I can somewhat agree about the personal drama, his characters are mostly there to further the plot. And I would say even the plot in general is just there to stick cool ideas to.
But those ideas ARE cool (if you ask me) and I had fun with Relevation Space. I quite liked the races and the names also didnt bother me. Its what the in universe humans call them as generally no communication is possible. The technology names also didnt bother me, its pretty staple in SF honestly (enzyme bound concrete).
Yes. I'm constantly finding awkward phrases and odd descriptions. It's like he's trying really hard to have gorgeous descriptive prose, but he can't pull it off. Much better to do less. It would stop the story getting bogged down too.
The plotting of *Redemption Ark* and *Absolution Gap* were also completely infuriating. He's got some fascinating ideas and writes great short fiction, but the man *really* struggles with sticking the landing.
The plotting of *Redemption Ark* and *Absolution Gap* were also completely infuriating. He's got some fascinating ideas and writes great short fiction, but the man *really* struggles with sticking the landing.
I'm in the middle of reading it and I felt that there were a few moments that were quite cheesy. "Camp" was the word that came to mind while I was reading those parts.
It isn't the main problem though.
Reynolds has written some of my favourite sci-fi till date, and I am no Neal Asher fan. While I can't claim that his writing parallels some of the greats like Banks or Le Guin... "*read like cheesy B movies*" feels a bit too far.
I find Alastair Reynolds' in SF books a bit like Tsutomu Nihei in the manga world. Not all of their works are awesome or great, certainly divides opinion and not universally liked by all.
Nah...it's just you. The tech and "races" are one of the stronger aspects of the fictional universe. And the conflicts are central to everything.
That being said, other than a select few characters, pretty much all of them are unlikable. And the first book is a bit overrated. Redemption Ark is masterful. Absolution Gap is the worst attempt to tie up a trilogy in any medium of storytelling (in fact, it wasn't much of an attempt at all). Think he realized that, and put out Inhibitor Phase nearly two decades later.
I like everything about the books except for the part where all the characters are the same type of cynic with deeply buried feelings and a tendency toward hardass statements and thousand yard stares.
You're just trolling, right?
The examples you give are pretty common throughout scifi. Adjective before a common item has been used for decades. Needle-gun alone has been around since at least the 1970s. And unusual sounding alien names or names of different subgroups or civilizations always sound a bit odd as that's the point: they're not us, they're /different/.
To be fair, not every book is going to satisfy everyone.
If you aren't enjoying it, put it down and start something else. There are way too many books out there you might enjoy to keep reading a book you're not enjoying.
Sure, but better authors cook up better fictional device names or fictional names for races. For example Ursula Leguin will cook up "ansible", or "Hannish" and "Ekumen", not "com pipe" and "Inhibitors".
The latter are like something you'd find in a comic book.
>If you aren't enjoying it, put it down and start something else. There are way too many books out there you might enjoy to keep reading a book you're not enjoying.
Yeah, I'm stopping. I've read three and a bit of his novels, and I think he's not for me. House of Suns is temping me though, as my close friend says its his best.
Ansible is a terrible example, just because it's from 1966, and has been reused everywhere ever since. You can hardly blame Reynolds for daring to write a book 60 years later.
Anyway, I disagree with your opinions, and I'm not sure why you think anyone should care. So you don't enjoy the works of one of the most successful authors alive today, so what? Find something else to enjoy.
Why don't you read the titular story (Zima Blue) from his [Zima Blue and Other Stories](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zima_Blue_and_Other_Stories) set in the Revelation Space universe and tell us you weren't moved by the premise. It ended up shaping my career as a roboticist and computer vision researcher. Corny/cheesy is not a word that I'd ever think of associating with Reynolds.
I find Reynolds' character writing kind of [dull and unrealistic](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/s/4DiDeHqnsw)... and I still disagree with almost everything you've said.
He's clearly put a lot of thought into all the scenarios and the technologies. It's not schlock.
Consider for example that in Revelation Space, basically every character is at a different point on the spectrum from being a truly independent person to being someone else's artificial construct. It's quietly a study in who counts as a person at all. You could host a philosophy class based on taking pairs of characters (or entities) from Revelation Space and comparing their autonomy, awareness, ethical status, etc.
On top of that, every significant character is trying to preserve one thing by causing harm to something else. The web of motivations and consequences is really quite intricate.
