be read as a standalone or entry point to the universe. Knowing this, I picked up this new release as my first Reynolds.
However I have a strong feeling that my impression of this novel was lessened by my lack of previous knowledge about the universe. It was not that I was ever truly confused, but rather that I lacked a sense of full immersion. I just always felt like I was missing something. Saying this, I am intending to read through the Revelation Space books and will come back to re-review this one once I have a fuller understanding of the universe.
In terms of the writing and worldbuilding, I was immediately impressed. It's clear why Reynolds has built such a name for himself in the genre. The universe is detailed and expansive, which makes me excited to read more of work.
For such a sprawling piece of space opera, I was quite happy by the intimacy of the character work. I thought the main character was quite likeable and good perspective to read from
In terms of the story itself, I absolutely loved the setup but I lost stream about 30% in and struggled to hold my immersion. Again I feel my struggle with the plot largely stemmed from my lack of background with the universe.
Readers of the previous books will undoubtedly have a different experience than me and I would certainly recommend this book to them. For me, I still liked it, but it's clear that I need to go through the rest of the series before I can fully appreciate this one. Expect a re-review from me in the future.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
October 7, 2021
Sequel to Reynolds’ Absolution Gap. Revelation Space heroes band together in a quest to halt the nigh complete genocide of humanity by the alien, self-replicating, robotic, Inhibitors.
The Swine Queens Court?
My ebook formatted version was 660-pages. A dead tree copy would be 497-pages. It had a UK 2021 copyright. This book includes a: Dramatis Personae, a Historical Note and a Glossary. I highly recommend reading the Historical Note before starting the book.
Alastair Reynolds is a British science fiction author. He has written more than twenty novels, primarily in three major series and standalone. This was the fourth book in his Inhibitor Sequence story arc of the Revelation Space universe. I have read many of the authors books. The last book I read by him was Century Rain (my review).
Its strongly recommended to have a firm grounding in the Revelation Space universe, particularly the Inhibitor Sequence story arc before reading this. In particular, this is a sequel to Abolution Gap . This book would be incomprehensible, without already being Revelation Space savvy.
This story was a turning-of-the-tide for the on-the-ropes humanity facing their genocide by the Inhibitors. The story takes place after most of the year 2727 events in Absolution Gap. A band of re-badged heroes from the Inhibitor Sequence stories are gathered together by rogue Conjoiners to put paid to the Inhibitors (re-badged as wolves) by using alien technology to re-create a superweapon before humanity goes extinct .
This book, which many of us have been waiting for since 2003’s Absolution Gap, somewhat makes-up for Reynolds' misstep. Inhibitor Phase is one of the best science fiction stories I've read in the past two years. Some of you may know how discerning I am about books, and how hard it is for me to express that opinion? Its hardish science fiction, written by a skilled writer of the genre. There has not been much of that out there lately. This story is marginally better than Adrian Tchaikovsky's's science fiction, when he stays away from the Standard Sci-Fi Setting trope.
Several parts of the book held me in rapt attention. Reynolds was not shy about killing-off, well-developed characters. That kept me on my toes. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m a sucker for the Heroic Sacrifice trope. I got more than a few chuckles out of the hyperpig porcine humor. Revelation Space aliens have oft been copied by less imaginative authors. There's a deeper dive into a couple of the best in this story. Also the astrogation was real. (As any fan of KSP will note.) For example, there was a very lucid description of a solar, gravity deceleration. Typically, you read about "sling-shot" accelerations, not the other way around.
However, this was not a great work. There were several things that kept it penned into the only Good category.
Firstly, you really need to already be a Revelation Space junkie to get everything out of this story. The author heavily re-uses its: characters, locations, plot lines and plot elements. For example, I had forgotten the properties of the story's Gideon Stones McGuffin. That annoyed me for several chapters. (Were they first introduced in Zima Blue and Other Stories?)
Reynolds is a proficient author. Also, I like Brit-speak narratives. However, the editing was only adequate. There were several grammar errors, some typographical issues, and several technical errors. For example, I would have liked that Warren Clavain’s, Martian flashbacks which began several chapters to have had more separation than a “¶” before (re)entering the present.
Note that there was no: Sex, Substance Abuse or Rock ‘n Roll in the story. This was despite there being oblique references to it having happened in the past. In this way the story felt very YA.
However, it was a couple of scenes in the ruins of the Glitter Band and Chasm City that set my teeth on edge. It had me wondering why his editor hadn’t slapped the author up against the side of the head, and sent him back to his laptop.
Eighteen (18) years after Absolution Gap Reynolds finally got back to that story. However, a large portion of his audience has perished in reefersleep. (Some committed seppuku over his writing the Revenger series.) Their memories of Revelation Space have dimmed. Folks have moved on to Reynolds-esque, new authors like Adrian Tchaikovsky and others who are still writing hard-ish, space operas. This was a good story, but not a really good story. It was uneven in its narrative. Mostly it was hyper-realistic, vintage Reynolds, but it also contained a lot of drivel too. I thought this book also arrived about 15-years too late for his fans. Its success depended on a deep knowledge, of the very richly embroidered Revelation Space universe. To too many of us Yellowstone has become only a dim memory.
My hope is that he follows this up quickly with a Greenfly story in the Inhibitor Sequence ?
The Swine Queens Court?
My ebook formatted version was 660-pages. A dead tree copy would be 497-pages. It had a UK 2021 copyright. This book includes a: Dramatis Personae, a Historical Note and a Glossary. I highly recommend reading the Historical Note before starting the book.
Alastair Reynolds is a British science fiction author. He has written more than twenty novels, primarily in three major series and standalone. This was the fourth book in his Inhibitor Sequence story arc of the Revelation Space universe. I have read many of the authors books. The last book I read by him was Century Rain (my review).
Its strongly recommended to have a firm grounding in the Revelation Space universe, particularly the Inhibitor Sequence story arc before reading this. In particular, this is a sequel to Abolution Gap . This book would be incomprehensible, without already being Revelation Space savvy.
This story was a turning-of-the-tide for the on-the-ropes humanity facing their genocide by the Inhibitors. The story takes place after most of the year 2727 events in Absolution Gap. A band of re-badged heroes from the Inhibitor Sequence stories are gathered together by rogue Conjoiners to put paid to the Inhibitors (re-badged as wolves) by using alien technology to re-create a superweapon before humanity goes extinct .
This book, which many of us have been waiting for since 2003’s Absolution Gap, somewhat makes-up for Reynolds' misstep. Inhibitor Phase is one of the best science fiction stories I've read in the past two years. Some of you may know how discerning I am about books, and how hard it is for me to express that opinion? Its hardish science fiction, written by a skilled writer of the genre. There has not been much of that out there lately. This story is marginally better than Adrian Tchaikovsky's's science fiction, when he stays away from the Standard Sci-Fi Setting trope.
