I’m falling in love with the Revelation Space universe

lelio
2024-06-23T22:51:10Z

I want to ramble about Alastair Reynolds' Revelation Space series/universe. I will avoid spoilers.

So far, I have read:

"The Prefect" 2007
"Revelation Space" 2000
"Chasm City" 2001
"The Great Wall of Mars" (Novella) 2000
"Glacial" (Novella) 2001 (I haven't finished this yet.)

I’m an occasional listener to “The Sword and Laser,” a book club/podcast where they read a book each month and discuss it, alternating between sci-fi and fantasy. I usually don't read the books, just enjoy the conversations, but if the early discussions sound interesting, I will read it before I get to the spoilery episodes.

One such case was when they read ‘The Prefect’ in 2021. I had heard of Alastair Reynolds and Revelation Space and had considered reading him before. If I remember correctly, they said it was a good way to dip your toe in the universe with a story that takes place in it but isn't really connected to the main series, so it doesn't spoil much.

I liked ‘The Prefect’ but didn't love it. It was set in this huge, complicated universe but had this small noir detective-type character we were following. It felt like seeing a narrow flashlight beam, aiming into an opaque mist of stuff that I couldn't quite make out.
I liked many of the little pieces floating around the universe, but I didn't quite trust that it was real and would have internal consistency.

I saw “Pushing Ice” (an Alastair Reynolds book that is unrelated to Revelation Space) recommended somewhere late last year and decided to try it. I loved it, even though the ending left so much unanswered that it was disappointing. I can see how it may make sense to do that for some stories. Still, I have this distrust of the author's intent sometimes. If it feels like they are including mysterious background info without any thought of how it all connects, it bothers me. Even if the story or characters are good, it is distracting. I'm afraid of getting a "Lost" or "Game of Thrones" type ending where I don't feel like all the threads paid off or had any real purpose. To be clear, "Pushing Ice" was nothing like those endings. I feel like it earned its story. It just didn't fill in the universe as much as I wanted. I still didn't fully trust Reynolds as an author.

A few months ago, I decided to try the first proper book in the series, “Revelation Space”. I was surprised to see that I already owned it on Kindle. The first chapter was very familiar. I had bought it in 2013! As I read, I remembered I had gotten bored back then and left the book after a chapter or 2 to read something else. The beginning was a little boring. Again, it's set in a world I don't know and I'm not sure if I care about. In this book though, the perspective changes often. Multiple points of view seem to help me triangulate the world. It takes half the book, but I eventually fully buy-in, and then the world seems incredibly full. References to unknown factions, historical events, religions, movements, etc. They all feel like real plausible things with their own potential histories. Instead of the misty, non-tangible fluff, they seemed like when I read "The Prefect" or the first part of this book.

I finished “Revelation Space” completely satisfied and excited to dive into the series. I did a little research and found there are a lot of options for reading order. At this point I’m fairly certain I want to read every book in the series, so I am not too concerned with reading order, I just want to find a fun way to keep the things fresh as I explore it. I decided to read “Chasm City” next as it seems like the next thing in terms of publication date.

"Chasm City" was great! It followed the same pattern for me, with the beginning and the main character being the most boring parts of the book. But by the end, I felt like I knew the universe better and saw a bunch of interesting, fun stuff along the way.

I then read “The Great Wall” a quick novella that was awesome! It tells an origin story for something that has been mentioned but left ambiguous in all the other books. So satisfying.

I started reading another novella, “Glacial” today. So far, I'm really curious, but not sure what it's about.

The Great Wall reminded me of a book I read probably twenty years ago, “Hellstroms Hive” by Frank Herbert. I can't remember the details, and I think I may reread it now to take a break and make sure I won't burn out on Revelation Space. After that, I think I’ll jump right back in with “Redemption Ark” the next main novel in the series, which I believe follows the story of the novella I'm reading now.

Unless someone else has a better suggestion for what to read next in the revelation space universe? I've already bought the “Galactic North” collection to read those two novellas. But Im not sure if I should read any of the others until after I read further in the main novel series.

Any other opinions on revelation space?

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