Redemption Ark

Redemption Ark is Alastair Reynolds's third hefty SF novel, a direct sequel to his debut book Revelation Space, and also linked with Chasm City, which won the British SF Association Award. Gripping high-tech action features various groups struggling for control of a cache of "hell-class weapons", while the alien Inhibitors--who stamp out space-going intelligence wherever they find it--are busy dismantling planets to build a doomsday engine of awesome size.

Building on the previous books, the interstellar situation is exhilaratingly complex. Major players from Revelation Space are still at large in the solar system containing the new Inhibitor construction site, the vast old starship Nostalgia for Infinity (hideously transformed and merged with its captain by "Melding Plague"), the hell-weapons, and the colonized planet Resurgam--which may need to be evacuated at speed.

Many light years away, the mechanically enhanced human Conjoiners are fighting a space war around Yellowstone, the world of Chasm City. Although victory approaches, the Conjoiners are frantically building advanced starships and planning to run for their lives, thanks to an incredibly dangerous project that sucked information from the future--including news of the Inhibitors. The Conjoiners have their own internal factions, at least one of which isn't what it seems, and a fresh split leads to a tense relativistic race for the Resurgam system and those coveted hell-weapons. Booby-traps and deadly strategems enliven the desperate journey.

Other, non-Conjoiner humans--not to mention machine intelligences and genetically engineered man-pig chimeras--are caught up in the intrigue and violence. Many members of this large cast have inner secrets, other identities, painful relationships, long-concealed guilt. As at last they converge on the Resurgam system, there are jolting surprises.

Meanwhile, the immense past and future of Reynolds' universe becomes clearer, a cosmic tapestry with the deep-time scope of Stephen Baxter's Xeelee series, ranging from the Dawn War in the early aeons of galactic life to a cataclysmic event still three billion years in the future. A disaster which the loathed robotic Inhibitors are working patiently to minimise....

Despite minor glitches in story logic, Redemption Ark is a hugely enjoyable and ambitious interstellar epic, a must-read for fans of SF that operates on a truly colossal scale. --David Langford

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Entertaining but Weak - Rated
Redemption Ark is a somewhat entertaining story that follows on thr narrative from Revelation Space with both new and returning characters. Several concurrent plot threads finally unite in the last 100 pages, but since there are so many plot aspects to resolve, it feels a little thin. Numerous minor logical flaws exist throughout the book, but the main one is the reason behind inhibitors attack which reduces the effect of the book.

Despite minor flaws, its a quite riveting read for anyone having read Reynold's previous books, or anyone new to him.

Second part of the Inhibitors trilogy - Rated
Right, this is 70 odd years after the first book, and the machines are coming back again. Only three characters from the previous book are an integral part of the story, with the writer focusing the main plot on the Conjoiners, an important piece of the whole puzzle that is the Inhibitor saga.

As usual, mr. Reynolds' universe is vast, complex, and rich, with a good measure of forethought in the numerous races and cultures that populate this side of the Galaxy. We get answers to some fo the questions posed in the previous book, and enough questions to keep on to the next instalment.

The only downside was the ending, after building the story to a crescendo for 95% of the book, the end felt not rushed, but cut. Maybe during the writing and editing process someone noted how long the story was becoming and decided to cut the climax, we get treated to an "afterwards" as the characters explain what happened in the battle against the Inhibitors... it deflates the story as a whole, and even the ambitious and lifting end doesn't make up for the lack of several scenes or chapters.

All in all, a good sequel and a must for anyone interested in the universe created by Mr. Reynolds.

A revelation! - Rated
It seems like ages since I ventured into Revelation space...if you have not yet visited Alastairs amazing series, start off with Revelation Space, move onto Chasm City (the best of the three) and finish with Redemption Ark then buy the next book when it comes out, Galactic North promises more of the same...Great writing, great characters and great fun!

Good sequel, but it missed the best bits out! - Rated
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This is a direct follow on from Revelation Space and involves storylines from Chasm City, so you do need to have read those before this.
Technically this book is superior to the other two in almost every respect - the depth of characters is better, the plot line has less holes, the move from story thread to thread is smoother..............and yet Reynolds has still muffed the writing in two important areas - the end is a quick, neat wrap up indicative of a looming publication deadline and for some unknown reason, Reynolds doesn't like fight scenes. We have a two big battles where the righteous army made up of humans and hyper-pigs takes a huge Ultra space ship in each and yet the first one is entirely glossed over with the story restarting after the event, and the second describes only the initial assault on the ship and again jumps forward to a point where the ship is already taken. Very odd.
But the story is compelling, hard Sci-fi.

