Eversion

Product Information

I've never read a book by Alastair Reynolds but it's an author I'm aware of and know he's a well thought of name in the sci-fi community. The surface plot – as exciting as it is – is scaffolding, a misdirection away from the real mystery lying beneath.

Without skipping a beat though, readers next find Silas on a steamship, and next a dirigible, and finally on a spaceship.

I read it as a part of monthly reading for October 2022 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Silas is a well-written protagonist with compelling internal conflict, but you only get the full picture once the book is complete, so it’s hard to judge at first. Sure enough it was and as the story progresses it becomes clear it's one of Alastair's with all the usual hallmarks. I was intrigued by the premise, since the expansive ideas and mysteries that were promised have been my favourite aspects of Reynolds’ work.

At every stage of this mystery, Reynolds describes the technologies of the various vessels in great detail as well as the increasingly sophisticated instrumentation and mathematics for pinpointing and identifying the big, dumb object that proves so elusive to the explorers.

At what point does adherence to a role, however important to the survival of a mission, give way to the human need for connection?In Eversion, Reynolds engages with some of the central concerns of science fiction today, and of postmodern fiction generally: the relationship of language to the reality it purports to describe, the reliability of storytelling (especially auto-fiction), the mechanics of forgetting, and identity negotiation. The narrative bogs down, in repeatedly re-establishing the same plot and same characters in each new instantiation, sometimes in the word-heavy writing style of 19th century adventures. Alas, Reynolds finally drops the mask and allows Silas (and by extension, the reader) to see “reality,” I as let down. The attempt to work out the mathematics of this massive shape, and hence the ability to navigate its intricacies, is the obsession of the young mathematician, Raymond Dupin.