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Redemption Ark (Revelation Space #2)

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 6,883 ratings · 209 reviews

Late in the twenty-sixth century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors - alien killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons -and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for th...more

Mass Market Paperback, 694 pages

Published May 25th 2004 by Ace Books (first published January 1st 2002)

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Jul 03, 2012 mark monday rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: futuristik

i'm just going to copy and paste this from a group, because i'm lazy that way. okay maybe i'll edit it a little bit too. for kicks.

it was a good book overall, and i enjoyed it as much as its predecessor. lots of great concepts to digest and i'm still digging the basic idea behind the enemy threat of the Inhibitors. i also really liked reading about the Conjoiners, but then i'm a sucker for anything having to do with melding minds etc.

Reynolds still has his primary weakness: characterization. in...more i'm just going to copy and paste this from a group, because i'm lazy that way. okay maybe i'll edit it a little bit too. for kicks.

it was a good book overall, and i enjoyed it as much as its predecessor. lots of great concepts to digest and i'm still digging the basic idea behind the enemy threat of the Inhibitors. i also really liked reading about the Conjoiners, but then i'm a sucker for anything having to do with melding minds etc.

Reynolds still has his primary weakness: characterization. in the last book, his characters were one-dimensional and often Byronic or Apollonian or Nietzschean or whatever, with very little nuance or shades of gray, and just rather unappealing. in this book he is clearly trying harder. no one actually comes across as inhuman as they did in the last book. unfortunately i think his goals outstrip his talent at building real characters (at least in this book; i presume he's improved). he spends a lot of time trying to make his characters three-dimensional (some of it works; some of it is, frankly, rather amateurish)... but then by the last quarter, it is almost like he gives up because he needs the characters to do certain things so that the plot can go a certain way, and then it's back to the same dire unreasonableness that all of his characters displayed in the first book. there was a last-minute decision by Captain Brannigan/the Ship 'Nostalgia for Infinity' that was rather excruciatingly nonsensical. in retrospect, i sorta prefer the first novel's static depictions of ruthless id because then the weird characterization matches the weird concepts. it's so far in the future that humans aren't even human anymore - people are just all different types of hyper-enhanced uber-asshole genius-sociopath. makes sense to me!

ah well, can't win 'em all. the book is pretty successful in many other aspects. the goth appeal of the first novel is not as present - which makes it all a bit less distinctive - but that is more than made up for by an involving and often tensely exciting narrative of the multiple-strands-coming-together variety. the science is interesting (if a little repetitious). besides the character meltdown i mentioned, the description and persona of this gigantic haunted house of a freighter-spaceship Nostalgia for Infinity being horribly combined with depressed, formerly homicidal Capt Brannigan into a kind of organic Lovecraftian nightmare-ship, constantly growing external spikes and oozing dark fluids and basically looking like a Giger-inspired fever-dream... now that was a source of endless fascination for me. i'd like to take a vacation there! and the characterization isn't all bad all the time, for the most part it's actually okay. i really liked the lead (conflicted military commander Clavain). a key supporting character (a kind of hermetic savant named Felka) was a rather ingenious creation - and very sympathetic as well. the author did a great job setting up the motivations for the novel's villain (Skade) and watching her various permutations was interesting. overall there are a lot of bright & shiny things to look at in Redemption Ark, and i was happily distracted whenever i picked it up. well maybe not bright & shiny per se - it's more like a strange, corroded kid's toy made out of rusty knives and old tire irons by someone extremely intelligent and not too into kids.

i'm looking forward to the 3rd and last novel of the trilogy. Pattern Jugglers! the (presumable) return of messianic psychopath scientist Whatsisname. and more Conjoiners & Inhibitors! (less)

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Jul 25, 2012 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, fits-like-a-glove, love-strong-women, space-opera, unique-theories, blowing-shit-up, revelation-space, the-innocent-get-screwed

In Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds set up the framework of a creative, somewhat unique, and entirely believable future universe in which humanity is a star-faring civilization over the local portion of our galaxy spanning maybe a few dozen light years. As I explained in my review of that book, he set up a framework with rules and limits, but still sufficiently flexible to allow for creativity and imagination. Reynolds' book The Prefect , a stand-alone novel set in one corner of the Revelatio...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Oscar rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ciencia-ficción, far-future, míos, space-opera, hard, 5-estrellas, favorites, mis-obras-maestras

¿Cuál es la misión de un escritor? Pues sumergirnos es su mundo, que durante algunas horas vivamos las historias y aventuras de unos personajes que se convierten en carne y hueso, descubrirnos mundos y universos desconocidos. Y a fe mía que Alastair Reynolds lo consigue con 'El arca de la redención'.