Several parts of the book held me in rapt attention. Reynolds was not shy about killing-off, well-developed characters. That kept me on my toes. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m a sucker for the Heroic Sacrifice trope. I got more than a few chuckles out of the hyperpig porcine humor. Revelation Space aliens have oft been copied by less imaginative authors. There's a deeper dive into a couple of the best in this story. Also the astrogation was real. (As any fan of KSP will note.) For example, there was a very lucid description of a solar, gravity deceleration. Typically, you read about "sling-shot" accelerations, not the other way around.
However, this was not a great work. There were several things that kept it penned into the only Good category.
Firstly, you really need to already be a Revelation Space junkie to get everything out of this story. The author heavily re-uses its: characters, locations, plot lines and plot elements. For example, I had forgotten the properties of the story's Gideon Stones McGuffin. That annoyed me for several chapters. (Were they first introduced in Zima Blue and Other Stories?)
Reynolds is a proficient author. Also, I like Brit-speak narratives. However, the editing was only adequate. There were several grammar errors, some typographical issues, and several technical errors. For example, I would have liked that Warren Clavain’s, Martian flashbacks which began several chapters to have had more separation than a “¶” before (re)entering the present.
Note that there was no: Sex, Substance Abuse or Rock ‘n Roll in the story. This was despite there being oblique references to it having happened in the past. In this way the story felt very YA.
However, it was a couple of scenes in the ruins of the Glitter Band and Chasm City that set my teeth on edge. It had me wondering why his editor hadn’t slapped the author up against the side of the head, and sent him back to his laptop.
Eighteen (18) years after Absolution Gap Reynolds finally got back to that story. However, a large portion of his audience has perished in reefersleep. (Some committed seppuku over his writing the Revenger series.) Their memories of Revelation Space have dimmed. Folks have moved on to Reynolds-esque, new authors like Adrian Tchaikovsky and others who are still writing hard-ish, space operas. This was a good story, but not a really good story. It was uneven in its narrative. Mostly it was hyper-realistic, vintage Reynolds, but it also contained a lot of drivel too. I thought this book also arrived about 15-years too late for his fans. Its success depended on a deep knowledge, of the very richly embroidered Revelation Space universe. To too many of us Yellowstone has become only a dim memory.
My hope is that he follows this up quickly with a Greenfly story in the Inhibitor Sequence ?
September 20, 2021
First up I want to say that I love the early work of Alastair Reynolds. Chasm City and Pushing Ice are two of my all time favourite books...
That said the last few books I have read by him have really not been to the same standard (Revenger, Blue Remembered Earth and now Inhibitor Phase)
-Spoilers ahead-
This novel starts off really well! A rag tag group of humans on the run from The Inhibitors (a seemingly un defeat-able group of machines from his previous books. We have a good few pages where it seems that things have really changed for the human race. But then about 20 pages in our hero is swept away by a mystery character who has a seemingly hyper advanced ship that can do anything including fly everywhere undetected by the Wolves, make anything, save anyone etc.
We then zip around the galaxy, the super ship overcomes every problem it faces and then bop, we have a super-weapon and it turns out the Inhibitors were not such a problem after all (I presume, that ending? what a stinker!) On top of all this we are subjected to page after page of pig love where the main character seems to think Pinky is the embodiment of all that is good and great in humanity (hard to get my head around, how can the pigs function at all with trotter hands and use the high tech doo dads, opposable thumbs are so 20th century I guess?)
All in all it was nice to have the memories of Revelation Space and Chasm City bubble up in my brain from when I was in my early 20s but this book was a huge disappointment for me.
That said the last few books I have read by him have really not been to the same standard (Revenger, Blue Remembered Earth and now Inhibitor Phase)
-Spoilers ahead-
This novel starts off really well! A rag tag group of humans on the run from The Inhibitors (a seemingly un defeat-able group of machines from his previous books. We have a good few pages where it seems that things have really changed for the human race. But then about 20 pages in our hero is swept away by a mystery character who has a seemingly hyper advanced ship that can do anything including fly everywhere undetected by the Wolves, make anything, save anyone etc.
We then zip around the galaxy, the super ship overcomes every problem it faces and then bop, we have a super-weapon and it turns out the Inhibitors were not such a problem after all (I presume, that ending? what a stinker!) On top of all this we are subjected to page after page of pig love where the main character seems to think Pinky is the embodiment of all that is good and great in humanity (hard to get my head around, how can the pigs function at all with trotter hands and use the high tech doo dads, opposable thumbs are so 20th century I guess?)
All in all it was nice to have the memories of Revelation Space and Chasm City bubble up in my brain from when I was in my early 20s but this book was a huge disappointment for me.
December 9, 2021
Inhibitor Phase is a good (hard) sci-fi novel, and an interesting addition to the Revelation Space universe. It has some excellent awe-inspiring sci-fi concepts, some good action and it furthers the story that began with the novel Revelation Space.
Although I loved the sci fi concepts, I had a difficult time warming up to most of the characters on this epic space adventure. It was good to have Pinky on board the ship to put things in perspective and to make light of the situation sometimes, even when the odds are stacked against them: "Right now, you could drop an electrical probe into my pleasure centre and it wouldn't cheer me up."
Being Dutch I loved the fact that the main character was called Miguel de Ruyter, surely a nod to that daring Dutch sea admiral Michiel de Ruyter that sailed up the Thames to inflict a crushing defeat on the English fleet during one of many Anglo-Dutch sea wars. Main character Miguel in this novel has his own epic journey ahead of him.
On this important journey that Miguel and his companions are taking we revisit some of the places from earlier Revelation Space books and it helps to know what a Conjoiner is, and what a Pattern Juggler is world for instance. Inhibitor Phase is well crafted, there were chapters that were exciting and then there were some that were less so but during the last 50 pages or so I was on the edge of my seat as the story was coming to an interesting and satisfying end.
All in all, I thought Inhibitor Phase was a good edition to the Revelation Space series, if you are planning to pick this one up however, I would recommend that you read the Revelation Space trilogy and Chasm City first. Although you can read Inhibitor Phase separately, reading the previous books will make you enjoy this one a lot more and besides those books are awesome!
Although I loved the sci fi concepts, I had a difficult time warming up to most of the characters on this epic space adventure. It was good to have Pinky on board the ship to put things in perspective and to make light of the situation sometimes, even when the odds are stacked against them: "Right now, you could drop an electrical probe into my pleasure centre and it wouldn't cheer me up."
