Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34542 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 544 pages

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, The Guardian
"Century Rain is a darkly brilliant love story, set in worlds we think we know but don't."

Review
"Century Rain is a darkly brilliant love story, set in worlds we think we know but don't." (Jon Courtenay Grimwood GUARDIAN )

"Further proof that he is shaping up into one of SF's best and most ambitious novelists". (Jonathan Wright SFX )

"This is an intelligent space opera" (Roz Kaveney Time Out )

"Century Rain is an absolute cracker of a novel. Reynolds has always been a consistently bright star in the firmament of British sci-fi but now he has suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, gone supernova. (OUTLAND OTTAKAR'S )

"Century Rain is an exciting, thought-provoking novel, an audacious synthesis of genre forms. Alastair Reynolds is now in his novelistic prime." (Nick Gevers LOCUS )

While science ficiton and mystery have often been combined, no writer has done so with such intelligence or originality as Alastair Reynolds. In a single novel, he steps from the mean streets to the far future." (Rick Kleffel Interzone )

"Century Rain demonstrates the growing maturity of his talent" (Edge Magazine )

"Leaves you wishing that more science fiction was this good. A genuinely great book." (Brigid Cherry Dreamwatch )

"With Century Rain, Alastair Reynolds continues the coruscating path he has blazed through SF skies. This a whopping 500-pager, brimming with ideas." (Barry Seddon Manchester Evening News )

Roz Kaveney, Time Out
"This is an intelligent space opera"

Customer Reviews

Good first half, poor second half
I have read all the books of Alistair Reynolds and unfortunately, Century Rain does not rate highly amongst them.

The first half of the book develops nicely, with characters such as Custine, Caliskan and Niagara just waiting to be developed further. The second half of the book seems to forget about 1950s Paris and only loosely answers the issues left behind there - what happens to Custine and the war babies? These central issues are merely touched upon.

It is fair to say that I felt very disappointed at the end of the book - I was waiting for the twist to come, but alas, it simply did not happen.

Saying all this, I'll still buy Alistair Reynolds's next book - the Inhibitors saga completely captivated me and I know that he can do much better than Century Rain!

Strong SciFi Thriller
I am not a real Sci-fi fan or reader, so I read this on a recommendation. I really enjoyed it as just a thriller and found this to definitely be a 'just one more chapter...' kind of book - which is no bad thing. The characters are pretty well rounded, feel very real and, on the whole, do what real people would do in the same situation. The plot bustles you from one reality to another in an agreeable way and I found I spent most of the first half of the novel thinking: 'What the hell is going on?'

The Sci-Fi side of it I found very believable - just about unobtainable technology that is essentially theory at the moment - and well implemented and described.

My only criticism (hence the 4 stars) is that it does tail off at the end, the suspense feels labored and formal and there are patches within the book that are quite dull (space journeys for instance). But, overall, I will be reading more of Reynolds work because I really enjoyed this.

Fantastic read
Initially, I was a little disappointed, when I read that Century Rain wasn't in the same reality and timeperiod as his previous works of space opéra, which I really enjoyed. Once I started settling into Century Rain, however, that disappointment completely disappeared.

The counterfactual Paris is gripping and credible (and beautifully film-noir), the human future is intriguing and similarly gripping. Reynolds seems to have taken a conscious decision to scatter throughout the book various rather cringeworthy-but-still-funny puns but, as the story progresses, the pace increases.

The ending was, as some other reviewers have commented, a little disappointing, given the rest of the book, but not greatly so and didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book. This is one of the few books I have found myself still reading at 2am when I have work only a few hours later; I would (and have done) recommend it very highly.