Dave's Reviews > Inhibitor Phase

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.