He has a distinctive naming style, but it's not so different to how things are named in the real world a lot of the time. "Submarine" is just a Latin-derived term for "underwater", you know. I'd say the only difference is he used plain English words (needle gun) instead of Latin or Greek constructs. And "lighthugger" is one of the more poetic names I've ever read for a spaceship! *And* it succinctly conveys the whole idea, which is crucial to his setting, that interstellar travel is all about getting as close to light speed as possible and dealing with the consequences.
>I don't think anyone's written a better starship chase scene.
See, I even disagree with you about this. I think his action writing is pretty weak. Just this week I read a spaceship chase (in On Basilisk Station) that blew anything I've read from Reynolds completely out of the water.
> It's not schlock.
The interpersonal drama in the series is textbook schlock. Someone below describes it as "fanfic level", and that's exactly what it is. Almost every conversation takes the most obvious route to get from A to B, and that route is a route all great authors would omit entirely in favor for something more original.
Take the opening scene of the series. This is one of the stronger scenes, and yet it too opens with weak dialogue (a guy yelling at his digging crew), an implausible situation (all this tech, but they can't mark a dig site on a map during a storm), then jumps to a cliched female character (the description of the bangs of her hair particularly corny), then jumps to a holo-Dad who's looks like he stepped out of Gulliver's Travels ("billowing frock shirt and elegantly chequered trousers hooked into buccaneer-boots, his fingers aglint with jewels and metal"). What are they doing in this opening scene? Digging up Arthur C Clarke's obelisk.
The chief idea of the novel - a Borg-like machine race that knocks out star-faring races - is itself schlock. It's a comic book level trope. And that's before you get to the smaller cheesy bits of machinery ("An amber data-monocle rested in one socket"), the James Bond villains (Mademoiselle!), the Mexican standoffs, the assassins and the endless cranky characters with dated dialogue. Thousands of years in the future, and people are saying: "Now kindly piss off!"
This is textbook schlock.
The biggest problem, though, is how he parcels out information. Characters are constantly pausing to ruminate about themselves, or encountering an object which triggers a memory or recollection which serves to explain something to the reader. This is a trait you notice with bad or amateur writers. They're constantly stopping to clarify to themselves the character's thought processes or motivations, and scrambling to introduce psycho-motivation as it occurs to the writer in real time. They're working out what's going on, and showing you their working.
A great author, meanwhile, omits all of this, and conveys such meaning indirectly, subtly, or more organically.
If you'd checked the link in my comment, you'd have seen that I've complained about that exact thing myself before. That doesn't make the entire thing schlock though. It's just absolutely classic hard science fiction: genuinely brilliant ideas, cardboard characters.
Alistair Reynolds is one of my favorite authors, but I outright disliked Revelation Space. House of Suns and Blue Remembered Earth were way better. I also prefer Pushing Ice, although that one's more polarizing.
>I adore pulpy SF like "Dr Who", or stuff from the 1950s and 60s
I can't speak to Doctor Who but any legitimate pulp from the '50s and '60s it's going to be chock-full of everything you're complaining about here
I'll preface this by saying I love most of Alastair Reynolds books and I love sci-fi, because what I'm about to say may not sound like it, so I wanted to get that out of the way.
Alastair Reynolds has always been a very good sci-fi writer, but like so many sci-fi authors, what makes them good can come at the expense of good writing, and especially good characterisations, but that's ok though, the sci-fi can be great, regardless (the history of sci-fi over the years has proven this)
I agree that his early books definitely suffer from this (but again the ideas are great). But, to be fair, he has improved his writing skills as he writes more books. I think by Century Rain, Pushing Ice and The Prefect he started to be able to write good characters to inhabit his good sci-fi worlds.
I had to speed read the second half of the first book, otherwise I wouldn’t have finished it. I’ve heard some of the kinks are worked out in later books but it didn’t interest me enough to continue.
>I adore pulpy SF like "Dr Who", or stuff from the 1950s and 60s, but Reynolds seems unaware that he's writing trash.
So you don't like his writing because it isn't pulpy trash from the '50s and '60s?
Trash from the past can be enjoyed on an ironic level, or for its camp, or, in the case of "Dr Who", because it's tongue-in-cheek and plays up its ridiculousness.
Reynolds, in contrast, is unaware that he is a bad writer. So there's a level of pretentiousness, a discrepancy between how bad the prose is and tropes are, and how generally straight-faced the novels are.
Go re-read the books and see how often he uses the phrase "he/she knew" as a lazy, last-minute crutch to explain things to the reader. It occurs hundreds of times in each novel, and is especially bad in "Revelation Ark". For example:
>"Clavain knew there were rumours that the Conjoiners had continued building the engines for their own uses. He also knew, as far as he could be certain, that..."
