Chasm City: Alastair Reynolds

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In a calculated move to reach the planet before any of the other ships, Sky jettisoned all of the sleeping passengers. Aliens and drugs, a match made in psychedelic heaven or hell, depending on the standpoint, human or alien brain chemistry and how it reacts to the drug, addiction potential, and sense of responsibility, although if one deals with the devil, the devil doesn´t change, she/ he/it/ the hive mind changes you. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Rather than the blockbuster saving-the-world stakes of Revelation Space, Chasm City is a more personal story of vengeance, as former soldier and bodyguard Tanner Mirabel travels from his war-torn home of Sky’s Edge to the planet of Yellowstone, in pursuit of the man who killed his boss’ wife. And the sinister transformation of Sky from somewhat innocent child to an outright anti-hero is fascinating in a cold way.

on one hand, mirabel knows all about implants, and on the other, he’s out there asking the Sexy Zebra Woman who is obviously augmented and saved his ass, “excuse me if it’s rude to ask, but did you always look like this? Orașul abisului este un roman ce conține suficiente elemente din recuzita genului - știință, lumi exotice, conflicte intergalactice și violența aferentă.So by breaking it up with these episodes—as well as similar flashbacks to Tanner’s time with his employer and his employer’s wife—Reynolds makes the pacing more bearable. As the ships’ societies gradually begin to drift apart and they develop into a sort of cold war, Sky realises that old ghost stories about a mysterious sixth ship trailing the fleet are actually true – a dark and silent vessel has been shadowing them for generations. The story spans centuries, planets and multiple identities, deftly weaving a number of seeminging unrelated plot-lines.

Banks’ Use of Weapons, except that it didn’t rely on a reveal in the same way, instead slowly telling the reader what is afoot. Whatever the case, there are certainly issues here with characterization; I can ignore them, though, because the rest of the book is just so good. I'm going to have to give it a five - the book kept me going, it was something to look forward to late at night during a couple of weeks of excessive DIYing!

independant island in and of itself, regardless (or in spite) of the fact that they are headed to the same destination. The use of low-tech also resembles the post-fossil fuel future society of Paolo Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl. I remember the gargantuan, Gormenghast-esque spaceship with a miniscule crew spending decades to travel between stars; I remember the archaeological dig of an extinct alien species whose myths hinted at some terrible and vengeful god; I remember the impression that humanity’s scattered, isolated colonies were all authoritarian dictatorships, their little remaining statecraft consisting mostly of threats and coercion. the richest immortal folks do the weirdest shit to their bodies, and you ask a striped woman if she always looked like this?