Mientras leía este libro, había momentos en que levantaba la cabeza para cerciorarme realmente de en qué "mundo" estaba. Reynolds tiene un imaginario propio muy original y atractivo, su prosa es senc...more ¿Cuál es la misión de un escritor? Pues sumergirnos es su mundo, que durante algunas horas vivamos las historias y aventuras de unos personajes que se convierten en carne y hueso, descubrirnos mundos y universos desconocidos. Y a fe mía que Alastair Reynolds lo consigue con 'El arca de la redención'.

Mientras leía este libro, había momentos en que levantaba la cabeza para cerciorarme realmente de en qué "mundo" estaba. Reynolds tiene un imaginario propio muy original y atractivo, su prosa es sencilla e hipnótica. Pero eso no quiere decir que sea fácil, ya que él es astrofísico y nos explica los fenómenos y situaciones desde esta óptica, es decir, sabe de lo que habla. Estamos ante una space-opera hard. Aunque la mayoría de hechos sean ficción, podrían ocurrir en un futuro lejano, y Reynolds teoriza sobre ello. Pero también es una lectura de aventuras y emociones. La imaginación de Reynolds es portentosa, en un tour de force incríble, nos hace viajar por su propio universo, el mismo de Espacio Revelación, que da nombre a su saga. Hay otro escritor con el que lo compararía, y este es Iain M. Banks, pero con una diferencia, y es que Reynolds es más oscuro y siniestro en sus historias, y en este sentido lo emparentaría con China Miéville.

Hablar de qué va este libro sería muy largo, complicado y poco conveniente. Hay que disfrutarlo y descubrirlo por uno mismo. Sólo diré que los protagonistas de esta novela son los Inhibidores, una raza de máquinas alienígenas cuya misión es descubrir y destruir vida inteligente, pero únicamente aquella que ya ha descubierto lo que son los viajes interespaciales. Atención sobre todo al método destructivo que escogen. Después tenemos a los Combinados, humanos modificados, que han descubierto esta amenaza y traman un plan para hacerle frente. Y es Clavain, un combinado, quien es asignado para una misión, conseguir las armas infernales. Y mucho más... El único pero que le pondría al libro es el final, que me parece demasiado precipitado, en apenas un par de páginas lo deja más o menos resuelto. No sé, debería haberse extendido un poco más. Quizá es que ya le parecían demasiadas páginas y estaba pensando en la continuación, 'El desfiladero de la absolución'.

Lo dicho, si queréis leer alguna de la mejor ciencia ficción que se está escribiendo actualmente, no os perdáis este libro.(less)

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Feb 05, 2009 Gabriel rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a very frustrating book to evaluate. There is a *great* 400 page novel sitting inside this flabby 700 page slug.

Reynolds has a great imagination and is extremely thoughtful. This is fantastic hard sci-fi told on an epic scale. Well, almost hard sci-fi, he flirts (needlessly) with breaking the laws of physics, but for the most part we're sitting square in the "real world" here. He does an excellent job of thinking about the *consequences* of his technologies and the way they would shape...more

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Jan 02, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is my third Revelation Space book, after Revelation Space and Chasm City, and I *do* wish Goodreads would fix their mistake.

This is Book 2, not Book 3. Chasm City is NOT part of the series, merely set in the same universe, and can be read at any time.

This is all according to the author's website -- the author's own words. You'd think details like that would matter. Evidently not!

Onward.

The book itself, like the first two, is excellent, but has some niggling problems with shallow character...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Mike added it · review of another edition

I really enjoyed this book despite its super length.

In many ways it was as good as the first one in the series (I skipped Chasm City since I'd read it before and wanted to find out what happened to the characters from the first one).

Ultimately it was a bit too long. This made me feel like I would never reach the end. This wasn't entirely helped by having a large number of characters and a lot of chapters going off on a bit of a tangent.