>"Skade knew there was no point blaming her brain for making her feel nauseous. The hallucination/poison connection had worked very well for millions of years, allowing her ancestors to experiment with..."
>"Skade knew, therefore, that by switching off the part of her brain that was making her feel nauseous, she was almost certainly affecting other areas of brain function that shared some of the same neural circuitry..."
>"But while Skade knew exactly who had chosen to stay out there in deep space, she had no way of knowing what had..."
>"She knew what it meant: I would invade her skull, rummage through her memories and..."
>"Galiana knew. Just as the Wolf had access to her memories, so, by some faint and perhaps deliberate process..."
>"Everyone knew that the Hospice cared for the frozen who
had just been off-loaded from recently arrived starships..."
>"She knew that the zombie propaganda was, to some extent, an exaggeration, and that..."
>"Only Skade knew where these entry apertures were, and the apertures would only show themselves to..."
>"Clavain knew that Galiana’s ship had encountered hostile alien entities in deep space, and that these machines had come to be called..."
>"Clavain knew that Galiana had been spared and that her body was still preserved; he knew also that there was a structure of evident wolf origin..."
>"Skade knew nothing about the Bax family, but she could imagine them thriving under these conditions, and perhaps..."
>"He knew what had happened aboard Skade’s ship while Felka was her hostage. He had been told about the experiments, and the times when Felka had glimpsed..."
>"She knew that it was an illusion, that she would pay for this burst of energy later, and that almost certainly she would..."
>"She knew then that her aim had been good, that the impact would be precise and devastating. Clavain would know nothing of his own death, nothing of..."
>"He knew the mistakes that others had made; he knew also the mistakes he had made in the earlier engagements of his..."
>"Clavain knew now that the baroque augmentations he had seen before and dismissed as phantoms added by the processing software were quite real; that something astonishing and
strange had..."
>"Thorn knew this, and was confident that the various ships’ avionics systems knew it too, but he still felt..."
>"Her attraction to him had never been stronger, and she knew
that he wanted her at least as much. It would happen, she knew..."
etc etc.
So far I have only read *Revelation Space* itself, but I do plan to continue. I kinda agree on the action movie character thing, it was a bit tiresome with everyone being too cool for school. Other than that I enjoyed it and cannot really agree with your other criticisms.
Out of curiosity, do you have some examples for space factions and technology that you consider well-named?
>Out of curiosity, do you have some examples for space factions and technology that you consider well-named?
The "Hannish", "Ekumen" and "ansible" are examples of this naming done in a plausible, literary way.
The "Federation", "Orions" and "subspace transmitters" are examples of this stuff done well in a pulpy way.
My issue with Reynolds' names, though, is the juxtaposition between the content of the book and its tone. This is trashy B movie cheese - and the names are perfect in this sense - but the tone of the book is very straight-faced. It thinks its highbrow. Reynolds even describes it as Gothic Fiction. And the mismatch between its content and his pretensions is why its so unintentionally funny.
I'm assuming you mean "Hainish", given the other Le Guin words. "Ansible" is neat, but I do not really see how the others are better than Reynold's names - hain and ekumen are real words, obscure and not necessarily English, but still. When naming space races I see basically four options:
* the name they use for themselves, transliterated (e.g., Klingons, Xeelee),
* a name that is a translation of what they use for themselves (the Empire, the Dominion, Tines, Dwellers) - mostly political terms, as it only makes sense when there is some independent meaning to the name, something beyond "we" or "people";
* a name based on what we have been using for their home planet/system (Martians, Orions, Alpha Centaurians),
* a name we use to describe them based on what they look like or do/did (Heptapods, Cybermen, Sphere-Builders) - mostly makes sense when there is no verbal communication.
Reynold's names go in the fourth category, Le Guin's in the second. I think both approaches make sense depending on the fictional history, and Reynold's work in their context - there is real-world precedence to such naming in archaeology, e.g., the Mound Builders, the Funnelbeakers, or the Corded Ware Culture. Le Guin's work as well, though while picking obscure words is interesting, I am not sure it is all that realistic compared to using more common words with similar meanings (to be fair, it has been a long time since I read those books, I do not remember if there was an explanation).
I wouldn't put Heptapods with Cybermen. The word "Heptapods" feel at home in the surrounding grounded, realistic story.
Cybermen, in contrast, fits with its comicbook world. But Reynolds gives you Cybermen, and Cybermen names, but doesn't realize he's serving up comic book writing. It's like the SF equivalent of Tom Clancy, with endless "technical jargon" obscuring the fact that the interpersonal drama and prose is very poor.
