Revelation Space (Revelation Space, #1)

by Alastair Reynolds

Then, with no forewarning, he had turned to Sylveste and said, with complete clarity: “The Jugglers offer the key, Doctor.” Sylveste was too shocked to interrupt. “It was explained to me,” Lascaille continued blithely, “while I was in Revelation Space.”

It was a map of the entire galaxy. And what made it impossible that the map could ever had been projected by the devices with which she was familiar was one simple fact. Looking at it, she apprehended—saw, and, somehow noted—every single star in the galaxy, from the coolest, barely fusing brown dwarf up to the brightest, transient white-hot supergiant. And it was not just that every star in the galaxy was there to be noticed, if her gaze chanced upon it. It went beyond that. It was, simply, that the galaxy was knowable in one glance. She was assimilating it in its entirety.

It looked like a biology lesson for gods, or a snapshot of the kind of pornography which might be enjoyed by sentient planets.