Seriously, not only is Galactic North better than any book in the series, it also clues you in to what’s going on as you read.My most recent novel is Eversion, published in the UK and USA in the summer of 2022.

Too late for them but not for new readers. Those reviewers would have benefited from reading Galactic North first as the ending which they all hated made perfect sense to me. Then I started Revelation Space again a couple weeks ago, and just now finished the series finale, Absolution Gap, which suffers from many 1 and 2-star reviews. Everything revealed in the 2000 pages of the RS series is introduced in short stories in Galactic North, and the medium forces Reynolds to get right to the action in each story. So I read Galactic North and it was about the best sci-fi I’ve ever read, more new ideas in a few pages than entire series by other authors, even Alastair Reynolds himself. That was the advice of someone who took note of my complaint about trying Revelation Space three times and discarding it each time. Good but even better having read Galactic North first. Review #2 Redemption Ark audiobook in series Revelation Space If you enjoy space opera and hard science fiction, this will be right in your wheelhouse The author goes to great pains to explain the physics behind many of his far future technology, though not to the detriment of the story, as I felt occurred in Revelation Space. Chasm City is a good story, but it can be read any time.Īs in Revelation Space, Redemption Ark is replete with rock hard science fiction. You could read Redemption Ark immediately after Revelation Space, and in fact, may benefit by doing so, as there are many story lines that flow seamlessly between the two. Chasm City is almost a stand alone novel, with little connection to either the first or third books.

In any case, Redemption Ark is technically book three of the series, but actually reads much closer to a sequel of Revelation Space.

Part of this may have been the underlying familiarity provided by the earlier book, but it was also definitely less reliant upon an underlying knowledge of quantum mechanics. While Chasm City is set in the same universe as Revelation Space, it was far more approachable and enjoyable, in my opinion. However, Id already purchased the first three volumes, so I read Chasm City and was very pleasantly surprised.

Revelation Space was maybe the hardest science fiction work Ive read in the last ten years (maybe some Charles Stross works approach it), and the complexity was a little over the top. After I read the authors Revelation Space, I was conflicted as to whether to proceed to Chasm City, which is listed a volume two of a series.

Redemption Ark by Alastair Reynolds