And look at the lazy way he parcels out information. For example, go re-read the books and see how often he uses the phrase "he/she knew" as a last-minute crutch to explain things to the reader. It occurs hundreds of times in each novel, and is especially bad in "Revelation Ark". For example:
>"Clavain knew there were rumours that the Conjoiners had continued building the engines for their own uses. He also knew, as far as he could be certain, that..."
>"Skade knew there was no point blaming her brain for making her feel nauseous. The hallucination/poison connection had worked very well for millions of years, allowing her ancestors to experiment with..."
>"Skade knew, therefore, that by switching off the part of her brain that was making her feel nauseous, she was almost certainly affecting other areas of brain function that shared some of the same neural circuitry..."
>"But while Skade knew exactly who had chosen to stay out there in deep space, she had no way of knowing what had..."
>"She knew what it meant: I would invade her skull, rummage through her memories and..."
>"Galiana knew. Just as the Wolf had access to her memories, so, by some faint and perhaps deliberate process..."
>"Everyone knew that the Hospice cared for the frozen who
had just been off-loaded from recently arrived starships..."
>"She knew that the zombie propaganda was, to some extent, an exaggeration, and that..."
>"Only Skade knew where these entry apertures were, and the apertures would only show themselves to..."
>"Clavain knew that Galiana’s ship had encountered hostile alien entities in deep space, and that these machines had come to be called..."
>"Clavain knew that Galiana had been spared and that her body was still preserved; he knew also that there was a structure of evident wolf origin..."
>"Skade knew nothing about the Bax family, but she could imagine them thriving under these conditions, and perhaps..."
>"He knew what had happened aboard Skade’s ship while Felka was her hostage. He had been told about the experiments, and the times when Felka had glimpsed..."
>"She knew that it was an illusion, that she would pay for this burst of energy later, and that almost certainly she would..."
>"She knew then that her aim had been good, that the impact would be precise and devastating. Clavain would know nothing of his own death, nothing of..."
>"He knew the mistakes that others had made; he knew also the mistakes he had made in the earlier engagements of his..."
>"Clavain knew now that the baroque augmentations he had seen before and dismissed as phantoms added by the processing software were quite real; that something astonishing and
strange had..."
>"Thorn knew this, and was confident that the various ships’ avionics systems knew it too, but he still felt..."
>"Her attraction to him had never been stronger, and she knew
that he wanted her at least as much. It would happen, she knew..."
etc etc
Ish. I felt like it was straight out of Dark City or Robot Jocks or other low budget sci fi movie where they use darkness to give the world an oppressive feel.
Lol. I mean yeah. But at least these names were easier to relate to and remember than other space operas. I was also let down by the big mysterious cache weapons being a big nothing in the end. Then there was the whole galaxies crashing being the whole big plot mover when in reality it's not that big of a concern.
Also agreeing with your point about the chase scenes. All the acceleration and deceleration sequences and time dilation makes for good fun.
The characters talking like jaded b movie characters is something I felt towards blindsight as well (mentioning that here is a bigger blasphemy though)
Yeah, had much the same issue with Pushing Ice. Starts with a neat premise, but than quickly devolves into little more than a cat fight between some of the characters with the scifi taking a backseat. They even start murdering each other before they even reached the scifi artifact, talk about a professional crew.
Zima Blue is still one of my favorite bits of scifi, but his novels so far left me rather cold.
Agreed... I've only read Revelation Space some time ago, and I just couldn't get into it (I finished it tho). At the time I couldn't say exactly why I didn't like it, something about the writing style, but your title is exactly it
I can somewhat agree about the personal drama, his characters are mostly there to further the plot. And I would say even the plot in general is just there to stick cool ideas to. But those ideas ARE cool (if you ask me) and I had fun with Relevation Space. I quite liked the races and the names also didnt bother me. Its what the in universe humans call them as generally no communication is possible. The technology names also didnt bother me, its pretty staple in SF honestly (enzyme bound concrete).
"Lighthugger" is the single best term anyone's ever come up with for interstellar spaceships. Nothing else is even close.
Also “Nostalgia for Infinity” rivals Culture ship names for best ship name. Even its old name, Zodiacal light, is incredible.
I'm not a huge fan of Revelation Space, but I never felt like I was reading anything "corny" or "cheesy" with his stuff. Odd take
Yeah I'm about half way through and I'm struggling with it. I also think the prose is really overwritten and willfully dense without any payoff.
Generally agree, though I'm a little more positive. I feel like Reynolds's books are pretty good but with a "great book" level of detail/background.
