Alastair Reynolds

From the master of the space opera comes a dark, mind-bending adventure spread across time and space, where Doctor Silas Coade is tasked with keeping his crew safe as they adventure across the galaxy in search of a mysterious artifact.

In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

Eversion

Naomi J.

“I believe you will do this.” “I will.” “No part of you will make it back to Earth?” 

“But I will remember what you have done, and what you were like. It will not be much, I know.” 

“I’ll just be numbers again, symbols scrolling behind a screen.” 

“I know. But for a little while I dreamed I was something else.”

“You’ve got a good handle on human nature, Silas. You’ve nailed one of the guiding principles: always rely on people to do the exact opposite of what they should.”

“The only thing that mattered was to beat the pan-national space agencies to the Edifice, as if the world needed another lesson about the glorious fucking wonders of unfettered libertarian capitalism.”

A ship is a dream of whispers, the dead man said. 

Rather than pain, I felt the lower part of my body turn numb. It was as sudden and shocking as the slamming of a door, silencing a quiet domestic conversation that had been going on, without ceremony, for the entirety of my life. I had become a house divided.

Look, I can’t tell you what was really compelling about this book without a major spoiler, so I won’t. But the ending was very satisifying indeed, with a great twist and a pretty good solution to the puzzle that delightfully (and terrifyingly) unfolded over the first half of the book. The vibe was spooky gothic sci-fi, which there isn’t nearly enough of in the world. There might have been some issues with the pacing in the first half, but nothing that distracted me too much. The author made up for it with some excellent time loops (of a sort) that slowly revealed what they were, and a lot of playing with language, and some maths puzzles I didn’t understand but enjoyed the concept of, and the humanity of machines. The big theme was doing what you’re made to do, and exceeding the bounds of who you are in the process. And as with all good books that give you a puzzle to solve, I’m re-reading immediately.

Eversion

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