Being Dutch I loved the fact that the main character was called Miguel de Ruyter, surely a nod to that daring Dutch sea admiral Michiel de Ruyter that sailed up the Thames to inflict a crushing defeat on the English fleet during one of many Anglo-Dutch sea wars. Main character Miguel in this novel has his own epic journey ahead of him.
On this important journey that Miguel and his companions are taking we revisit some of the places from earlier Revelation Space books and it helps to know what a Conjoiner is, and what a Pattern Juggler is world for instance. Inhibitor Phase is well crafted, there were chapters that were exciting and then there were some that were less so but during the last 50 pages or so I was on the edge of my seat as the story was coming to an interesting and satisfying end.
All in all, I thought Inhibitor Phase was a good edition to the Revelation Space series, if you are planning to pick this one up however, I would recommend that you read the Revelation Space trilogy and Chasm City first. Although you can read Inhibitor Phase separately, reading the previous books will make you enjoy this one a lot more and besides those books are awesome!
August 21, 2021
This is a novel I would have probably really loved a decade or two ago, but in the meantime, I started preferring human-scale books (even if they are space opera, they still can be so with the right setting and characters) and being left somewhat cold by galaxy-spanning action with incredible technologies etc as they start blending into author/plot dependent magic - we need this ingredient now, it surely appears, maybe after lots of trials and tribulations of course and with the explanation of why it couldn't appear five days, five years or five decades ago for example, but all is at the whim of the author as we lack the natural comprehension of the setting and its limits.
So most of this book reads like that, with everything pretty much at the author's whim, why it zigs or zags that way, though it definitely has a sense of wonder and its moments of human scale especially at the beginning and at the end.
So most of this book reads like that, with everything pretty much at the author's whim, why it zigs or zags that way, though it definitely has a sense of wonder and its moments of human scale especially at the beginning and at the end.
September 3, 2021
Disappointed. 3 stars with a bit of nostalgia, 2.5 without.
** SPOILERS AHEAD **
"Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic" A.C. Clarke (sorry for the cliché).
I am afraid this episode is too much on the fantasy side, going against expectations. Sure Reynolds is not know to be hard-science, more epic space operas with big ideas. My problem is there are no big ideas (or at least not new ones) and everything feels like deus ex-machina (machinae?).
- De Ruyter fake memories: Chasm City but not done as well
- Gideon stone: we need stuff to go in high pressure environment, here is convenient magical artifact. We do not care how it works, do not bother trying to grok it. Let's just use it and replace it with another one should the need arise.
- Swinehouse conundrum: seems uselessly complicated. I feel I have read the haemoclast thing already. Maybe not from Reynold but almost exactly the same. And with all their technological advantage, is it the best they could really do. I would have prefer them to outsmart the Swine Queen throwing the Stones about and let her die with the rest of Yellowstone
- Pinky: way to much "Pinky is the best hyperpig/friend/ally/whatever", "Pinky will outlive us all" (the way it is going, sure. Maybe not Aura/Jesus though). We get it. At some point, I started skimming all the chatter to get to things getting done.
- Re-destruction of the Rust belt/Chasm City: underwhelming. And Yellowstone again. I mean, yes this is the major human settlement, but something fresh would have been good too.
- Captain Brannegan: feels a bit like a waste. Could have been more epic, for such an epic character.
- Pattern Juggler: okay, tried something new, did not work really well IMHO.
- Lady Arek is not dead: massive deus ex-machina.
- Charybdis/Nestbuilders/Slugs: underwhelming. Could have been good, maybe focus on Glass encounter with the slug, maybe more interactions, more historical perspectives. Feels like Mass Effect/Fantasy: walked in the crypt, blasted enemies, picked secrets, all along with strangely stressful deadlines and unnecessary deaths.
- Final: nothing. What is this Incantor thing? Wait for Inhibitors Phase season 2.
I read it in a couple of days, I wanted to be excited about it, get to the new big idea, the new revelation, but nothing panned out. At best, this is a rehash playing on nostalgia.
Still, I will probably read the next ones because Reynolds has written really excellent novels. This is not one of these unfortunately.
** SPOILERS AHEAD **
"Any sufficiently advanced technology looks like magic" A.C. Clarke (sorry for the cliché).
I am afraid this episode is too much on the fantasy side, going against expectations. Sure Reynolds is not know to be hard-science, more epic space operas with big ideas. My problem is there are no big ideas (or at least not new ones) and everything feels like deus ex-machina (machinae?).
- De Ruyter fake memories: Chasm City but not done as well
- Gideon stone: we need stuff to go in high pressure environment, here is convenient magical artifact. We do not care how it works, do not bother trying to grok it. Let's just use it and replace it with another one should the need arise.
- Swinehouse conundrum: seems uselessly complicated. I feel I have read the haemoclast thing already. Maybe not from Reynold but almost exactly the same. And with all their technological advantage, is it the best they could really do. I would have prefer them to outsmart the Swine Queen throwing the Stones about and let her die with the rest of Yellowstone
- Pinky: way to much "Pinky is the best hyperpig/friend/ally/whatever", "Pinky will outlive us all" (the way it is going, sure. Maybe not Aura/Jesus though). We get it. At some point, I started skimming all the chatter to get to things getting done.
- Re-destruction of the Rust belt/Chasm City: underwhelming. And Yellowstone again. I mean, yes this is the major human settlement, but something fresh would have been good too.
- Captain Brannegan: feels a bit like a waste. Could have been more epic, for such an epic character.
- Pattern Juggler: okay, tried something new, did not work really well IMHO.
- Lady Arek is not dead: massive deus ex-machina.
- Charybdis/Nestbuilders/Slugs: underwhelming. Could have been good, maybe focus on Glass encounter with the slug, maybe more interactions, more historical perspectives. Feels like Mass Effect/Fantasy: walked in the crypt, blasted enemies, picked secrets, all along with strangely stressful deadlines and unnecessary deaths.
- Final: nothing. What is this Incantor thing? Wait for Inhibitors Phase season 2.
I read it in a couple of days, I wanted to be excited about it, get to the new big idea, the new revelation, but nothing panned out. At best, this is a rehash playing on nostalgia.
Still, I will probably read the next ones because Reynolds has written really excellent novels. This is not one of these unfortunately.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2021
Amazing read. This might need the tightest and most consequential book of the Revelation Space series. Old characters from previous books make various appearances and I hope this is the start of a trilogy or something along those lines because too much awesomeness was included but not concluded and he needs to finish what he started. Easily five stars for this.