I did feel the inhibitors were not very convincingly explain...more

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Mar 13, 2011 Peter added it · review of another edition

Good sequel, but it missed the best bits out!: .
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 indicat...more Good sequel, but it missed the best bits out!: .
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.

(less)

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Dec 29, 2008 Lightreads rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction

Sequel to the impressive but flawed Revelation Space. Another 550 pages of interstellar plotting – one of those rotating POV books tracking multiple factions all located somewhere along the sympathy-repulsion spectrum while they maneuver against each other for advantage while an external danger closes in. The external danger being the Wolves, ancient alien machines whose job it is to prune life from the galaxy for reasons not as evil as you might think.

The best part is still the worldbuilding –...more

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Jan 25, 2013 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in October 2002.

Redemption Ark is far more closely linked to Reynold's first novel, Revelation Space than is his second, even though all three are set in the same vision of the future. The actions of Sylveste in that novel have awakened an ancient horror in the galaxy; he has unknowingly made the signal that calls it to action. This is a culture of machines, which has the purpose of keeping intelligent life in check to guard against a future catastrophe. This...more Originally published on my blog here in October 2002.

Redemption Ark is far more closely linked to Reynold's first novel, Revelation Space than is his second, even though all three are set in the same vision of the future. The actions of Sylveste in that novel have awakened an ancient horror in the galaxy; he has unknowingly made the signal that calls it to action. This is a culture of machines, which has the purpose of keeping intelligent life in check to guard against a future catastrophe. This is the reason that human explorers have found the galaxy full of the archaeological remains of extinct alien cultures, but none surviving. Sylveste has for the first time used a technology proving the existence of a new race of intelligent beings with an interstellar cultures, and this has made the Inhibitors swing into action once again.

There are others who notice the use of these tools, for they are doomsday weapons so fearful that not only have they never been used, but the technology used to create them was deliberately forgotten. They were made by the Conjoiners, a faction of humanity which has used mechanical aids to brain function to create a hive mind; and they want them back.

Being the third novel set in this universe, Redemption Ark lacks the "wow factor" experienced in reading the first two. It settles down a bit more to character, and in doing so reveals more definitely that Reynolds is from the same school as Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. There is more hard science (particularly nanotechnology) and less humour, but there are many similarities. The major difference, that Banks' novels are far less interconnected, imparts strengths and weaknesses to each writer's work. The ending of Redemption Ark really calls out for a sequel; it is nothing like as definite as those of Revelation Space and Chasm City. More additions to this series are, I hope, inevitable. Reynolds is one of the finds of twenty-first century science fiction, amply confirming the promise of his debut.(less)

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Jul 23, 2012 Scott Rhee rated it 5 of 5 stars

Alastair Reynolds's sequel to "Revelation Space" and "Chasm City", "Redemption Ark" takes the reader into the far far future, where mankind has inadvertently awakened an ancient race of machines called Inhibitors, whose job it is to literally "inhibit" the evolution of any species before they become too technologically advanced. Mankind doesn't have a chance against the Inhibitors, who can destroy moons, planets, and stars, which leaves only one alternative for mankind: get the hell out of the g...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Joe rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Leading on from the first book Revelation Space the second part picks up around 20 years after the last book. Sylveste had learned of the Inhibitors in the last book. They wiped out the Amarantin and every other advanced space faring culture. Ancient killing machines possessed of billions of years of accumulated knowledge.

This book focuses more on Neville Clavain. One of the oldest men alive. One of the first conjoiners from Mars, a defector from baseline humanity. He learns that something has...more

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May 18, 2012 Nicole Cadet rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

I didn't enjoy this as much as the first novel, which was surprising as this was probably better written and crafted. There were huge patches of writing that were overly long, making my attention wonder, and there were probably too many story lines that kept interrupting the main flow of events (i.e. there were threads I didn't care about, and were often pushed to the background very quickly). The resolution of the book was just too sudden after such a long meandering route, it felt rushed.

The c...more

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Mar 27, 2011 Andreas rated it 5 of 5 stars

Scary in it’s placing of humanity firmly at the bottom of the Universe’s pecking order, this series of books contains some pretty big concepts. Worth reading just for the descriptions of cultures and aliens. Watch out though, Reynolds is not afraid of making the Universe a scary place. I refused to read Redemption Ark close to bedtime. I would just lay awake and shiver at the thought of how huge the universe is, and how short-lived and fragile we are.

