Revelation Space Series: Immense and Immensely Impressive
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I recently finished reading the Revelation Space “series”– the first four books and the novella Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days. There are apparently 8 short stories out there and another book set in the same universe but stand-alone from the first four. The first four books are no small accomplishment. Each has over 500 pages (585 Revelation Space, 694 Chasm City, 694 Redemption Ark, 756 Absolution Gap) and a rather complex story structure along with a decent level of technology and physics. The series is a space opera–spanning ~300 years (with touches beyond in both directions), several star systems, and characters that appear in multiple novels in changing roles (in the novel sense–protagonists in one novel become secondary characters in another).
[Note: There is a new book, The Prefect, which is apparently set in the same universe, but stand alone.]
The universe Reynolds created is impressive and impressively well developed. Each world has a different history, a different mix of people, and different issues. He creates groups of people, almost subspecies, with vast differences from appearance to belief system. While there are aliens, which are also created with fascinating depth, they are not developed as fully in the tales (thought the development is clearly there) as the focus is on human or human-hybrid characters.
On a first read, not looking for issues, I find the immense universe to be almost flawlessly presented. In fact, I only noticed one thing, and it was in the last 4 pages of reading, that he neglected to account for. There are Pattern Jugglers, a collection of marine organisms that record the minds (including memories) of anyone who swims in them and have recorded a vast store of minds from the first aliens to swim in them ages ago. Swimming in the Jugglers results in a temporary near paralysis and floods the human with “chemical bliss” (Diamond Dogs, page 160). It occurred to me that this would probably lead to people becoming addicted to the Jugglers, like anything else humans get their hands on that causes chemical bliss (some may like the near paralysis too). However, Reynolds never mentions this. But this is rather small issue, and may have never been worthy of mentioning in the areas where the Juggler are mentioned.
But this is the only issue I found. Otherwise the series is amazing in how beautifully and thoroughly developed his universe is. Even without such good writing and interesting stories, the universe alone and its details and development make the series worthy of the vast amounts of time it takes to get through it.
Bill recommended the series and I am quite glad he did. The first book especially takes a while to get into. While the writing is good there is just too much that is not explained. It was not until about halfway in that I figured out what the book was about. The second book was similar, and since it took place in a different part of the universe, there were still issues with the unexplained. By the middle of the third book, things all finally begin to click and there is enough that has occurred that I no longer had issues with the unexplained. Most of the unexplained did come out through the process of the story.
I must also note that Reynolds wrote these four books and novels while also working as an astronomer at European Space Research and Technology Centre. This man is in no way a slacker. The Revelation Space series came out one book a year, the first in 2000, the last in 2003 with the novella also coming out in 2003, while he was working as an astronomer. As I said, these are not small books either. There are people who make me look lazy, and he is one of them! He has since given up the astronomer gig and is now writing full time.
So, overall, I highly recommend this series, but only if you have a good bit of time to dedicate to it. His writing is strong, the character development impressive, and the universe expansive and thoroughly developed. I was quite hooked into the series and looked forward to whenever I got a chance to read it. But if you can’t put a book down until you finish it or don’t have the time to be entangled in a space opera I suggest waiting until you can dedicate time to enjoying the immersion.


