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Absolution Gap Revelation Space Alastair Reynolds Books

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Absolution Gap Revelation Space Alastair Reynolds Books

This is my fourth Alastair Reynolds novel. I started with Revelation Space and have followed the stories through to this finale, Absolution Gap. I picked up Reynolds because I am anxiously awaiting the next Expanse novel and his work came up in a search. I like space opera with a healthy dose of hard sci-fi. I love that breaking the speed of light is impossible. I adore that the amazing (dare I say "astronomical") amounts of time it takes to get from one part of space to another is represented in Reynolds work.

But damn... The man cannot write characters. The villians are all superhumanly bad and mutilated so you have to despise them. The heroes are rather blah. I never really feel like cheering for anyone.

The way Reynolds often starts with multiple storylines that eventually meet up in the last quarter of the novel is intriguing and I think he melds the stories together well. But what he doesn't seem to have a hold on in any of the four novels I've read is tension. There is no tension in this book until the final 100 pages (and it's a 750-pg book!). That's far too late. The story just plods along. Things happen. The plot moves forward. But there is no excitement. Even when things blow up or ship fight, it's as dull as dishwater. Reynolds writes a good plot, but it is no page turner. I could have left the book at any point and not really cared when I got back to it, if I ever got back to it again. A couple of times I got so bored that I considered abandoning it. But I had nothing else to read, so I kept going.

Although this one had tension in the final pages, it seems strange to have to read four books to get there. And the end of one book certainly didn't make me pant for the next one.

Reynolds certainly has some good plotting skills. But the lack of tension and the one-dimensional characters really leave me feeling "meh" about his writing. I likely won't read any more of his books.


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Absolution Gap Revelation Space Alastair Reynolds Books Reviews

The momentum he created in that first book did not last for the whole series. While I enjoyed this book and the characters, Absolution Gap was not as engaging as Revelation Space or Chasm City. I wasn't on the edge of my seat nor was I ever incredibly surprised, and the twists didn't seem all that twisty. But even though I found myself not enjoying this book as much as the first three, I didn't dislike it and I don't regret getting it. The disappointment stems more from it being a less-than-worthy sequel rather than an unworthy story, if that makes sense. I will say the ending was a little insulting. There was a twist at the very end that essentially became a deus ex machina to the series' plot, and that was annoying. He did end the book's story very adequately, but I felt like I didn't receive proper closure for the series' story, which was a quick epilogue of "after the deus ex machina, this is what happened in the last few hundred years, the end". A bit aggravating and disappointing. I do recommend it, but I also want to warn fans of the series that they might be a little bit disappointed at the end.
So many of these one and two star reviews for the ending wouldn't have occurred if the reviewers had read the short collection, Galactic North, before this series finale. Or better yet, before starting Revelation Space. Galactic North is all about Revelation Space but in short stories. You get more info about what's going on than all the books put together, and the ending makes perfect sense. Plus Galactic North is very much more entertaining than the books.
Absolution Gap - Novel, Science Fiction - [0742 - 2017-03-22]

"Absolution Gap"(2003) by Alastair Reynolds is a science fiction novel and is also known as book 4 in the 5 book (so far) "Revelation Space" series published during 2000-2007. Curious readers may ask can this novel be read without reading the prior books "Revelation Space"(2000), "Chasm City"(2001) and "Redemption Ark"(2002). In truth yes it can but your enjoyment and the comprehension of story events would be greatly enhanced if you had read the other books. You should read, if possible "Revelation Space"(2000) and "Redemption Ark"(2002) since they along with "Absolution Gap"(2003) form a trilogy. The novel "Chasm City"(2001) is a stand alone tale. In lieu of reading the books (not recommended) I would research the extensive and detailed articles about these books in the Wikipedia.

In this long novel, my paperback was 756 pages with a small font, several apparent unrelated plot themes wind and twist together to a mystifying inconclusive conclusion. Talk about cliff hangers and unanswered questions this novel would make a case study.

I will not attempt to summarize the plot - it is just too detailed and involved with so many factions and characters I could not do justice to the book or to the reader of these comments. I will comment on just one of the key themes - since it happens to be a science-fiction concept that has always interested me spiritual/religious ideas in speculative fiction. Author Reynolds takes what appears to be supernatural intervention to save a spaceman's life and extrapolates that incident into a cult of worship. The faith object - a planet the disappears - draws pilgrims throughout the galaxy to a small insignificant moon out on the fringes of known space. The authors audacious extrapolations of religious belief, the cult that results, and the notion of enormous, constantly moving cathedrals is, in my opine, a mesmerizing concept that delighted this reader.

This is an elaborate and detailed science-fiction story that kept me up many evenings. Alastair Reynolds crams an encyclopedia of background in this novel that induced this reader to put aside many required tasks to finish this book. I am not exaggerating when I use the term encyclopedia. As mentioned the Wikipedia has numerous pages on the characters, factors and locations of Revelation Space. Readers are strongly encouraged to check out the information - I was impressed, indeed.

Mr. Reynolds, with his Ph.D. in astronomy is a master at technological extrapolation. Therefore this story exhibits many "hard" aspects of hardware type science-fiction that will cause long time fans weep with joy and others to whimper with annoyance. I wept, oh yes I wept!
This is my fourth Alastair Reynolds novel. I started with Revelation Space and have followed the stories through to this finale, Absolution Gap. I picked up Reynolds because I am anxiously awaiting the next Expanse novel and his work came up in a search. I like space opera with a healthy dose of hard sci-fi. I love that breaking the speed of light is impossible. I adore that the amazing (dare I say "astronomical") amounts of time it takes to get from one part of space to another is represented in Reynolds work.

But damn... The man cannot write characters. The villians are all superhumanly bad and mutilated so you have to despise them. The heroes are rather blah. I never really feel like cheering for anyone.

The way Reynolds often starts with multiple storylines that eventually meet up in the last quarter of the novel is intriguing and I think he melds the stories together well. But what he doesn't seem to have a hold on in any of the four novels I've read is tension. There is no tension in this book until the final 100 pages (and it's a 750-pg book!). That's far too late. The story just plods along. Things happen. The plot moves forward. But there is no excitement. Even when things blow up or ship fight, it's as dull as dishwater. Reynolds writes a good plot, but it is no page turner. I could have left the book at any point and not really cared when I got back to it, if I ever got back to it again. A couple of times I got so bored that I considered abandoning it. But I had nothing else to read, so I kept going.

Although this one had tension in the final pages, it seems strange to have to read four books to get there. And the end of one book certainly didn't make me pant for the next one.

Reynolds certainly has some good plotting skills. But the lack of tension and the one-dimensional characters really leave me feeling "meh" about his writing. I likely won't read any more of his books.