I picked this up cheap the other day and while its an entertaining enough read the fact that all the characters are pretty much unlikable scum didn’t help things. It was also curiously unsatisfying, all the ingredients were there for a good story but it didn’t quite come together.
Just a couple of questions about the plot if anyone has read it:
SPOILERS
When Sadjic attacks Volyvya and injects something into her, what was that all about? I’m guessing he knocked her out and used the opportunity to steal some of the retrovirus but in subsequent chapters she doesn’t react to or mention the attack in any way. How come?
Also, Sylveste plus passengers (Calvin and Sun Stealer) enter the alien object where they’re “scanned” by the device and become intimately aware of each others thoughts and history. If this happened to Calvin/Sylveste, surely it would have happed to Sun Stealer as well and he would have become aware of the hot-dust in Sylvestes eyes.
The whole ending is a bit of a cop-out anyway, I hate it when the reset button is hit and the characters are miracuously resurrected. Though its fairly obvious that Pascale and Khouri did in fact die and the two individuals at the end only think they’re the same person.
btw I thought Sajaki had a very poor exit after all the build-up, he came across as genuinely intimidating and is then taken out by a fairly minor attack.
Are any of the sequels or his other books worth reading?
I can’t really answer the questions as I haven’t read the books in awhile. The first two books of the trilogy are okay - decent, realistic, hard sci-fi - but the last book takes the storyline and throws it out the window - *POOF. The whole series ends on a disappointing flat note.
I think Chasm City is his best book. It takes place in the same universe, but it’s a stand alone. It has a main character that has a cameo in the other three so it’s technically a prequel. It also has several plot holes you could drive a truck through, but on the whole it’s a pretty enjoyable read. I was so disappointed in Absolution Gap that I won’t bother to pick up his latest until I hear some reviews first.
On a side note, if you like Reynolds you might also want to try Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels - Altered Carbon, Broken Angels. He also has an interesting take on the future of corporations with Market Forces.
*** SPOILERS ***
Why didn’t the crew worried about Sylveste simply think of a way to get rid of him in a safer manner? For a start, sleeping gas comes to mind. Or, when he’s in planet-fall in the suit, just shooting him. (Or boobytrapping the suit.)
Wouldn’t the Inhibitors have been learned enough about humanity’s development from seeing the anti-matter explosion? Surely that’s as good a display of intelligence as solving puzzles in the beacon.
I totally don’t get Sajaki’s half-hearted care for the captain. If Sajaki IS the captain, either he’s happy in his new body (and doesn’t need the old one, so why not just throw the infected part of the ship into the sun) or he wants his old body back for sentimental reasons in which case he’d really cure it. He seems cold-hearted so I don’t take the explanation that he’s just creating make-work quests to keep his crew’s minds off actually using the cache-weapons for nefarious purposes.