What a disappointment! This last book alone adds 662 pages to the series. It continues the brilliant weaving of complex and advanced ideas, but even early in the book I started thinking, "This is getting a little silly now". It built to what promised to be a stunning conclusion, then ends with a great big "PFFFFBBBLLLLLT". What a load of bollocks! The ending is so bad that it bursts the suspension of disbelief that carried us so far. It makes us look back and see how flimsy some of the plotlines...

This is the fourth novel I've read by Alastair Reynolds, and I have to admit that while it took me a bit of time to get into the writing, the effort is never wasted. The build-up is slow but very steady, and I can honestly say that the final explosions are quite good. There's always something else to look forward to, on the other hand, and I suppose my only wish would be to have a prolific amount of works to support each one. A universe this detailed ought to at least be a lot more full than a h...

Re-Read 2019.I don't think I will change my star rating. If anything. I preferred the second time around as I was reading it, instead of listening to audio. I think some of Reynolds hard scifi can be difficult to listen to, as it can get so technical and detailed, that apparently I used to zone out to on my first read whilst driving or on the train. There were huge parts of the book where I had absolutely not recollection of the story. Overall though, this is a huge story and I have enjoyed bein...

What a journey this trilogy was!Although unexpected, the events in this last part have a deeper meaning when ruminate upon, one which cannot be glimpsed by reading the first two.Even the ending was kinda unexpected (I guessed half of it, but the other not a bit).As I said in my point of view for the first part, this story's key points are unpredictable, which makes it even more interesting - if that can be - taking into consideration the amount of mind blowing concepts and immensity. And even as...

Please don't start with this book as it's number three (sort of) in the series, and the book IMHO is perhaps not the best way to introduce yourself to Mr.Reynolds. "Absolution Gap" though being a marvelous addition to the series is not as outright amazing as it's predictors, though a book you will want to read if you read the others.

Absolution: A freeing from blame or guilt. Clavain is staring across an ocean on planet Ararat. He is sitting alone in meditation, struggling with feelings of remorse and guilt. Does he take the swim that would allow the Juggler marine mass to absorb his mind/soul with their own? Scorpio arrives. He finds Clavain in his place of solitude and self imposed exile. A small craft has landed and Scorpio feels this may mark the local resumption of humanities war against the Inhibitors. Or maybe this

What the?!The final in a rather involved trilogy that is neither the same story as the previous two/nor the characters and in no way final. So many tantalising threads from the the previous two books are left to hang. The first two in this series showed great promise and I was very much looking forward to this one - I can't think of the last time I was so disappointed in an author.The thing that became most apparent to me after finishing this one is that the author was using his characters as to...

A long, meandering, and ultimately boring conclusion to the fantastic premise of Revelation Space. Instead of roaring to a conclusion, it sloooowly crosses the finish line of a completely different race.Quality-wise I think Absolution Gap is on par with Redemption Ark, but with the original cast gone, my favorite characters pointlessly dead, and zero focus on the promised purpose of the series, I was bored. I did not care about the new characters. I did not care about their storylines.I'm moving...

With his Revelation Space trilogy and the spinoff books Chasm City and The Prefect , Alastair Reynolds has accomplished the best world-building outside of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Truly, I can't understate how impressed I am with what Reynolds has put together.Over the last ten weeks or so I have fallen in love with the Revelation Space universe and I simply can't get enough of the stories or characters that occupy it. I started with The Prefect, not realizing it was part of a b...

I liked this one but there were some long drawn out parts that almost bored me. The story was smaller and more personal than previous installments but the tech and the action were definitely on par. There were some fantasy elements in this one that had not been in any of the other books and for technically being the fourth, including Chasm City, it seemed like a weird time to intoduce something so different in style and feel. This was my fourth and least favorite book by this author but still fo...

Impressive and interesting conclusion to the Revelation Space trilogy. At first I was a little disappointed by the low key ending, but after a couple of days I find this perfectly human ending, very appropriate and satisfying.

This is the conclusion of the three part series, and while I thought it was the weakest of the series, I still get insane pleasure out of this man's writing. I think the main problem this book has is that it is missing what would seem to be a very vital sense of urgency concerning the Inhibitors. Now, the nature of this galaxy he has created reminds us that our perception of the passage of time is quite different from the galaxy's perception, but even so, there is a race of machines out there de...

The final stages of an epic journey filled with goodies for fans, sci fa elements, a big WTF plot moment, more indoctrination virus and melding plague fun, and tons of goodies, innuendos, and connotations for fans of the series. Melding Plague, hyperpigs, inhibitors, and psi babiesThe melding plague infection moves towards its final stages, Scorpio gets an important role, the inhibitors are busy kind of gray gooing around and a science fantasy telepathy element gets big. All mixed together make

imagine a gigantic gothic spacecraft, a Lovecraft in space, a horrifying monster of a ship captained by a man who is the ship itself. Captain John Brannigan! the oldest human in the galaxy; or rather, "human" ... the old captain fell prey to both a terrible melding plague and his own tortured thoughts. the captain and the ship came together, transformed into the stuff of nightmares. the ship is called Nostalgia for Infinity. it is the best part of the book, and the trilogy as well.Reynolds compl...

Absolution Gap: Overlong, tedious and frustrating conclusionOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureAbsolution Gap (2003) is the third book in Alastair Reynolds’ REVELATION SPACE series of large-canvas hard SF in which post-human factions battle each other and implacable machines bent on exterminating sentient life. The series has elements of Bruce Sterling’s Schismatrix, Frank Herbert’s Dune, Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Iain M. Banks’ CULTURE novels, Peter Watt’s Blindsight, Richar...

What a terrible, terrible ending to what started out as a very promising series. I really wanted to like this book, but it became an utter slog fairly early on, and I had to force myself over the finish line (more out of stubborness than anything; this is very rare that I feel this way but I hate to abandon books that I've started). If I hadn't read this on a Kindle, I would have been tempted to throw the book across the room in frustration upon finishing it. I still might.First, some context ab...

Alastair Reynolds ends his space opera trilogy with Absolution Gap. Many of the characters from the last book are desperately fighting the Inhibitors, but humankind seems to be losing the war. In a final hail Mary, the Conjoiners and a new member of their race seek a distant star system where a planet seems to disappear and the phenomena is worshiped by a group of fanatics led by a prophet with religious fervor literally in his bloodstream.For a fraction of a second something inexplicable had oc...

Recalled to life! That is a slogan from Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities which applies here. I accidentally—or it could be gremlins—deleted my original review of Absolution Gap (or AbGap as I call it) and normally I can retrieve it from pasting the URL of the lost review at Cachedpages.com but this time it did not work, perhaps it has been lost too long. However, Google is still my friend and if you are at all interested just click here too see a screencap of the process. OK, the review—which you...

3.5. I will start saying it`s one of the best Science Fiction series of all time.I just think this 3rd book didn't focus on the best characters and storylines (with the exception of Scorpion). Instead, the final part brig new players with no (great) reasons. Another thing that was better used in the first and second books were the several overlapping time periods and locales - they took too long to fold into the larger narrative and, in the end, it was a little removed from the Scope and themes

Have you ever wondered what it would be like for a mostly unaugmented human to make love to a cyborg who was more machinery than biology? Of course you have! Who hasn't right? For GRRM fans it's easy. Just think Joffrey plus Iron Throne. Or perhaps you've wondered what it would be like to never blink or even close your eyes in sleep so you could watch reruns of your favourite cable shows non stop. How would you achieve such a state? Well one of the Ultras in this book goes there. Lets just say i...