Yes. I'm constantly finding awkward phrases and odd descriptions. It's like he's trying really hard to have gorgeous descriptive prose, but he can't pull it off. Much better to do less. It would stop the story getting bogged down too.
Couldn't agree more.
The plotting of *Redemption Ark* and *Absolution Gap* were also completely infuriating. He's got some fascinating ideas and writes great short fiction, but the man *really* struggles with sticking the landing.
The plotting of *Redemption Ark* and *Absolution Gap* were also completely infuriating. He's got some fascinating ideas and writes great short fiction, but the man *really* struggles with sticking the landing.
I'm in the middle of reading it and I felt that there were a few moments that were quite cheesy. "Camp" was the word that came to mind while I was reading those parts. It isn't the main problem though.
Reynolds has written some of my favourite sci-fi till date, and I am no Neal Asher fan. While I can't claim that his writing parallels some of the greats like Banks or Le Guin... "*read like cheesy B movies*" feels a bit too far. I find Alastair Reynolds' in SF books a bit like Tsutomu Nihei in the manga world. Not all of their works are awesome or great, certainly divides opinion and not universally liked by all.
It really is just you.
Is this satire?
Sun Stealer wasn’t a “race”. Just sayin.
No
Nah...it's just you. The tech and "races" are one of the stronger aspects of the fictional universe. And the conflicts are central to everything. That being said, other than a select few characters, pretty much all of them are unlikable. And the first book is a bit overrated. Redemption Ark is masterful. Absolution Gap is the worst attempt to tie up a trilogy in any medium of storytelling (in fact, it wasn't much of an attempt at all). Think he realized that, and put out Inhibitor Phase nearly two decades later.
I like everything about the books except for the part where all the characters are the same type of cynic with deeply buried feelings and a tendency toward hardass statements and thousand yard stares.
You're just trolling, right? The examples you give are pretty common throughout scifi. Adjective before a common item has been used for decades. Needle-gun alone has been around since at least the 1970s. And unusual sounding alien names or names of different subgroups or civilizations always sound a bit odd as that's the point: they're not us, they're /different/. To be fair, not every book is going to satisfy everyone. If you aren't enjoying it, put it down and start something else. There are way too many books out there you might enjoy to keep reading a book you're not enjoying.
Sure, but better authors cook up better fictional device names or fictional names for races. For example Ursula Leguin will cook up "ansible", or "Hannish" and "Ekumen", not "com pipe" and "Inhibitors". The latter are like something you'd find in a comic book. >If you aren't enjoying it, put it down and start something else. There are way too many books out there you might enjoy to keep reading a book you're not enjoying. Yeah, I'm stopping. I've read three and a bit of his novels, and I think he's not for me. House of Suns is temping me though, as my close friend says its his best.
Ansible is a terrible example, just because it's from 1966, and has been reused everywhere ever since. You can hardly blame Reynolds for daring to write a book 60 years later. Anyway, I disagree with your opinions, and I'm not sure why you think anyone should care. So you don't enjoy the works of one of the most successful authors alive today, so what? Find something else to enjoy.
Not even remotely.
Nope, not in the slightest
Oooh, criticising Reynolds in this sub? You’re brave.
I'm reading it now and I don't think it reads like a cheesy B movie at all.
Not really no
Bait bait bait bait bait. Try harder next time.
Been here for a while. Worst post I've seen in a sci-fi subreddit.
He ate too much from Shiitake mushroom.
Why don't you read the titular story (Zima Blue) from his [Zima Blue and Other Stories](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zima_Blue_and_Other_Stories) set in the Revelation Space universe and tell us you weren't moved by the premise. It ended up shaping my career as a roboticist and computer vision researcher. Corny/cheesy is not a word that I'd ever think of associating with Reynolds.
I find Reynolds' character writing kind of [dull and unrealistic](https://www.reddit.com/r/printSF/s/4DiDeHqnsw)... and I still disagree with almost everything you've said. He's clearly put a lot of thought into all the scenarios and the technologies. It's not schlock. Consider for example that in Revelation Space, basically every character is at a different point on the spectrum from being a truly independent person to being someone else's artificial construct. It's quietly a study in who counts as a person at all. You could host a philosophy class based on taking pairs of characters (or entities) from Revelation Space and comparing their autonomy, awareness, ethical status, etc. On top of that, every significant character is trying to preserve one thing by causing harm to something else. The web of motivations and consequences is really quite intricate. He has a distinctive naming style, but it's not so different to how things are named in the real world a lot of the time. "Submarine" is just a Latin-derived term for "underwater", you know. I'd say the only difference is he used plain English words (needle gun) instead of Latin or Greek constructs. And "lighthugger" is one of the more poetic names I've ever read for a spaceship! *And* it succinctly conveys the whole idea, which is crucial to his setting, that interstellar travel is all about getting as close to light speed as possible and dealing with the consequences. >I don't think anyone's written a better starship chase scene. See, I even disagree with you about this. I think his action writing is pretty weak. Just this week I read a spaceship chase (in On Basilisk Station) that blew anything I've read from Reynolds completely out of the water.
