Nine hundred thousand years ago, something wiped out the Amarantin. For the human colonists now settling the Amarantin homeworld Resurgam, it's of little more than academic interest, even after the discovery of a long-hidden, almost perfect Amarantin city and a colossal statue of a wingest Amarantin. For brilliant but ruthloess scientist Dan Sylveste, it's more than merelty intellectual curiosity - and he will stop at nothing to get at the truth. Even if the truth costs him everything. But the Amarantin were wiped out for a reason, and that danger is closer and greater than even Syveste imagines …REVELATION SPACE: a huge, magnificent space opera that ranges acrioss the known and unknown universe …towards the most terrifying of destinations.
Accolades
Shortlisted for Arthur C. Clarke Award 2001.
Reviews
"Ferociously intelligent and imbued with a chilling logic-it may really be like this Out There. -- Stephen Baxter, coauthor of The Light of Other Days
'Awe-inspiring…cutting-edge and convincingly rendered.' -- SF Site
'Intensely compelling; darkly intelligent; hugely ambitious' -- Paul J. McAuley, author of Ancients of Days
'Quite possibly the space opera of the year. Watch for it at awards time'. -- Jonathan Strahan, Locus
'This distant-past/far-future, hard sci-fi tour de force probes a galaxy-wide enigma: why does spacefaring humanity encounter so few remnants of intelligent life? Excavating the 900,000-year-old Amarantin civilization on its home world, Resurgam, archaeologist Dan Sylveste discovers evidence of a splinter cult that abandoned Resurgam for the stars but returned, only to be swallowed up by a mysterious cataclysm that destroyed all the Amarantins. Aboard the Nostalgia for Infinity, a vast light-hugger ship in interstellar space, the ominous Triumvirate of cyborg starfarers seeks Sylveste to heal its captain, afflicted by the deadly Melding Plague, which turns once-humans into their own semisentient spaceships. In Chasm City on the slum-ridden world of Yellowstone, assassin Ana Khouri joins the Nostalgia's crew intent on killing Sylveste. Clearly intoxicated by cutting-edge scientific research in bioengineering, space physics, cybernetics Reynolds spins a ravishingly inventive tale of intrigue. Hard SF addicts will applaud the author's talent for creating convincing alien beings and the often uneasy merging of human and machine intelligence, depicted here as nearly too frighteningly real for comfort. Others, however, may find these human-cybernetic hybrid characters chilling, dispassionate (except for their built-in drives toward revenge and murder) and foreboding. Reynolds's vision of a future dominated by artificial intelligence trembles with the ultimate cold of the dark between the stars.' Publishers Weekly
Author Biography
Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. He spent 12 years working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency. Since 1991 he has lived in the Netherlands, near Leiden, with his wife.
Author Biography:
Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. He spent 12 years working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency. Since 1991 he has lived in the Netherlands, near Leiden, with his wife.