* Revelation Space – Cool, pure SF. The last...more

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Mar 15, 2011 Lori L (She Treads Softly) rated it 5 of 5 stars

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds is the sequel to Revelation Space and the second book in the Revelation Space space-opera trilogy. The main focus of Redemption Ark is the retrieval of the "hell-class" weapons that are aboard the ship Nostalgia for Infinity in order to stop the Inhibitors, a race of killing machines whose purpose seems to be to detect and exterminate intelligent life.

As the Inhibitors, seen as black cubes, systematically take apart a gas giant planet and several of it's moons...more

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Sep 11, 2010 Adrian Sud rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: colonialone-hall

Redemption Ark is another excellent book in the Revelation Space series. The book brings to pass an excellent culmination of the events of the other two books, and prepares for a sort of next phase in the universe's history. As always it is well written, and is well worth the read. The only thing that this book suffers from is an unusually high number of interesting characters--each one very well written on there own, but the group together tending to subdue each others' uniqueness and force a s...more

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Sep 04, 2009 Brent rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

Another fine entry by Reynolds in the Revelation Space universe. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as Revelation Space but it was still pretty great. I find his books to be page turners in the sense that I stay up too late reading b/c I always want to know what happens next. I also think his characterization is pretty good, particularly for hard SF where this is generally not a virtue.

One specific point I want to make is in response to some other reviews. Several have faulted Reynolds for a part...more

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Aug 10, 2009 Matthew rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sequel to Revelation Space and continues on in Reynold's signature space opera style with a hard sci-fi edge. This is a good book that could have been great but for weird editing decisions in some places and an apparent lack of editing in others.

Chief among these is the build-up on several occasions to what appear to be climactic set-pieces ... which are then inexplicably skipped over with a perfunctory "Once the battle had passed ..." or "Once the ship was captured ...". These sections feel lik...more

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May 03, 2009 Paul rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sciencefictionfantasy

Part of the author's Revelation Space series, this book is set approximately 600 years from now, after mankind has started to spread throughout the galaxy.

Human activities have attracted the attention of the Inhibitors, alien machines whose mission seems to be the elimination of all intelligent life. They have come to the star Delta Pavonis, home to the planet Resurgam, populated by over 200,000 people. The Inhibitors start to systematically take apart the system's gas giant, plus several of its...more

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Dec 05, 2008 Andreas Payer rated it 3 of 5 stars

After loving the first one in this series (Revelation Space), I was kind of underwhelmed with #2. There are some great setpieces and battlescenes, and tons of cool sci-fi stuff along the way, but everything takes waaaay long to set up. I guess I'm always unhappy when I find myself wishing for a book to be over already, rather than being sad when approaching the last pages. Obviously, this being the middle in a trilogy makes it the dreaded "transitional" novel, so I know there would be no resolut...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Michael Alexander rated it 4 of 5 stars

SO SO SO much better than the first one, which had major pacing problems and whose gee-whiz stuff just felt already-done. The first book made me just want to go play Mass Effect instead.

In this one, however, Reynolds becomes one of the few hard SF authors with enough command over his material that you feel his vision of the future viscerally. I never thought it POSSIBLE to be creeped the hell out by the possible implications of messing with inertia. Or by a plague of menacing flat black cubes th...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Alex rated it 3 of 5 stars

This one was a bit of a slog to get through compared to its predecessor REVELATION SPACE. The new characters are compelling, but the structure doesn't work as well. In the first book in the trilogy, several storylines happening at different times all come together when several of the characters travel close to lightspeed. In this book, everything is pretty much linear. While this makes things easier to understand, it also necessitates a huge slowdown in the storytelling. Fairly often, weeks of t...more

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May 10, 2010 Brie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, 2010

This is one sequel that lived up to its predecessor, and better yet excedeeded it. Reynolds writing was noticeably better in this book than his first book, Revelation Space, and not nearly so many dramatic one liners (which personally annoyed me to no end in the first book).