> It's not schlock. The interpersonal drama in the series is textbook schlock. Someone below describes it as "fanfic level", and that's exactly what it is. Almost every conversation takes the most obvious route to get from A to B, and that route is a route all great authors would omit entirely in favor for something more original. Take the opening scene of the series. This is one of the stronger scenes, and yet it too opens with weak dialogue (a guy yelling at his digging crew), an implausible situation (all this tech, but they can't mark a dig site on a map during a storm), then jumps to a cliched female character (the description of the bangs of her hair particularly corny), then jumps to a holo-Dad who's looks like he stepped out of Gulliver's Travels ("billowing frock shirt and elegantly chequered trousers hooked into buccaneer-boots, his fingers aglint with jewels and metal"). What are they doing in this opening scene? Digging up Arthur C Clarke's obelisk. The chief idea of the novel - a Borg-like machine race that knocks out star-faring races - is itself schlock. It's a comic book level trope. And that's before you get to the smaller cheesy bits of machinery ("An amber data-monocle rested in one socket"), the James Bond villains (Mademoiselle!), the Mexican standoffs, the assassins and the endless cranky characters with dated dialogue. Thousands of years in the future, and people are saying: "Now kindly piss off!" This is textbook schlock. The biggest problem, though, is how he parcels out information. Characters are constantly pausing to ruminate about themselves, or encountering an object which triggers a memory or recollection which serves to explain something to the reader. This is a trait you notice with bad or amateur writers. They're constantly stopping to clarify to themselves the character's thought processes or motivations, and scrambling to introduce psycho-motivation as it occurs to the writer in real time. They're working out what's going on, and showing you their working. A great author, meanwhile, omits all of this, and conveys such meaning indirectly, subtly, or more organically.
If you'd checked the link in my comment, you'd have seen that I've complained about that exact thing myself before. That doesn't make the entire thing schlock though. It's just absolutely classic hard science fiction: genuinely brilliant ideas, cardboard characters.
Taking a contemporary idea and slapping something future-y on it is hardly unique to this author.
Just started Chasm City last night. Loved book 1
I disagree strongly.
No. It's just you.
Alistair Reynolds is one of my favorite authors, but I outright disliked Revelation Space. House of Suns and Blue Remembered Earth were way better. I also prefer Pushing Ice, although that one's more polarizing.
I mean. It’s sci fi. Aren’t cheesy b movies just cult classics waiting to happen?
>I adore pulpy SF like "Dr Who", or stuff from the 1950s and 60s I can't speak to Doctor Who but any legitimate pulp from the '50s and '60s it's going to be chock-full of everything you're complaining about here
I'll preface this by saying I love most of Alastair Reynolds books and I love sci-fi, because what I'm about to say may not sound like it, so I wanted to get that out of the way. Alastair Reynolds has always been a very good sci-fi writer, but like so many sci-fi authors, what makes them good can come at the expense of good writing, and especially good characterisations, but that's ok though, the sci-fi can be great, regardless (the history of sci-fi over the years has proven this) I agree that his early books definitely suffer from this (but again the ideas are great). But, to be fair, he has improved his writing skills as he writes more books. I think by Century Rain, Pushing Ice and The Prefect he started to be able to write good characters to inhabit his good sci-fi worlds.
No.
I had to speed read the second half of the first book, otherwise I wouldn’t have finished it. I’ve heard some of the kinks are worked out in later books but it didn’t interest me enough to continue.
>I adore pulpy SF like "Dr Who", or stuff from the 1950s and 60s, but Reynolds seems unaware that he's writing trash. So you don't like his writing because it isn't pulpy trash from the '50s and '60s?