August 26, 2021
Synopsis: Inhibitors are alien machines which nearly extinguished humanity. The novel follows Miguel de Ruyter who fled to a reclused, battered world Michaelmas with his family and a small community. They smallest sign of technology would reactivate the Inhibitors attention and lead to their destruction.
One day, a spaceship passed their system and Miguel set out to destroy it before it would bring unwanted attention. He finds a lone survivor, and from there, every went different, because she knows about Miguel’s past.
To protect his family, he needs to leave them behind and follow the survivor on a quest against the Inhibitors.
Review: I’m no Reynolds specialist, his lineup of doorstoppers seemed always daunting to me. The only longer novel from him that I’ve read is Revelation Space, and that one didn’t exactly blow me away. On the other hand I’ve consumed a longer list from his short fiction, and most of them were really great. There’s his 2007 post-post apocalypse “The sledge maker’s daughter” (review), his 2014 story “In Babelsberg” (review), a hard SF story “A Murmuration” (review), Sun drilling in “16 Questions for Kamala Chatterchee” (review), and the longest and most current novella from him I’ve read so far “Permafrost” (review). That’s quite a lot for one author on my blog, but still: I seem to run around this author and don’t dare to dive into his work. Funny, because I like his (short) work so much! Do you have similar restraints from certain authors?
Having said that, this is the second novel from Reynolds. It didn’t seem like a huge risk, because it’s standalone, though set loosely in the Revelation Space series (relating this novel to the whereabouts of the whole series is left as an exercise to the reader). That’s the first good thing about it for someone who only dares to tip his toes into the cold water.
Then, there is the ever increasing tension, starting slowly, building up dread step by step, never letting your attention wander around. Mind-blowing at the end.
And then the sidekicks stealing the show: Pinky is a sardonic, absolutely loyal uplifted swine (called “hyperpigs”) and Agent Glass with superpowers. As one could suspect, they deliver a lot of relentless action-thriller. Together with main protagonist Miguel, they have a lot to say about identity and transformation. But wait, this is not a philosophical book, and thank you for that.
So many brilliant, vivid aliens, technology, crafts, and space! This is truly epic, as far as a Space Opera can go. Of course, it isn’t Hard SF, some parts of the fiction aren’t exactly plausible, but the disbelief und upcoming questions are overridden by the novel’s pacing, finishing off with an interesting conclusion.
Will I return to Reynolds? Certainly, there’s a new short-story in the Made to Robots anthology. but will I dive into the Revelation swamp? Here I’m more a procrastinator, but tempted more through this enjoyable book.
One day, a spaceship passed their system and Miguel set out to destroy it before it would bring unwanted attention. He finds a lone survivor, and from there, every went different, because she knows about Miguel’s past.
To protect his family, he needs to leave them behind and follow the survivor on a quest against the Inhibitors.
Review: I’m no Reynolds specialist, his lineup of doorstoppers seemed always daunting to me. The only longer novel from him that I’ve read is Revelation Space, and that one didn’t exactly blow me away. On the other hand I’ve consumed a longer list from his short fiction, and most of them were really great. There’s his 2007 post-post apocalypse “The sledge maker’s daughter” (review), his 2014 story “In Babelsberg” (review), a hard SF story “A Murmuration” (review), Sun drilling in “16 Questions for Kamala Chatterchee” (review), and the longest and most current novella from him I’ve read so far “Permafrost” (review). That’s quite a lot for one author on my blog, but still: I seem to run around this author and don’t dare to dive into his work. Funny, because I like his (short) work so much! Do you have similar restraints from certain authors?
Having said that, this is the second novel from Reynolds. It didn’t seem like a huge risk, because it’s standalone, though set loosely in the Revelation Space series (relating this novel to the whereabouts of the whole series is left as an exercise to the reader). That’s the first good thing about it for someone who only dares to tip his toes into the cold water.
Then, there is the ever increasing tension, starting slowly, building up dread step by step, never letting your attention wander around. Mind-blowing at the end.
And then the sidekicks stealing the show: Pinky is a sardonic, absolutely loyal uplifted swine (called “hyperpigs”) and Agent Glass with superpowers. As one could suspect, they deliver a lot of relentless action-thriller. Together with main protagonist Miguel, they have a lot to say about identity and transformation. But wait, this is not a philosophical book, and thank you for that.
So many brilliant, vivid aliens, technology, crafts, and space! This is truly epic, as far as a Space Opera can go. Of course, it isn’t Hard SF, some parts of the fiction aren’t exactly plausible, but the disbelief und upcoming questions are overridden by the novel’s pacing, finishing off with an interesting conclusion.
Will I return to Reynolds? Certainly, there’s a new short-story in the Made to Robots anthology. but will I dive into the Revelation swamp? Here I’m more a procrastinator, but tempted more through this enjoyable book.
October 28, 2021
Holy smokes, what a book! Everything I loved about the Revelation Space trilogy and then some: a Clavain, hyperpigs, Chasm City, wild alien weapons, blood and guts, Pattern Jugglers, and a lighthugger with an amazing name.
The story starts out in Sun Hollow, where a small colony of humans scrape a living underground to avoid detection by the Wolves. A ship is detected entering their space, and colony protocol is to intercept it before unwanted attention is directed at their planet. Miguel de Ruyter draws the short straw and flies out to meet the lighthugger The Silence in Heaven, but before he can launch a close-range missile the ship blows up on its own. As he searches the debris field for clues to what happened, he hears a signal. "Help me. Is anyone out there? I need help!"
My only detraction is that Al Reynolds recycles a familiar trick from the earlier novels, i.e., almost every character is really somebody else. I have no idea why he likes to do this so much, but I was happy enough with the fast-moving pace and interesting plot that I almost didn't mind.
Let's recap the amazing ship names we've seen so far in this universe.
The story starts out in Sun Hollow, where a small colony of humans scrape a living underground to avoid detection by the Wolves. A ship is detected entering their space, and colony protocol is to intercept it before unwanted attention is directed at their planet. Miguel de Ruyter draws the short straw and flies out to meet the lighthugger The Silence in Heaven, but before he can launch a close-range missile the ship blows up on its own. As he searches the debris field for clues to what happened, he hears a signal. "Help me. Is anyone out there? I need help!"
My only detraction is that Al Reynolds recycles a familiar trick from the earlier novels, i.e., almost every character is really somebody else. I have no idea why he likes to do this so much, but I was happy enough with the fast-moving pace and interesting plot that I almost didn't mind.
Let's recap the amazing ship names we've seen so far in this universe.