The story is quite engrossing, and moved right along. I really enjoy the idea of The Inhibitors, its a very interesting premise. I also liked his method for refreshing the reader on what happened in the first book. Rather tha...more

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Jun 19, 2010 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: random-comments-review

...I liked Revelation Space, I like Redemption Ark even more. Better written and faster paced than the previous book this novel will please the fans of uncut space opera. If you've come this far in the series reading Absolution Gap is simply not optional. The author leaves his characters with some serious problems to solve in the next part of the series. I suppose it is a bit of a middle book in that respect but there is a clear promise of a spectacular finish in the final book. Reynolds is one...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Toby rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

As other reviewers have stated, Reynolds' story-telling can be addictive when one is actually reading it. However, as with Chasm City and Revelation Space I found that at times I had to push myself to carry on reading. Perhaps it is that whilst the ideas are gripping the deployment can be a little slow at times.

I get the feeling that Reynolds is desperate to demonstrate his physicist roots to the detriment of the pacing. For example, there is a sketch about two-thirds through the book where two...more

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Sep 17, 2007 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of dark sci fi

The surreal hyjinks continue in Reynold's apocalyptic epic. Adding propaganda dreams, fetus cops, hyperpigs, orwellian governments, and the terrifying inertia engines(trust me this is true horror), and a doomy cosmic scope. Some how five hundred pages is riddled with tension. Don't compare with pieces of crap like Orson Scott Card, rather Mieville,M.John Harrison, or Swanwick

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Jan 12, 2010 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars

First line: The dead ship was a thing of beauty.

Redemption Ark is the third book in Reynolds Revelation Space series. I inadvertently skipped the second novel Chasm City but thankfully Reynolds’ fiction, despite being part of a larger overarching story, manages to stand well enough on its own and I never felt like I was really missing anything major. As when I read Revelation Space the first thing that strikes me about Reynolds’ writing is the staid, deliberate pace. I can’t qualify this in any...more First line: The dead ship was a thing of beauty.

Redemption Ark is the third book in Reynolds Revelation Space series. I inadvertently skipped the second novel Chasm City but thankfully Reynolds’ fiction, despite being part of a larger overarching story, manages to stand well enough on its own and I never felt like I was really missing anything major. As when I read Revelation Space the first thing that strikes me about Reynolds’ writing is the staid, deliberate pace. I can’t qualify this in any meaningful way, it isn’t good or bad, but it is certainly an aspect of his writing that for me took some time to warm up to. More so then Revelation Space, Redemption Ark delves a bit deeper into unfamiliar society, particularly the nearly post-human Conjoiners, and lingers more consistently on technologies that are both new and completely fascinating. Reynolds is an idea man and barely a chapter passed by without some new and shiny bit of technological wonder to fire up my imagination.

Perhaps the most exciting, and fascinating, of those technological bits is his handling of spaceship propulsion. It is a wondrous concept that focuses not on generation of additional force to increase speed but rather on the suppression of inertia. That description barely touches on the fascinating avenues that the technology opens up and I have no idea how sound the actual “science” is, but for me it is so well thought out and intricately described to the point where it seems entirely possible. It left me with a sense of wide-eyed wonder and the frenetic excitement of possibility that few science fiction novels have left me with in the past. For someone who is so often critical of the idea of the “infodump” in other novels to enjoy the often exposition heavy passages that are required to adequately describe these new technologies seems a bit contradictory in nature. I think though that for hard science fiction the description of these new technologies is part and parcel of the experience.

Perhaps what I like most about Redemption Ark, aside from the epic galaxy spanning majesty of the plot, is the theme of time that runs through the course of the novel. In particular each of main protagonist perspectives has some aspect that is tied to, or more consistently, the notion of time. The most obvious character that exhibits this is the Conjoiner Clavain who, at 400+ years old, is an integral player both in the history of his people and, as it turns out, their future as well. There are the returning Triumvir and Ana Khouri (last seen in Revelation Space) who have spent considerable time in reefer sleep in order to advance their own machinations; subverting the natural flow of time in order to more effectively attempt their goals. Khouri in particular suffers from how the relativistic effects of space travel have affected her life. The intersection of past and future in the present is made manifest in the Conjoinver perspective not only through Clavain but through the hidden motivations behind the Conjoiner faction’s actions; supposed messages from their future selves. The past is partly responsible for the predicament our heroes find themselves in, the remnants of dead alien societies as described in Revelation Space having drawn the ire of the major villains of the story, the faceless machines referred to as either Wolves or Inhibitors; ancient and at the same time irrevocably tied to the future, at least as they perceive it, as well.