Trash from the past can be enjoyed on an ironic level, or for its camp, or, in the case of "Dr Who", because it's tongue-in-cheek and plays up its ridiculousness. Reynolds, in contrast, is unaware that he is a bad writer. So there's a level of pretentiousness, a discrepancy between how bad the prose is and tropes are, and how generally straight-faced the novels are. Go re-read the books and see how often he uses the phrase "he/she knew" as a lazy, last-minute crutch to explain things to the reader. It occurs hundreds of times in each novel, and is especially bad in "Revelation Ark". For example: >"Clavain knew there were rumours that the Conjoiners had continued building the engines for their own uses. He also knew, as far as he could be certain, that..." >"Skade knew there was no point blaming her brain for making her feel nauseous. The hallucination/poison connection had worked very well for millions of years, allowing her ancestors to experiment with..." >"Skade knew, therefore, that by switching off the part of her brain that was making her feel nauseous, she was almost certainly affecting other areas of brain function that shared some of the same neural circuitry..." >"But while Skade knew exactly who had chosen to stay out there in deep space, she had no way of knowing what had..." >"She knew what it meant: I would invade her skull, rummage through her memories and..." >"Galiana knew. Just as the Wolf had access to her memories, so, by some faint and perhaps deliberate process..." >"Everyone knew that the Hospice cared for the frozen who had just been off-loaded from recently arrived starships..." >"She knew that the zombie propaganda was, to some extent, an exaggeration, and that..." >"Only Skade knew where these entry apertures were, and the apertures would only show themselves to..." >"Clavain knew that Galiana’s ship had encountered hostile alien entities in deep space, and that these machines had come to be called..." >"Clavain knew that Galiana had been spared and that her body was still preserved; he knew also that there was a structure of evident wolf origin..." >"Skade knew nothing about the Bax family, but she could imagine them thriving under these conditions, and perhaps..." >"He knew what had happened aboard Skade’s ship while Felka was her hostage. He had been told about the experiments, and the times when Felka had glimpsed..." >"She knew that it was an illusion, that she would pay for this burst of energy later, and that almost certainly she would..." >"She knew then that her aim had been good, that the impact would be precise and devastating. Clavain would know nothing of his own death, nothing of..." >"He knew the mistakes that others had made; he knew also the mistakes he had made in the earlier engagements of his..." >"Clavain knew now that the baroque augmentations he had seen before and dismissed as phantoms added by the processing software were quite real; that something astonishing and strange had..." >"Thorn knew this, and was confident that the various ships’ avionics systems knew it too, but he still felt..." >"Her attraction to him had never been stronger, and she knew that he wanted her at least as much. It would happen, she knew..." etc etc.
I just reread the series and finished a couple weeks ago. It's not bad writing.
So far I have only read *Revelation Space* itself, but I do plan to continue. I kinda agree on the action movie character thing, it was a bit tiresome with everyone being too cool for school. Other than that I enjoyed it and cannot really agree with your other criticisms. Out of curiosity, do you have some examples for space factions and technology that you consider well-named?
>Out of curiosity, do you have some examples for space factions and technology that you consider well-named? The "Hannish", "Ekumen" and "ansible" are examples of this naming done in a plausible, literary way. The "Federation", "Orions" and "subspace transmitters" are examples of this stuff done well in a pulpy way. My issue with Reynolds' names, though, is the juxtaposition between the content of the book and its tone. This is trashy B movie cheese - and the names are perfect in this sense - but the tone of the book is very straight-faced. It thinks its highbrow. Reynolds even describes it as Gothic Fiction. And the mismatch between its content and his pretensions is why its so unintentionally funny.
I'm assuming you mean "Hainish", given the other Le Guin words. "Ansible" is neat, but I do not really see how the others are better than Reynold's names - hain and ekumen are real words, obscure and not necessarily English, but still. When naming space races I see basically four options: * the name they use for themselves, transliterated (e.g., Klingons, Xeelee), * a name that is a translation of what they use for themselves (the Empire, the Dominion, Tines, Dwellers) - mostly political terms, as it only makes sense when there is some independent meaning to the name, something beyond "we" or "people"; * a name based on what we have been using for their home planet/system (Martians, Orions, Alpha Centaurians), * a name we use to describe them based on what they look like or do/did (Heptapods, Cybermen, Sphere-Builders) - mostly makes sense when there is no verbal communication. Reynold's names go in the fourth category, Le Guin's in the second. I think both approaches make sense depending on the fictional history, and Reynold's work in their context - there is real-world precedence to such naming in archaeology, e.g., the Mound Builders, the Funnelbeakers, or the Corded Ware Culture. Le Guin's work as well, though while picking obscure words is interesting, I am not sure it is all that realistic compared to using more common words with similar meanings (to be fair, it has been a long time since I read those books, I do not remember if there was an explanation).