The hive-mind humans called Conjoiners are at war with the Demarchists and winning comfortably. But information from a deep space exploration vessel has the Inner Sanctum of the Conjoiners scared. An alien menace, out to destroy all human life, is on its way and they cannot be stopped. The only way forward is to go to the Resurgam system, recover some long lost Doomsday weapons and flee into deep space.
However, Clavain, the Conjoiners best war leader thinks that all humans should benefit from the Doomsday weapons as a defence against the aliens and therefore decides to steal a ship in an effort to warn the other factions and set about recovering the weapons.
Meanwhile, at Resurgam, an Ultra light-hugger, badly infected with the melding plague, already has recovered the Doomsday weapons and the two remaining crew have realised that the aliens are going to "sterilise" Resurgam to kill all life on it. Should they risk using the doomsday weapons on the aliens or try to evacuate the planet and run?
Their hands are forced at the approach of Clavains army and the aliens unstoppable progress.

There are still a few holes in the plot, where normal logic seems to escape the lead characters - Clavain believes he MAY be the father of Felka for near on 400 years. Take a DNA test and sort it out!
Also, Clavain insists in taking the weapons off Volyova and leaving her in the lurch, when she wants to use them against the same aliens that Clavain claims he wants them for. Why does he not join forces with her? These are irritation points but they don't the enjoyment of the story.

If you liked Revelation Space, you will enjoy Redemption Ark.

Back on form ý but still flawed. - Rated
First off, despite any explanatory cover blurb, please be aware that Redemption Ark is Alistair Reynolds 3rd novel, and your enjoyment of it will depend largely on having read his previous 2 novels, as this is a direct sequel to Revelation Space, while also building on some characters introduced in Chasm City. Personally I found that Revelation Space was a very encouraging debut, and dismissed the rough edges as merely a new author getting to grips with his craft, yet Chasm City - despite some good material - seemed to be a massive step backwards in quality, with Reynolds writing appearing rather ham fisted at times.

Reynolds strengths have always been in the big science fiction concepts, but what has previously let him down has been poor pacing and structure, with Chasm City being particularly guilty of employing glaring deus ex machina and having character's entirely lacking in logical motivation. The good news is that Redemption Ark is a return to form after the sloppy Chasm City, though the novel is still far from flawless.

Pacing is still a problem for Reynolds - Redemption Ark on the one hand feels too bloated at 650 pages, with the fairly slight background story of the Inhibitors being repeated over and over again, yet at the same time crucial moments in the story are glossed over. Two big set pieces come to mind especially, first the highjacking of a Lighthugger ship - supposedly something so outrageous no-one has ever attempted it before; Reynolds takes time to build up the situation and the assault crew to take over the ship - then simply cuts right past the action scene to show the ship having been captured without actually showing us how. Worse is the gutted climax, as after an interstellar chase sequence lasting at least one hundred pages Reynolds again cuts out the final confrontation between the forces of the defecting Clavain and his Conjoiner pursuers, instead opting to gloss over the events by jumping forward in time and offering a brief flashback synopsis. The impression given is that Reynolds got carried away overwriting this novel, then realised he was up against a deadline (or a word count) and frantically hacked away chunks of the text - unfortunately the excised material sounds more interesting than some of what is left.

On the positive side Redemption Ark sees some of the best characterisation yet from Reynolds, with - for the most part - characters acting logically and with clear objectives and motivations. Unfortunately there is one character that doesn't quite convince in this area, and that's Clavain himself - the novel depends on a lot of it's action due to Clavain's defection from the hive-mind Conjoiners and his quest to capture the hell-class weapons of Volyova, but in both cases Clavain overreacts to an alarming degree. His defection that kicks the novel off seemingly comes out of nowhere, and is accompanied by a surprising amount of violence towards his erstwhile friends, while his determination to capture the hell-class weapons is slightly confusing - both he and Volyova want to use the weapons to destroy the humanity-culling Inhibitor machines, but rather than offering his assistance in a peaceful manner he comes in all guns blazing. Without Clavain's actions there wouldn't be much of a novel here, but he doesn't always convince.

The only other real problem with Redemption Ark is the traditional one shared by middle books of trilogies - the set-up has already occurred, and nothing is resolved at the novels end: if you want the climax you'll have to read Absolution Gap as well. Despite it's construction flaws Chasm City did at least offer some new locations and environments compared to Revelation Space - by contrast Redemption Ark contents itself to play with the established characters and setting, so Reynolds is unable to generate any 'sense of wonder' here.

Still, while these annoying little flaws stop Reynolds from being as good an author as he continually promises to be, Redemption Ark is a generally enjoyable hard-sf space opera, and a distinct improvement on Chasm City. To put it simply, if you enjoyed Revelation Space and wanted to find out what happened to the characters next, Redemption Ark will be for you.