The Professor

The ‘Revelation Space’ trilogy sticks the landing. Some pacing issues but bucket-loads of new ideas (a gas giant that casually blinks in and out of existence; a spaceship used to alter the spin of a planet), deliciously twisted new characters and careful paying-off of tiny details as the end approaches. Alien: Covenant this ain’t.

For all the big ideas and Universe-shaking action on display here Reynolds reels the reader in with three simple but toothsoome plot threads. In 2615 an Ultra scavenger Quaich finds a mysterious bridge on an unexplored planet then loses his lover in an horrific but brutally hard-science manner. It’s fair to say this has consequences. Years later, in 2675, our beleagued chums from ‘Redemption Ark’ Clavain and his genetically uplifted cohort Scorpio are still hiding out from the dastardly Inhibitors on miserable Ararat with the remains of humanity only to get visited by a mysterious space pod, an old friend, and a request to save a child. That child is in a spaceship…which is in an iceberg. Finally, in 2727, young Rashmika Els on planet Hela runs away to find out what happened to her brother who she hopes has not succumbed to the, wait for it, *Quaichist* faith. What the hell is that all about, one asks and, thank the maker, all gets explained.

Got all that? If you recall the way the Battlestar Galactica reboot went – dwindling survivors, sojourns on miserable colonised planets, a magic baby, voices only certain characters can hear, a religious angle – then a lot of this might seem fairly familiar, possibly because those writers were inspired by/paid homage to/blatently ripped off Reynolds’ work. But Reynolds is a prose world builder and filmed SF can never hope to compete with the written word. Plus the Inhibitors themselves are arguably descendents of the Berserkers and there are at least two moments of baroque horror (Quaiche’s Ultra mistress and Clavain’s fate) which wouldn’t look out of place in an Iain M. Banks novel so we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Arguably Reynolds goes overboard with the description in ‘Absolution Gap’ – particularly with the caravans and the Cathedrals of the Way – but you can understand the editors backing off when the material is this good. One unexpected but very welcome move is the focus on our genetically engineered porcine friend Scorpio who gets much character development – the poor fellow constantly makes correct decisions only to be overruled and goes through absolute hell for his sins. After three novels there’s also a lot of residual fondness for characters like Clavain, Ana Khouri and Antoinette Bax and genuine dismay when it’s unveiled that the Inhibitors have obliterated Chasm City and the Rust Belt et al, all very real locations after the work of the previous novels. Reynolds also introduces the superbly screwed-up Quaiche, pitifully off his rocker, and the dread Grelier and his tapping stick. I love the little time jumps too. Just when you think you’ve twigged how the next 100 pages or so are going to go, Reynolds’ will elegantly skip forward, giving you a nice big reward for paying attention. Great characters and knock-out ideas. One wonders why everyone isn’t reading this.

‘Revelation’, ‘Redemption’ and finally ‘Absolution’. There certainly are a lot of characters in ‘Absolution Gap’ looking to make amends for past sins. I’m hesistant to identify any particularly through-lines or themes with this trilogy but at the same time, while it’s rollicking adventure fiction, it is much better written and thought-through than pretty much any other end-of-the-world fiction out there. There’s a lot of lore, a lot of deliciously realistic detail, from the provenance of the Inhibitors to the Melding Plague and the Rust Belt and while this reader completed the 700-odd pages definitely in need of a glass of cool water and a bog standard thriller by way of a palate cleanser there is no sense this universe is mined-out. Reynolds’ clearly thought this too as he continues to explore aspects of his worlds and I am in no way disinclined to join him.

So here ends the greatest novel trilogy explanation for the Fermi Paradox. It’s so great to have a modern science fiction author of this calibre producing work like this. If you haven’t read these novels and you’ve got a holiday coming up, line ‘em up because you’ve got a lot of fun ahead of you: “Quaiche. Popping outside for a bit. May be some time. Call you back.”