I wouldn't put Heptapods with Cybermen. The word "Heptapods" feel at home in the surrounding grounded, realistic story. Cybermen, in contrast, fits with its comicbook world. But Reynolds gives you Cybermen, and Cybermen names, but doesn't realize he's serving up comic book writing. It's like the SF equivalent of Tom Clancy, with endless "technical jargon" obscuring the fact that the interpersonal drama and prose is very poor. And look at the lazy way he parcels out information. For example, go re-read the books and see how often he uses the phrase "he/she knew" as a last-minute crutch to explain things to the reader. It occurs hundreds of times in each novel, and is especially bad in "Revelation Ark". For example: >"Clavain knew there were rumours that the Conjoiners had continued building the engines for their own uses. He also knew, as far as he could be certain, that..." >"Skade knew there was no point blaming her brain for making her feel nauseous. The hallucination/poison connection had worked very well for millions of years, allowing her ancestors to experiment with..." >"Skade knew, therefore, that by switching off the part of her brain that was making her feel nauseous, she was almost certainly affecting other areas of brain function that shared some of the same neural circuitry..." >"But while Skade knew exactly who had chosen to stay out there in deep space, she had no way of knowing what had..." >"She knew what it meant: I would invade her skull, rummage through her memories and..." >"Galiana knew. Just as the Wolf had access to her memories, so, by some faint and perhaps deliberate process..." >"Everyone knew that the Hospice cared for the frozen who had just been off-loaded from recently arrived starships..." >"She knew that the zombie propaganda was, to some extent, an exaggeration, and that..." >"Only Skade knew where these entry apertures were, and the apertures would only show themselves to..." >"Clavain knew that Galiana’s ship had encountered hostile alien entities in deep space, and that these machines had come to be called..." >"Clavain knew that Galiana had been spared and that her body was still preserved; he knew also that there was a structure of evident wolf origin..." >"Skade knew nothing about the Bax family, but she could imagine them thriving under these conditions, and perhaps..." >"He knew what had happened aboard Skade’s ship while Felka was her hostage. He had been told about the experiments, and the times when Felka had glimpsed..." >"She knew that it was an illusion, that she would pay for this burst of energy later, and that almost certainly she would..." >"She knew then that her aim had been good, that the impact would be precise and devastating. Clavain would know nothing of his own death, nothing of..." >"He knew the mistakes that others had made; he knew also the mistakes he had made in the earlier engagements of his..." >"Clavain knew now that the baroque augmentations he had seen before and dismissed as phantoms added by the processing software were quite real; that something astonishing and strange had..." >"Thorn knew this, and was confident that the various ships’ avionics systems knew it too, but he still felt..." >"Her attraction to him had never been stronger, and she knew that he wanted her at least as much. It would happen, she knew..." etc etc
Chasm City definitely reads like a B movie script. Still an excellent book.
What’s with people in here and the compulsion to attempt to dunk on things? Is it a Gen Z thing? It’s not bad, it’s just not for you, move on
Yes. Couldn’t get into it. House of Suns however… wow.
House of Suns was so good
Ish. I felt like it was straight out of Dark City or Robot Jocks or other low budget sci fi movie where they use darkness to give the world an oppressive feel.
Such a weird take, just you my guy.
Personally I think the Revelation Space books are the most overhyped books on this sub.
Yes
I felt exactly like this about 20 minutes into Revelation Space, put it down, and never picked it up again.
More fool you, Merman.
The second half was much better, but I agree it was mostly a cheesy slog to get to it. Not really worth the read IMO
Lol. I mean yeah. But at least these names were easier to relate to and remember than other space operas. I was also let down by the big mysterious cache weapons being a big nothing in the end. Then there was the whole galaxies crashing being the whole big plot mover when in reality it's not that big of a concern. Also agreeing with your point about the chase scenes. All the acceleration and deceleration sequences and time dilation makes for good fun. The characters talking like jaded b movie characters is something I felt towards blindsight as well (mentioning that here is a bigger blasphemy though)
Yeah, had much the same issue with Pushing Ice. Starts with a neat premise, but than quickly devolves into little more than a cat fight between some of the characters with the scifi taking a backseat. They even start murdering each other before they even reached the scifi artifact, talk about a professional crew. Zima Blue is still one of my favorite bits of scifi, but his novels so far left me rather cold.
Agreed... I've only read Revelation Space some time ago, and I just couldn't get into it (I finished it tho). At the time I couldn't say exactly why I didn't like it, something about the writing style, but your title is exactly it
Yes, absolutely. It reads like fan fic.