Time has a palpable and substantive weight on the story that colors the actions of all characters. Of course, as the full revelation of the task before him settles on Clavain and he wonders about the futility and justness of his actions, we get this nice little tidbit: “Clavain saw it all with sudden, heart-stopping clarity: all that mattered was here and now. All that mattered was survival.” Clavain’s surety is never given any qualifying attributes. It isn’t the right or wrong decision. It is the only decision. I think it is a fascinating message that with the weight of time, both past and present, against it the only choice that humanity, or rather sentient life, can honestly make is to survive. It is something of a weighty notion but one I found provided some rather meaty food for thought.

Despite Reynolds aforementioned intricate descriptions of new technologies he has an almost frustrating tendency to leave other avenues woefully under-explored. Again in Redemption Ark, we glimpse the now transformed Nostalgia for Infinity the melding plague having consumed its captain and modified the ship in mysterious ways. Those ways remain mysterious and while our glimpse is deeper then in Revelation Space I still feel like the nature of the Nostalgia remains woefully under-explored. Perhaps I missed something in Chasm City, or in some of Reynolds short fiction (or something later in the series) but I desperately want to know more about the Melding Plague that afflicts technology in the universe of Revelation Space, it is such a neat concept (particularly as it applies to the Nostalgia). While they are mentioned in both Revelation Space and Redemption Ark, represented by the Triumvir, the Ultra’s also remain an avenue I’d love to read more of, as some of Volyova’s comments here reveal some previously hidden depths about their society. Then, of course, there are the Pattern Jugglers whose sentient seas store imprints of all lifeforms who swam in them. There’s more, but I’ll stop there, as you can see for every fascinating little morsel lets us taste he lets us only catch a bare whiff of another before snatching it away.

If I had any doubt that Alistair Reynolds is one of today’s top masters of the space opera genre Redemption Ark has since blasted them out of the airlock. While novel takes its time building up elements of the plot, introducing and re-introducing to characters and slowly uncovering the layers of beneath the various threats our heroes face, it manages to weave everything into a cohesive and compelling whole. For all that is left unexplained there is never any doubt that the world of Redemption Ark is as fully realized and fleshed out as our own. I look forward to exploring more in the Revelation Space series and I encourage anyone who hasn’t yet given this series a try to do so at the earliest opportunity.(less)

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May 30, 2011 Bronwyn rated it 3 of 5 stars

Coming after Chasm City, Redemption Ark wasn't as amazing as I might have hoped, but I enjoyed it quite a bit and I can safely say that I'm still going to be reading books in this series. It is dubbed as "Space Opera" and I guess I never really imagined myself being someone who would end up liking that type of genre, but really, I'm hooked! I don't really have much else to say- if you liked the previous books in the series, you'll like this one.

I will add that there was an unfortunately high num...more

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Mar 29, 2011 Alexandra rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2011, re-read

Look, it's a Revelation Space novel. Seriously. This is not going to be a bad review.

Redemption Ark sort of takes up where Revelation Space leaves off, but uses quite a number of different characters to present the narrative. Where the Conjoiners were just another group of weirdos in the first book, here two of the main points of view are from Conjoiners - who end up having quite different takes on the events. There are a couple of familiar characters, happily - who have changed in some ways qui...more Look, it's a Revelation Space novel. Seriously. This is not going to be a bad review.

Redemption Ark sort of takes up where Revelation Space leaves off, but uses quite a number of different characters to present the narrative. Where the Conjoiners were just another group of weirdos in the first book, here two of the main points of view are from Conjoiners - who end up having quite different takes on the events. There are a couple of familiar characters, happily - who have changed in some ways quite substantially, but of course in many ways stay the same - as well as some other new ones, including one of the most 'normal' characters Reynolds has used to present action in any of the Rev Space books.

The narrative? Revelation Space hinted at Inhibitors, a machine race of some sort tasked with inhibiting the development of fleshy sentience into the wider galaxy; Dan Sylveste, in his arrogance, rang their bell. Redemption Ark - along with a lot of side-stories - addresses how the people of Resurgam, as well as some other concerned galactic citizens, might deal with this particular threat to their existence. Actually, it's worse than that, since most of the people on Resurgam have absolutely no idea what is going on. It's the other people - with mixed motives - who have to take action on their behalf. Enter two very different Conjoiners, some hyperpigs, and ordinary space-faring citizens, and the race is on to decide who is going to get the weapons that alone might have a chance of dealing with that rather intimidating threat.