Accompaniment of Shadows
Bride of the Wind
Faint Memory of Hokusai
Gnostic Ascension
Dominatrix
Lark Descending
Madonna of the Wasps
Nostalgia for Infinity
Melancholia of Departure
Pelican in Impiety
Silence Under Snow
Transfigured Night
Voice of Evening
The Silence in Heaven
August 23, 2024
I saw us. In my mind’s eye I looked down from above the photosphere, into a blinding sea. A black, needle-sharp form arrowed through that sea, parting it like a hypodermic. Mach cones swept back from its tip and tail, barbs of savage shock. They made me think of feathered plumes, diamond-patterned. A curdled wake, tens of thousands of kilometres long, followed our passage. At its boundary it became fractal, consumed in diminishing recursive iterations. But the sea was ever-seething and soon swallowed any trace of us.
Here, at last, we have a novel showing us what happened after the Wolves came.
Inhibitor Phase is a very human story, with themes of sacrifice and redemption (which are recurrent themes in Reynolds’ work).
”The universe won’t do this to us”, I whispered to myself. “It’s indifferent, but it isn’t actually cruel.”
Perhaps I believed myself, for a moment or two.
Without getting into spoiler territory – the timeline is very important here. Especially taking into account events referenced in Absolution Gap. However, by the author’s own admission, this can be read as a stand-alone, so who am I to argue?
We saw the lights go out, you and I. We have seen the ships stop flying and the worlds fall into silence. One by one we have watched the beacons of civilization gutter into darkness. We have stood vigil in the twilight.
Here, at last, we have a novel showing us what happened after the Wolves came.
Inhibitor Phase is a very human story, with themes of sacrifice and redemption (which are recurrent themes in Reynolds’ work).
”The universe won’t do this to us”, I whispered to myself. “It’s indifferent, but it isn’t actually cruel.”
Perhaps I believed myself, for a moment or two.
Without getting into spoiler territory – the timeline is very important here. Especially taking into account events referenced in Absolution Gap. However, by the author’s own admission, this can be read as a stand-alone, so who am I to argue?
We saw the lights go out, you and I. We have seen the ships stop flying and the worlds fall into silence. One by one we have watched the beacons of civilization gutter into darkness. We have stood vigil in the twilight.
October 31, 2021
“All civilizations move to an accommodation of their past atrocities. Some do it by acceptance, some by forgetting.” In Alastair Reynolds’ new novel Inhibitor Phase, this is also true of individual characters.
In spite of his declared intention that this be a stand-alone novel, this novel does fit into the shared universe and story-line of Alastair Reynolds' larger body of work. The Inhibitors are a galaxy-wide post-organic distributed machine race whose goal is to confine intelligent life to individual planets, in order to enable life-preserving interventions during a crisis 3 billion years in the future when the Milky Way will collide with Andromeda Galaxy. They achieve this by exterminating civilizations as they emerge into the interstellar arena. Reynolds has set a few stand-alone novels in the Revelation Space universe, but this one is set in time after Absolution Gap (2003), third of a trilogy, and after eighteen years extends the Inhibitor story-line to a fourth book. If you come upon the book as a stand-alone, you can read it and make sense of it, but will miss out on the fact that Reynolds is returning to, and extending, some previously established characters, concepts, and events.
In the novel, we follow first-person protagonist Miguel de Ruyter, who is a leader among a community of humans hiding from the Inhibitors on an airless and barely inhabitable planet. The narrative is chronological and single-track (not always the case with Reynolds), as eventually his experiences take him into the wider conflict with the Inhibitors. However, there is a minor but important subplot set centuries earlier, in a human/post-human conflict on Mars. This ties to a 2000 short story by Reynolds entitled “The Great Wall of Mars.” The story is background to several Revelation Space novels, and can be found in his collection Galactic North (2006).
As enthused as I was to enjoy the dizzying astrophysical travel, desperate conflicts and personality braiding of Reynolds’ style of space opera, I grew somewhat dissatisfied with the ending. This seems to be a pattern for me, as I had a similar response to the ending of his Poseidon's Wake (2015). It is as if his writing style is more suited to endless plot turns than conclusion.
There is room for a fifth novel, although the setting and the Inhibitor story-arc would of necessity evolve further.
I read an Advance Reader Copy of Inhibitor Phase, by Alastair Reynolds in ebook, which I received from Hachette Book Group (Orbit) through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 12 October 2021.
In spite of his declared intention that this be a stand-alone novel, this novel does fit into the shared universe and story-line of Alastair Reynolds' larger body of work. The Inhibitors are a galaxy-wide post-organic distributed machine race whose goal is to confine intelligent life to individual planets, in order to enable life-preserving interventions during a crisis 3 billion years in the future when the Milky Way will collide with Andromeda Galaxy. They achieve this by exterminating civilizations as they emerge into the interstellar arena. Reynolds has set a few stand-alone novels in the Revelation Space universe, but this one is set in time after Absolution Gap (2003), third of a trilogy, and after eighteen years extends the Inhibitor story-line to a fourth book. If you come upon the book as a stand-alone, you can read it and make sense of it, but will miss out on the fact that Reynolds is returning to, and extending, some previously established characters, concepts, and events.
In the novel, we follow first-person protagonist Miguel de Ruyter, who is a leader among a community of humans hiding from the Inhibitors on an airless and barely inhabitable planet. The narrative is chronological and single-track (not always the case with Reynolds), as eventually his experiences take him into the wider conflict with the Inhibitors. However, there is a minor but important subplot set centuries earlier, in a human/post-human conflict on Mars. This ties to a 2000 short story by Reynolds entitled “The Great Wall of Mars.” The story is background to several Revelation Space novels, and can be found in his collection Galactic North (2006).
As enthused as I was to enjoy the dizzying astrophysical travel, desperate conflicts and personality braiding of Reynolds’ style of space opera, I grew somewhat dissatisfied with the ending. This seems to be a pattern for me, as I had a similar response to the ending of his Poseidon's Wake (2015). It is as if his writing style is more suited to endless plot turns than conclusion.
There is room for a fifth novel, although the setting and the Inhibitor story-arc would of necessity evolve further.
I read an Advance Reader Copy of Inhibitor Phase, by Alastair Reynolds in ebook, which I received from Hachette Book Group (Orbit) through netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 12 October 2021.
March 29, 2024
OK, I gave Absolution Gap two stars (and thought about making it one), and I couldn't stand the elephant books. I should have known better.
Reynolds used to paint ideas with a brush; now he's using a roller and a power sprayer.
We are dealt a hand. Unbeatable enemy, which we are obviously going to defeat. Implacable hate from Pinky, which we are obviously going to plac. A highly unlikely quest for a McGuffin, which we are of course going to find.
