SFiRAL - Science Fiction I've Read And Loved

[windyshaman]

Interestingly enough - Hyperion never came on my radars.

Really enjoyed the first book, but then - it just went downhill. Kinda feels like the author had the story well thought and figured out - but somewhere around beginning of the Fall of Hyperion - the storyline notes book got lost to a house fire and he had to wrap it all up with something else... Too many logical incongruences - even for a brain freshly massaged by psychedelics.
Have the next two books of the series and no taste to open it... Yes, I'm totally spoiled.

If I had to throw in my .02cents to the list - these two should be on it:

Heinlein - Stranger in a strange land
Nathalie Henneberg - The Plaigue

don't believe - the latter is available in audio format in English, however - being originally written in French - it can also be found in other languages

 

[Nydex]

Last night I finished reading Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds and I have mixed feelings about it. I think it could have easily been in the top 3 Reynolds' works ever, but it has a few glaring issues that might be hard to look past for some people.

First off, it's pretty long - about 450 pages. One of the things that stood out to me as uncharacteristic of Reynolds' work is the pacing. Usually his plots are driven forward in a carefully calculated and well-paced manner, but in this one it feels like he missed the mark big time.

The central power struggle around which the whole book revolves seems to drag on for an unnecessarily long time, going into excessive details that bring almost no value to the plot itself. Some critics have (fairly) called this book the closest Reynolds has come to writing pure drivel, and while I love his work with all my heart, I have to agree. Some sections dragged on way past their welcome while contributing nothing.

Which is extra unfortunate, because this dilutes the absolute masterpiece that the rest of the novel is. The ideas Reynolds explores are nothing short of breathtaking. If he had focused less on the petty power struggle and more on the central idea of this book, I would easily classify it as perhaps the best first contact novel ever written.

Spanning over a vast stretch of time, littered with arcane and bizarre alien technology, and brimming with major plot twists, Pushing Ice is a journey that, when stripped of the unnecessary filler an fluff I mentioned above, is a thrilling sequence of events that get crazier and crazier. Just when you go through one major twist and you think to yourself "there's no way it gets crazier than this," it proceeds to get crazier than this, and then some. This keeps going all the way to the end, culminating in a peak of weirdness and a haunting sense of longing for more, while also getting closure on a few loose ends.

So who is this book for? If you are someone that doesn't mind a slightly choppy pacing that goes through large swaths of character development via interpersonal conflict and a power struggle, while also being someone that craves incomprehensible alien technology and a damned good first contact story, then this is a book you will probably thoroughly enjoy.

Now I will share a few of the things that rubbed me the wrong way about Pushing Ice, as well as a few things that I found utterly fascinating. Fair warning, the following section contains major book spoilers!

Spoiler

There are a few things I found kind of corny and a bit unexpected from Reynolds:

• The absolute Deus Ex Machina that was Chromie - I get that humanity was incredibly advanced by the time her consciousness was encoded into the cube, but to have her pop out and suddenly be able to read the blueprint file for a completely alien artifact - the Endcap Key - is just ridiculous. I understand she would've been able to read forge vat blueprint files since it was human tech, but to be able to spot the errors in the alien tech and to even correct them was just a convenient plot device that made no logical sense.
• Another awfully convenient thing that happens is the cube ending up orbiting around Janus inside the Structure. Throughout the novel it's made abundantly clear that the Structure is basically an enclosed environment that can be entered only by some obscure means that resemble teleportation (or blowing up a hole in its walls, of course). The cube is not made part of the story until way into Janus being inside the Structure. So how did it end up there, and why is it conveniently orbiting the very structure that holds its end goal - Bella?
• Since the cube's only purpose was to find Bella, why was it designed in a way that completely obscures its purpose to people that are not Bella? Why put the Vitruvian man on the side instead of Bella's face? Why risk the cube ending up in the right place, but never reaching Bella because nobody thinks to have her specifically touch it? Could it be that Reynolds just needed the 20+ years it sits idle as a plot device? From where I stand, it seems like the only reasonable explanation, and that's just weak and utterly unexpected by Reynolds.

And the thing I found the most fascinating is, of course, The Structure. The idea that some hyper-advanced and now potentially extinct species created a "zoo" where spacefaring species are carried in on pseudo-moons like Janus and made to co-exist in this utterly massive tangle is incredible to me. When the existence of the "Nexus" (hehe) is revealed, and the concept of a society of over 30 species existing in this section of the Structure is revealed, and then it is put in the context of the unimaginable size of the whole structure, you realize there are probably a few orders of magnitude more species existing in the whole thing, forming rivalries, political structures, waging wars, cohabiting, and doing whatever it is that creatures do when locked in the same room. Really sets your mind going.

And then you get the hint that there is some apex predator lurking outside the Structure - potentially the thing that is to be blamed for the missing Spicans - poses a few more questions that are just begging for a sequel.

Overall, I would rate this novel a 5/5 on ideas, but a 2/5 on pacing and character development. Still, with the things that are revealed in the last third of the book, I think this is one of the most sequel-worthy novels Reynolds has ever written, and I do sincerely hope we get a sequel at some point. The Structure NEEDS to be explored further, the potential there is practically limitless.

Considering this book is now 20 years old, I believe if we were to get a sequel, the pacing and characters would be significantly better because Reynolds has improved dramatically over the years.

If you got this far, you're a real sci-fi enthusiast, and I applaud your patience and thank you for your time.