BY THE BOOK

Revelation Space begins what has become a three book cycle called the Revelation Universe. I came to Mr. Reynolds by way of a short story of his in The Years Best Science Fiction - 24th Collection Edited by our friend the legendary Gardner Dozois (reviewed January 7th on By The Book). In that story, Nightingale, Mr. Reynolds finished out those collection of stories rather tellingly. Truth be told Science Fiction has always been a very important genre for me. I began reading, at an early age, by reading science fiction books primarily. So it isn’t surprising that I’ve been ‘getting back into it’ with the Dozois collection. At any rate, Nightingale, is a very horrific story and it kept me interested until the end. With that I determined to find some of Mr. Reynolds other works and came upon the Revelation Series which I believe is going to be more and more popular as time goes by. Just yesterday at the Border’s Book Store I was buying the sequel to Revelation Space, called Chasm, and the Counterman, an older man said he had leafed through one of Mr. Reynolds books and was very interested in the goings on. I informed the man to start with the first book Revelation Space which I’d just finished. So there you see even book store workers are picking up on Mr. Reynolds work.

But back to the Novel, Revelation Space. Overall these novels are called ‘Space Opera’, which means that the books from the Revelations Space Universe are of a very wide scope. Here is a good approximation of the plot of Revelation Space:

On the planet Resurgam, archaeologist and scion of House Sylveste, Dan Sylveste, is engaged in an archaeological dig, researching a species known as the Amarantin and cause of their apparent mass extinction, dubbed “the Event”. He has to face several political problems on the colony, including a power struggle between the archaeologists and those interested in terraforming the planet to make it more comfortable.

Meanwhile, aboard the lighthugger Nostalgia for Infinity, Triumvir Ilia Volyova — an Ultranaut — is having problems both with her new Gunnery Officer, who has just gone insane, and with the Captain John Brannigan, who is infected with the Melding Plague. Plus, the ship is carrying a cache of 40 “Hell class” weapons that the crew found in a deserted area of space, and which are capable of some very nasty things, such as possibly causing stars to go nova, or annihilating entire planets.

And on Yellowstone, in Chasm City, ex-soldier Ana Khouri from Sky’s Edge, separated and sent here away from her husband thanks to a clerical error, works as an assassin for Shadowplay, an organization that lets the wealthy take out contracts on themselves, so they can brag about the experience should they survive.

On the lighthugger, They are heading to Yellowstone to look for Dan Sylveste, who being able to channel a beta-level simulation of his dead father Calvin Sylveste, is the only person with enough medical and technological expertise to have a chance at curing the Captain.

Ana Khouri is kidnapped by the mysterious Mademoiselle and given a mission to terminate Dan Sylveste, for an as-yet unstated reason. When the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity decide to head for Resurgam to look for Sylveste, Khouri is brought out of reefersleep and from there she manages to infiltrate the crew, who think she believes they are going to Sky’s Edge.

The rest of the story revolves around the crew having to worry about the mysterious “Sun Stealer”, who also shows up on Amarantin artefacts, while journeying to Resurgam; Sylveste’s adventures in between the archaeological dig and the arrival of the Nostalgia for Infinity; various recollections of Sylveste’s past trips to the Shrouds and the Pattern Jugglers; and the final trip to the nearby neutron star Hades and the strange camouflaged artificial planet Cerberus that orbits it.

Well that’s a pretty boring description from Wikipedia, but it gives you a very basic ‘rundown’ of the plot. There is some very strong writing in the first half of the book. Yet there is trouble areas in Mr. Reynolds storytelling. Dan Sylveste is a terrible character, with very little life to him… he’s more of a caricature than an actual living person and whenever the book goes anywhere near him he brings down the level of drama every time. I think that maybe Mr. Reynolds was using the Dan Sylveste character as perhaps a stand in for himself, which isn’t all that unique to first time novelists. Remember Revelation Space was Mr. Reynolds first novel. And goodness, the post below this one is about how Salman Rushdie won’t put himself in his works anymore! So let us not blame Mr. Reynolds to fiercely! Still the book’s other characters Ana Khouri, Triumvir Ilia Volyova, the mysterious Mademoiselle are by far exciting very serious and realistic people. The book does soar at times when it’s about them and not about Dan Sylveste.

I’m thinking that in the next book of the series, Chasm, which I’ll be reading next, that Mr. Reynolds has probably moved on from the ruminations of a first time novelist! In this case Revelation Space is a good and deep read but it’s the getting there that is more interesting than the actual arrival. Once all the characters meet, the book stalls rather completely. It just didn’t have the smoke that it started out with. The ending was interesting but I did find that the ‘moralization’ was too much indeed. Science Fiction writers have to be very careful about not bringing too much ’sermonizing’ into the fiction, as sentimentality is only a condition of a necessary happy ending, which isn’t what Science Fiction is about at all. Now, Mr. Reynolds is right on target about a great many things and here’s hoping that his next in this series, Chasm, will benefit from the experience of Revelation Space.

 

Tags: Alastair Reynolds, Ana Khouri, Captain John Brannigan, Chasm, Dan Sylveste, Gardner Dozois, Resurgam, Revelation Space, Science fiction, Space Opera, the mysterious Mademoiselle, Triumvir Ilia Volyova

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 4:54 pm and is filed under BOOKS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.