How do you beat unbeatable foes? Space magic. I know, "any sufficiently advanced technology ..." but gosh, this book is LOADED with it. Space suits that just absorb you. Lots of little "lookit, it's year 2880, it just WORKS, OK?" Glass can apparently do anything, until she meets Lady Arek, who can do more, and ... this all sounds familiar from wizard books.
A ship with a very smart AI that has, unusually, not been given a voice and personality, tsk.
A great deal of research has clearly gone into a few parts - time dilation, how to gravity-brake through a photosphere, etc. But I for one am getting tired of the old "we're going too fast, we'll have to sling around a star/planet/etc."
Then we come to the Gideon Stones, which are just magic, made of solid narrativium. They somehow know what you want, and somehow telepathically advise their holder "you're going to need nine of me for this ship." Hmm, where have I heard "if I can just get all the stones ..." ?
Then we reach the target planet, which is not far from being the river in Heart of Darkness with Nevil as Kurtz. If you believe and accept you can be transformed.
Then we get into the personality-merging, complete with a bit of, "you see, Fred, I am actually ..."and this is where Reynolds loses me for the last time.
Sure, I held on to see how it ended, It's hardly a spoiler to say that of course they find the McGuffin, and of course it works, and OF COURSE we don't find out what it actually does, only that it's ooh-aah-yuck are-you-sure-this-is-a-good-idea.
I expect the next book to reveal that the McGuffin has triggered the destruction of the universe, and only the intervention of the benevolent Xyxxers (briefly mentioned ten books ago and hinted at in this one) will stop it. But of course now the Xyxxers want to restrict humans, and brave-but-discredited Colonel Earthling ain't having none o' that!
Maybe Reynolds has been writing for the Marvel Universe all along and it took me all this time to notice.
Thanks for the earlier books, Alistair, but we're done.
UPDATE: I just read Elysium Fire> - 2018 - those were the days. Much better.
Reynolds used to paint ideas with a brush; now he's using a roller and a power sprayer.
We are dealt a hand. Unbeatable enemy, which we are obviously going to defeat. Implacable hate from Pinky, which we are obviously going to plac. A highly unlikely quest for a McGuffin, which we are of course going to find.
How do you beat unbeatable foes? Space magic. I know, "any sufficiently advanced technology ..." but gosh, this book is LOADED with it. Space suits that just absorb you. Lots of little "lookit, it's year 2880, it just WORKS, OK?" Glass can apparently do anything, until she meets Lady Arek, who can do more, and ... this all sounds familiar from wizard books.
A ship with a very smart AI that has, unusually, not been given a voice and personality, tsk.
A great deal of research has clearly gone into a few parts - time dilation, how to gravity-brake through a photosphere, etc. But I for one am getting tired of the old "we're going too fast, we'll have to sling around a star/planet/etc."
Then we come to the Gideon Stones, which are just magic, made of solid narrativium. They somehow know what you want, and somehow telepathically advise their holder "you're going to need nine of me for this ship." Hmm, where have I heard "if I can just get all the stones ..." ?
Then we reach the target planet, which is not far from being the river in Heart of Darkness with Nevil as Kurtz. If you believe and accept you can be transformed.
Then we get into the personality-merging, complete with a bit of, "you see, Fred, I am actually ..."and this is where Reynolds loses me for the last time.
Sure, I held on to see how it ended, It's hardly a spoiler to say that of course they find the McGuffin, and of course it works, and OF COURSE we don't find out what it actually does, only that it's ooh-aah-yuck are-you-sure-this-is-a-good-idea.
I expect the next book to reveal that the McGuffin has triggered the destruction of the universe, and only the intervention of the benevolent Xyxxers (briefly mentioned ten books ago and hinted at in this one) will stop it. But of course now the Xyxxers want to restrict humans, and brave-but-discredited Colonel Earthling ain't having none o' that!
Maybe Reynolds has been writing for the Marvel Universe all along and it took me all this time to notice.
Thanks for the earlier books, Alistair, but we're done.
UPDATE: I just read Elysium Fire> - 2018 - those were the days. Much better.
September 2, 2023
This is the fourth volume of the main sequence of the great modern space opera series Revelation Space. The novel was published in 2021, sixteen (!) years after the previous volume, Absolution Gap. Because of such a delay, the author plotted the story in such a way that it can be read as a standalone. However, because return of several pivotal characters, reading earlier volumes increases the pleasure of reading this one.
The story starts on one of the planets, where humans try to hide from the Inhibitors (also known as “wolves”), ancient automata, which follow a strange rule of preventing the existence of spacefaring species in our galaxy. Life on this planet is hard because technology is limited both because colonists shouldn’t be noticed from space by wolves and because they were running away unprepared. And now there is a problem – a spaceship (this universe has no faster-than-light travel, so ships are rare) appeared in their solar system. A head of the colony, Miguel de Ruyter, volunteers to use their only space-capable shuttle to meet the ship by destroying it. Miguel or others aren’t crazy maniacs, but any spaceship nearby is a mortal danger for the colony. However, his plans go awry and he ends up returning not alone. It could have been the end of the story, but it turns into a new beginning…
The story is captivating, characters, old and new, shine like in the previous volumes, there are more tech, adventures, and tragedies. Overall, a great continuation of the series.
The story starts on one of the planets, where humans try to hide from the Inhibitors (also known as “wolves”), ancient automata, which follow a strange rule of preventing the existence of spacefaring species in our galaxy. Life on this planet is hard because technology is limited both because colonists shouldn’t be noticed from space by wolves and because they were running away unprepared. And now there is a problem – a spaceship (this universe has no faster-than-light travel, so ships are rare) appeared in their solar system. A head of the colony, Miguel de Ruyter, volunteers to use their only space-capable shuttle to meet the ship by destroying it. Miguel or others aren’t crazy maniacs, but any spaceship nearby is a mortal danger for the colony. However, his plans go awry and he ends up returning not alone. It could have been the end of the story, but it turns into a new beginning…
The story is captivating, characters, old and new, shine like in the previous volumes, there are more tech, adventures, and tragedies. Overall, a great continuation of the series.
September 6, 2021
Although Reynolds states that this can be read as a standalone, I don't think he'd want to want to say otherwise. It's true that it can be, but I think that would be decidedly inadvisable. This books draws upon thirty-one years of Revelation Space stories, though mostly it references from the last twenty-two years. If you're someone who cares about getting all the references, you'll need to have read all his previous RS works before reading this. If that's too much, then having read Great Wall of Mars, the Revelation Space Trilogy, and Chasm City should be sufficient to recognize almost all of them. This takes place between the end of the final chapter of Absolution Gap and its epilogue and at the time of Great Wall of Mars for the flashbacks.
