Product Description

Some centuries from now, the exploration and exploitation of the Solar System is in full swing. On the cold edge of the system, Bella Lind, captain of the huge commercial spacecraft Rockhopper IV, helps fuel this new gold rush by attaching mass-driver motors to organic-rich water-ice comets to move them back to the inner worlds. Her crew are tough, blue-collar miners, engineers and demolition experts. Around Saturn, something inexplicable happens: one of the moons leaves its orbit and accelerates out of the Solar System. The icy mantle peels away to reveal that it was never a moon in the first place, just a parked spacecraft, millions of years old, that has now decided to move on. Rockhopper IV, trapped in the pull, is hurled across time and space into the deep, distant future, arriving in a vast, alien-constructed chamber. And the crew are not alone, for each chamber contains an alien culture dragged into this cosmic menagerie at the end of time. The crew of the Rockhopper IV know a lot about blowing up comets, but not much about first contact with ultra-advanced aliens. They have two things to worry about: can they (and their new alien allies) negotiate their way through each harrying contact? And can they assimilate the avalanche of knowledge about their own future - including all the glittering, dangerous technologies that are now theirs for the taking - without destroying themselves in the process?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164080 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Jon Courtenay Grimwood, THE GUARDIAN
"Hard SF doesn't come much harder. Classic Reynolds."

Review
"Hard SF doesn't come much harder. Classic Reynolds." (Jon Courtenay Grimwood THE GUARDIAN )

"Welding hard SF scenarios to deft characterisation, to create a wholly convincing vision. Arthur C Clarke in his prime couldn't have done a better job." (Jonathan Wright SFX )

"As usual in an Alastair Reynolds book there are big ideas here, played out but not belaboured. A strong tale." (Anthony Brown STARBURST )

"Pushing Ice is an excellent stage on which to investigate more rounded characters. Reynolds has a firm grasp of the wider opportunities of the genre." (EDGE )

About the Author
Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales. He has a Ph.D. in astronomy and since 1991 he has lived in the Netherlands, near Leiden, where he works part-time as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency.

Customer Reviews

Not perfect, but a very good read
Pushing Ice isn't perfect, but it doesn't deserve some of the very negative reviews it has received (one talks about FTL travel which doesn't appear anywhere in the novel other than as speculation during conversation - so they haven't read it that carefully).

This is a novel of big ideas occurring over cosmic timescales. For me it successfully evoked the helplessness that would be experienced by humans when they are caught up in events they are unable to control and can only struggle to understand. The story manages to throw up plenty of revelations and plot twists - some expected, some not - whilst throwing up interesting questions on the ultimate futility of any human (or alien) endeavour. Yes, some of the characters are underdeveloped (Wang being a very significant one for me), but there is a driving energy behind the story that is maintained until the final page and that compensates for any shortcomings. Alastair Reynolds set the bar very high with his early works and whilst this is not quite the equal of them I feel that it is a stronger book than Century Rain and I'm already looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next.

Read it and enjoy it, but try not to worry too much about the ultimate futility of doing so.

Readable and entertaining but not his best
Reynolds succeeds in creating a storyline that pulls you along - you do want to know what happens next. True, there are gaping holes in the plot and the characters lack realism or depth but you always believe that there is something about to happen around the corner and in this he does not disappoint. I didn't think much of some of the aliens, though - or their silly spaceship. The plot ends in such a way there is plenty of room for a sequel.

Poor characters, but great ideas save the book
** Slight spoilers **
If you haven't read Reynolds before, start with one of his other novels. If you are a bit of a completist like me, then give it a go. The novel is very good, without reservation, up until the exiling. I fast-forwarded through the character problem bits after that, but I wouldn't recommend actually skipping chapters, as there are still a lot of good ideas to be found in it. I wouldn't be averse to a sequel, as the character problems are moot by the book's end, and the universe of the book is well worth further exploration.