Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds

This is the third book in the ‘Inhibitors Trilogy’. That’s not what it’s called, but that’s how I think of it. Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap. They all form a series. While I get the impression that there have been other books by Reynolds in this setting and with these characters (well, some of them) I didn’t feel I was missing essential information.

Three stories thread throughout this book. I didn’t really see the connection between them, until I remembered to look at the date at the top of each chapter heading. That helps.

Humanity are fleeing the Inhibitors, those who know about them. Mostly they appear as rumour, ship to ship warnings of regions it is no longer safe for traders to enter. On another remote planet huge mobile cathedrals circle the moon of a gas giant. This gas giant is different. From time to time it vanishes, just for the blink of an eye. The reasons behind the vanishings are of no concern to the churches, as long as pilgrims continue to come. With the slow march of the Inhibitors many more pilgrims are flocking to the planet.

The three threads only merge in the latter half of the book, and here the action picks up considerably, with in-ship combat a particular highlight. Little tip; don’t invade sentient vessels and then start shooting the hull. They get tetchy. Hey, that might be handy advice one day.

I found the ending a little disappointing. Kind of like the ending to The Naked God, if you’ve read that. If you haven’t what I mean is the ending is very abrupt, invites a bit of a Deus Ex Machina, and leaves you thinking “yes, well?”

Of course if you’re two books into a three book series you’re not going to stop, and the book is good and everything. It just… well, you know.

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynold’s tale grows with the telling. This books features characters familiar and new, engaged on their own redemption quest.

The ‘galactic cleaners’ the sentient machines who inhibit the growth and spread of intelligence are now actively working to eliminate humanity.

Humanity’s factions react in different ways to this threat, mostly concerned with their own survival and squabbles. It is left to individuals to take action to try and cope with the first wave of Inhibitor assault.

One sequence I especially enjoyed was the spaceship chase. It sounds ridiculous, but Reynolds makes it work. With one ship able to follow the other only by the point of its engine, the race becomes one of overcoming inertia to wring more speed. The lead ship actually strips itself to create obstacles for the second, which cannot afford to veer else it will lose its quarry.

Redemption Ark continues Reynold’s intriguing look at a future humanity faced with an external threat straight from the Fermi Paradox. The nature and purpose of the Inhibitors is slowly revealed over the course of the novel, giving Reynolds the chance to explore why such a race of robots might exist at all. Who created them, and why?

The answers are interesting.

Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds

I admit it; I’m a late arrival at the Alastair Reynolds party. But when I saw Revelation Space reissued with a shiny silver cover, I had to buy. Not that I’m obsessed with form over function or anything.

As I get older, I like my science fiction hard. Space opera, galactic fantasy, call it what you will, I’m really not interested. Base your science fiction on science, and give me characters to get interested in, and I’m happy.

In Revelation Space humanity has spread out to the stars over centuries, and has split into various factions. Journeys between planets are made instant through the use of suspended animation machines.

Alien races have been discovered, but they are stationary, and remain unknowable. The pattern jugglers are vast sentient oceans discovered across various planets.

However the main faction of humanity that makes spaceship engines has suddenly and without explanation ceased to do so.

Against this background some interesting extrasolar archaeology is taking place. On a blasted planet, and alien civilisation was wiped out in a sudden cataclysm, nine hundred thousand years ago.

The Fermi Paradox again makes its appearance. The most used explanation for why we cannot see any signs of alien activity is because we do not yet know how to look. It’s a theme Stephen Baxter explores in Space. That’s not the only answer to Fermi’s Paradox. In this case, Reynolds convincingly brings to life the offhand explanation of the killer robots.

Oh yes, killer robots. What if there is a race of killer robots, moving between the stars, extinguishing life wherever they find it? How would they go about finding life anyway? Do they want to destroy all life, or just space-faring species? How would they go about this, and how would the target species react?

Revelation Space holds a secret, and that truth could be the end of humanity.

Space by Stephen Baxter

Most people have been troubled by the Fermi Paradox, even if not consciously. The Fermi Paradox is basically this – if there are aliens, they would be here. They aren’t here therefore there are no aliens. Yet in a galaxy so large, there must be aliens, so where are they?

For decades now we have had the ability to detect highly advanced civilizations anywhere in the visible universe. But we have seen nothing. Even allowing for the horrendous distances involve din space, it shouldn’t take more than 100 million years to colonize a galaxy. Galaxies are billions of years old. We see no signs of engineering on a cosmic scale though, not in this galaxy or any other.

But do we even know how to look?

This is where the novel Space picks up. With one researcher picking up anomalous heat signatures in the asteroid belt, the paradox has an answer. They exist, and they are here. But why? And why now?

Why should aliens appear just when we ourselves have the technological potential to become space faring ourselves?

Baxter’s character race to resolve this paradox, aware that time may be running out for humanity. Instead they discover the terrible truth, that time is running out for everyone.

Perceptions, and the ability to perceive are the dominant theme of this novel. Baxter elegantly takes known attributes of the solar system and says what if…?

Science books get a bad rap. I don’t even want to call Space one. It’s a science novel. It takes a scientific principle and teases it out. In this book you will find one possible solution to Fermi’s riddle. You’ll also find a great story.