There are noticeable differences in this as compared to the RS trilogy. While I still consider it rather bloated for how much is accomplished in around 500 pages, at least he's improved his pacing and avoided skipping parts of the plot for whatever reason he may have had in previous books. The characters still have some very silly dialogue and questionable characterizations at times, though he's become better at presenting them consistently.
The weakest part to me was the plot. It's odd in that it's more of a fantasy plot than what I'd typically consider science fiction. This isn't necessarily undesirable, but it was strange to have read it in what's often described as a "Hard SF" series, not that I'd agree with that. If this were a fantasy story, it'd be that a wizard comes to find the chosen one who has to acquire the sacred keys to unlock the forbidden temple of the gods to acquire the holy relic of power to defeat the evil overlord. It was similar to that to me, but as science fiction. I don't know how much this would matter to the average reader because the purpose of much of it is to show off tech and do fancy space things.
The best part was that finally the Inhibitors are shown in battle and are given much more detail of how they go about destroying everything than has been shown in all the past books combined probably. I would have preferred much more involvement from them, but it wasn't meant to be. If there's another book, maybe it'll be about fighting them, but I doubt it.
There are noticeable differences in this as compared to the RS trilogy. While I still consider it rather bloated for how much is accomplished in around 500 pages, at least he's improved his pacing and avoided skipping parts of the plot for whatever reason he may have had in previous books. The characters still have some very silly dialogue and questionable characterizations at times, though he's become better at presenting them consistently.
The weakest part to me was the plot. It's odd in that it's more of a fantasy plot than what I'd typically consider science fiction. This isn't necessarily undesirable, but it was strange to have read it in what's often described as a "Hard SF" series, not that I'd agree with that. If this were a fantasy story, it'd be that a wizard comes to find the chosen one who has to acquire the sacred keys to unlock the forbidden temple of the gods to acquire the holy relic of power to defeat the evil overlord. It was similar to that to me, but as science fiction. I don't know how much this would matter to the average reader because the purpose of much of it is to show off tech and do fancy space things.
The best part was that finally the Inhibitors are shown in battle and are given much more detail of how they go about destroying everything than has been shown in all the past books combined probably. I would have preferred much more involvement from them, but it wasn't meant to be. If there's another book, maybe it'll be about fighting them, but I doubt it.
November 26, 2021
Did Alastair Reynolds start farming his work out to Ghostwriters or something? Has he completely lost his muse?
It was weird and somewhat disappointing when the Revenger trilogy took a turn for the worse in the second book, and by the third felt like little more than a hollow imitation of AR's literary style. Shallow characters lacking in any distinguishable voice, re-used set pieces, and a reliance on several Deus Ex Machina moments to move the plot along only to be closed out by a chapter of rushed lore-dumping to (poorly) tie up loose ends.
Unfortunately these same structural issues apply here in his newest work, but with the added insult of digging up characters who had previously enjoyed a fitting denouement to their arcs - only to act out some shallow fanservice before being shoved off scene again. Depressingly, as we are dealing with characters who have appeared in multiple prior works going back almost two decades, the complete lack of independent voice or characterization is much more pronounced here. The reduction of formerly complex and fascinating characters to comic relief - is a tragedy.
Stilted, cringeworthy dialogue abounds. His trademark slow moving cosmic horror and mystery has been swapped out for marvel-esque narrative filled with magical trinkets, and formerly physics-aligned plot elements have similar to the treatment given to characters trotted out and re-imagined as stage dressings requiring a belief in magic to understand them.
Indeed, when you put this novel and Bone Silence side by side, the plot points reused from one to the other become striking and hard to ignore. They are effectively the same book, in many plot respects, which is inexcusable.
I'm not sure what is guiding AR's pen these days, I find it hard to believe he is actually writing these books anymore because aside from the setting itself (which could be draped over any narrative framework by any contract author) there is little remaining in common with his earlier - spectacular - writing.
It was weird and somewhat disappointing when the Revenger trilogy took a turn for the worse in the second book, and by the third felt like little more than a hollow imitation of AR's literary style. Shallow characters lacking in any distinguishable voice, re-used set pieces, and a reliance on several Deus Ex Machina moments to move the plot along only to be closed out by a chapter of rushed lore-dumping to (poorly) tie up loose ends.
Unfortunately these same structural issues apply here in his newest work, but with the added insult of digging up characters who had previously enjoyed a fitting denouement to their arcs - only to act out some shallow fanservice before being shoved off scene again. Depressingly, as we are dealing with characters who have appeared in multiple prior works going back almost two decades, the complete lack of independent voice or characterization is much more pronounced here. The reduction of formerly complex and fascinating characters to comic relief - is a tragedy.
Stilted, cringeworthy dialogue abounds. His trademark slow moving cosmic horror and mystery has been swapped out for marvel-esque narrative filled with magical trinkets, and formerly physics-aligned plot elements have similar to the treatment given to characters trotted out and re-imagined as stage dressings requiring a belief in magic to understand them.
Indeed, when you put this novel and Bone Silence side by side, the plot points reused from one to the other become striking and hard to ignore. They are effectively the same book, in many plot respects, which is inexcusable.
I'm not sure what is guiding AR's pen these days, I find it hard to believe he is actually writing these books anymore because aside from the setting itself (which could be draped over any narrative framework by any contract author) there is little remaining in common with his earlier - spectacular - writing.
September 4, 2021
4.5
First things first, at the start of the book dat boi Alastair Reynolds opines that Inhibitor Phase could be read as a standalone sci-fi yarn that people who've never read a Revelation Space book in their life could enjoy and understand. While I respect ol mate's right to believe that, my response is a fairly ardent "yeah nah, mate."
The number of callbacks, references and straight up continuations contained within Inhibitor Phase are pretty dizzying for someone like me who has read all the books, and I suspect for newbies will basically be borderline bewildering.
Happily, those of you (us) who HAVE read the books, will enjoy this book as the proper fulfilling epilogue to the series we never quite got with Absolution Gap. I'll tread lightly here when it comes to spoilers, but suffice to say a whole bunch of storylines that felt abruptly cut off are continued (and often concluded) in ways that feel apt and emotionally satisfying.
Yet again, Reynolds's extraordinary imagination impresses, but in a disciplined fashion, with little to no bloat and no tangents that feel unnecessary. I have no idea if Reynolds will return to this universe (I'd love to see Dreyfus face the Melding Plague, just quietly), but if not he's finally given it a proper send off and a reminder of why we love these stirring, surreal and utterly transporting tales in the first place.
