(Drivebycuriosity) - Alastair Reynolds belongs to my favorite science fiction authors. His novels and short stories show what contemporary scifi is capable of. Reynolds`work display the influence of his scientific development. He has a PhD in physics and started his career as research astronomer for the European Space Research and Technology Centre (part of the European Space Agency) until 2004 when he left to pursue writing full-time ( wikipedia). But he also has a lot of fantasy and commands over excellent writing skills.
Reynolds shows his hand in the space opera "Revelation Space", published in 2000, while he still worked at the Space Agency (amazon). Over more than 400 pages he celebrates cosmology, particle physics, Einstein`s relativity, quantum mechanics, information theory and other sciences and mixes them together into a futuristic opera. The book could be seen as an explanation for the Fermi Paradox (why we did not find another civilization even though the sky is full with stars).
The novel starts with 3 different plot threads: There is an archaeologist, who wants to find out what caused the extinction of an ancient civilization. There is a woman who travels on a huge space ship, which can reach almost the speed of light, but the ship is infected by a nano tech virus. And there are is a female contract assassin on a new mission.
Soon the threads - and their lives - get intermingled (this is a spoiler free blog. You can find a synopsis here wikipedia). There are a lot violent conflicts between the protagonists and with other humans, but the real story is the influence of some still powerful ancient civilizations and their outstanding technologies.
It seems that Reynolds`fantasy has no limits, but he stays strict inside the rules of physics and logic. Even though he imagines wildly bizarre scenarios and grotesque events, a kind of futurist baroque, the outcome is defined by relativity, gravity and other physical forces.
I had a lot fun reading this space opera while refreshing my knowledge about physics and other sciences. Highly recommended!
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