I love this stuff.

As I said, there are a lot of sub-plots going on. There's the whole back-story of the Conjoiners (more on them later), there's the sad story of Antoinette and how she ends up involved in all of this, there's those recurring characters and what's happened to them between books as well as what they're doing now (se me avoiding spoilers?), as well as an update on Resurgam and Chasm City. It's this depth, this chunkiness, that all manages to make sense and add to the overall story, that I adore about these books. If you stripped all this possibly-extraneous material out you'd have maybe a 250-300 page book (rather than 650-odd pages), and it would probably be quite good, but... it would be missing the marvellous detail, the feel of it being a messy and oh-so-real society, that I love.

The characters are of course a wonderful part of that messiness. The Conjoiners, it turns out, are a society created by one Galliana in an attempt to bring humanity ever closer to one another - by being conjoined by a neural network that allows people to communicate essentially telepathically, and see things that other people are projecting, and even read further into others' minds than simply their surface thoughts. The idea was to create a transparent, and presumably egalitarian, society. It's a lovely utopian vision, and there are of course dark hints that way back when it was being established - on Mars, 400 years prior to the book - that it caused wars with those afraid of that vision. I know I've read about that back story, somewhere; it might have been one of Reynolds' short stories. In Redemption Ark the Conjoiners are represented primarily to the reader through Clavain - an early, somewhat unwilling recruit - and the paradoxically ambitious Skade. These two characters are developed thoroughly and, actually, quite messily; their motivations don't always make immediate sense, they are conflicted, and they make horrendous decisions in the heat of battle. I love Clavain; I respect Skade but I would definitely want to keep her at arms' length. Preferably someone else's arms.

There are other new characters. Antoinette Bax, ship-owner and budding transporter, is the fairly naive and hapless everywoman (along with her partner Xavier) who gets dragged along almost against her will. She's one of the few sections I think could have been excised without the overall narrative losing much complexity and wonderfulness (did I mention I love this novel?). Then there's Scorpio, a hyperpig. The pigs get mentioned in Chasm City, but they don't play much of a part; their backstory is fleshed out a little more here, but we still have to wait for another story - I think The Prefect? and one or two shorts - to get much detail. Still, the idea that a new intelligent species could have arisen out of human/pig experiments aimed at making human organ replacement easier is fascinating.

It's a great book. There's tension on a galactic scale, and on a personal level; there's technology, and overcoming its limits in potentially dangerous ways; there are cameos from earlier books; there is witty dialogue, and hinted-at dark pasts, and just wonderful writing too. #fangirl(less)

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Dec 25, 2012 Beau rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book better than the first one (Revelation Space). The new characters were interesting, and the story didn't keep changing polarity on me.

One fundamental thing still bugs me, but not enough to diminish my enjoyment of the story. If it's easy to be dishonest, and hard to verify the truth, then skepticism should reign and gullibility should be short-lived. in Revelation Space, I felt like that wasn't the case.

In Redemption Ark, Thorn was a terrific skeptic (and a bit of a nut job be...more

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Aug 05, 2012 Ashvin rated it 5 of 5 stars

If you like the first book in this series (Revelation Space), you'll like this one. The last 20% or so of Revelation Space was a little `out there,' but most of this book was relatively concrete. It got a little slow in the middle, but not too bad.

Importantly, you should really read Revelation Space first because Redemption Ark has many of the same characters and it assumes you know about them and the universe in general. It's definitely a continuation.

As I think I mentioned in the review in th...more

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About Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds, former scientist and now full-time writer. Most of what he writes is science fiction, with a strong concern for scientific verisimilitude (although he is prepared to break the rules for the sake of a good story). He has lived in England, Scotland and the Netherlands where he worked as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency until 2004, but now makes his home back in his...more

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Quotes from Redemption Ark

“It’s the people who don’t worry—those who never have any doubts that what they’re doing is good and right—they’re the ones that cause the problems.” — 10 people liked it

“Matter is lazy. It resists change. It wants to keep on doing whatever it's doing, whether that's sitting still or moving. We call that laziness inertia, but that doesn't mean we understand it. For a thousand years we've labelled it, quantified it, caged it in equations, but we've still only scratched the surface of what it really is.” — 1 person liked it

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Redemption Ark (Revelation Space #2)

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