Cheers ta, Al.
First things first, at the start of the book dat boi Alastair Reynolds opines that Inhibitor Phase could be read as a standalone sci-fi yarn that people who've never read a Revelation Space book in their life could enjoy and understand. While I respect ol mate's right to believe that, my response is a fairly ardent "yeah nah, mate."
The number of callbacks, references and straight up continuations contained within Inhibitor Phase are pretty dizzying for someone like me who has read all the books, and I suspect for newbies will basically be borderline bewildering.
Happily, those of you (us) who HAVE read the books, will enjoy this book as the proper fulfilling epilogue to the series we never quite got with Absolution Gap. I'll tread lightly here when it comes to spoilers, but suffice to say a whole bunch of storylines that felt abruptly cut off are continued (and often concluded) in ways that feel apt and emotionally satisfying.
Yet again, Reynolds's extraordinary imagination impresses, but in a disciplined fashion, with little to no bloat and no tangents that feel unnecessary. I have no idea if Reynolds will return to this universe (I'd love to see Dreyfus face the Melding Plague, just quietly), but if not he's finally given it a proper send off and a reminder of why we love these stirring, surreal and utterly transporting tales in the first place.
Cheers ta, Al.
Shelved as 'dnf'
November 19, 2021These characters feel like cardboard cut-outs, but they all manage to be annoying in the same way: stubborn and uncommunicative. Have a chat and get on the same page people. No need to be so arch and coy all the time. DNF at 89.
August 6, 2022
3.5 stars
August 18, 2021
*high pitched keening noise*
New Alastair Reynolds. Set in the Revelation Space universe.
*high pitched keening noise*
I received this book from the publisher at no cost. Trade paperback available August 31, $32.99.
In case the above reaction wasn't enough to give it away, I am a verrrry big fan of Alastair Reynolds. Which isn't to say I love everything he's written; I haven't. However, Revelation Space continues to be one of my very favourite sequences of books, ever, so the idea of another in that universe... well. /fans self.
The preface suggests you could read this cold, and I guess you could - certainly enough other books ask you to work pretty hard, with random names like Conjoiner thrown at you with little explanation. There's a joy in discovering what it's all about! For me, though, a huge part of the joy came from remembering all the details of the Revelation Space universe, so I really have no idea what it would be like to go in with no knowledge.
This story is set later than almost all of the other Revelation Space stories. Humanity is on the brink thanks to an external threat - and there's an interesting connection here to the Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past stories, with the idea of profligate species spewing out radio and other signals and just letting everyone who might be out there hear you... and that maybe that's not a good idea.
Miguel de Ruyter is sheltering with a small band of humans on a very inhospitable rock. As always happens, a stranger comes to town... and things go very wrong very quickly.
People aren't who you expect, mistakes are made, epic crises are experienced and occasionally averted, light years are travelled, planets are visited. Discoveries, chases, explosions; courage is found and choices are made.
I loved it. I loved it a lot. I love the way it talks about humanity (very broadly interpreted) in all its messy, confusing, loving, courageous, selfish and impossible character. I love the grand scope and the narrow detail and the insistence that there must be room for both. I love the writing and the characters and I'm so excited that it exists.
New Alastair Reynolds. Set in the Revelation Space universe.
*high pitched keening noise*
I received this book from the publisher at no cost. Trade paperback available August 31, $32.99.
In case the above reaction wasn't enough to give it away, I am a verrrry big fan of Alastair Reynolds. Which isn't to say I love everything he's written; I haven't. However, Revelation Space continues to be one of my very favourite sequences of books, ever, so the idea of another in that universe... well. /fans self.
The preface suggests you could read this cold, and I guess you could - certainly enough other books ask you to work pretty hard, with random names like Conjoiner thrown at you with little explanation. There's a joy in discovering what it's all about! For me, though, a huge part of the joy came from remembering all the details of the Revelation Space universe, so I really have no idea what it would be like to go in with no knowledge.
This story is set later than almost all of the other Revelation Space stories. Humanity is on the brink thanks to an external threat - and there's an interesting connection here to the Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past stories, with the idea of profligate species spewing out radio and other signals and just letting everyone who might be out there hear you... and that maybe that's not a good idea.
Miguel de Ruyter is sheltering with a small band of humans on a very inhospitable rock. As always happens, a stranger comes to town... and things go very wrong very quickly.
People aren't who you expect, mistakes are made, epic crises are experienced and occasionally averted, light years are travelled, planets are visited. Discoveries, chases, explosions; courage is found and choices are made.
I loved it. I loved it a lot. I love the way it talks about humanity (very broadly interpreted) in all its messy, confusing, loving, courageous, selfish and impossible character. I love the grand scope and the narrow detail and the insistence that there must be room for both. I love the writing and the characters and I'm so excited that it exists.
October 1, 2021
The worst Revelation Space novel thus far. It's a theme park novel, jumping from ride to ride with barely any connection between them, as the characters gather up the requisite MacGuffins. Even worse, once they gather them the novel just ends and you don't get to see the effects! The locations are mostly nonsensical given the setting: this is a post-apocalyptic space opera where most of humanity has been wiped away, but the survivors are nutty cannibal cults rather than prepared and organized groups?
The two main characters were both quite annoying, the one is an edgy psychopath type while the other is an annoying amnesiac. Lots of awkward attempts at humor and awkward dialogue.
Too many quasi-magical elements, and even worse too many infodumps on those quasi-magical elements.
The two main characters were both quite annoying, the one is an edgy psychopath type while the other is an annoying amnesiac. Lots of awkward attempts at humor and awkward dialogue.
Too many quasi-magical elements, and even worse too many infodumps on those quasi-magical elements.
October 24, 2022
Well I'm glad that's finally done.
I don't know how to review this book. It was long, and felt a little unnecessary. I don't think it really added anything to the series. A series that was long and convoluted to begin with. I don't regret reading it, but i wasn't very impressed by the end.
I don't know how to review this book. It was long, and felt a little unnecessary. I don't think it really added anything to the series. A series that was long and convoluted to begin with. I don't regret reading it, but i wasn't very impressed by the end.
June 4, 2021
ARC via NetGalley
I love Reynold’s Revelation Space universe and this is a worthy addition to the series. While not as complex as some of his other stories (it’s more a treasure hunt than anything else) it’s definitely as satisfying and catches us up with some old friends from the series. Very much recommended
I love Reynold’s Revelation Space universe and this is a worthy addition to the series. While not as complex as some of his other stories (it’s more a treasure hunt than anything else) it’s definitely as satisfying and catches us up with some old friends from the series. Very much recommended
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