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A review by being_b
Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds
4.0
This is a well-plotted book full of excellent ideas in a truly mind-blowing universe. It suffers from a pedestrian writing style, a lot of repetition, and a male/female romantic relationship straight out of the Golden Age of SF. Fortunately, there's not much romance, the redundant bits are skippable, and I'd rather have pedestrian writing with good ideas than lambent prose around an empty core.
As I read, I kept marveling at the internal consistency of the science and how the world-building followed so logically from the scientific phenomena the author described. It seemed that the author would have to be a working physicist to hold all the necessary information in his head and work out the various implications so thoroughly. Then I finished the book, did some googling, and was pleased to be right. It's a delight to see a scientist's mind at work (the breadth and depth of knowledge, the flexibility and daring to follow an idea to its logical conclusion) outside of the strictures of academia.
As I read, I kept marveling at the internal consistency of the science and how the world-building followed so logically from the scientific phenomena the author described. It seemed that the author would have to be a working physicist to hold all the necessary information in his head and work out the various implications so thoroughly. Then I finished the book, did some googling, and was pleased to be right. It's a delight to see a scientist's mind at work (the breadth and depth of knowledge, the flexibility and daring to follow an idea to its logical conclusion) outside of the strictures of academia.