Product Description

Mankind has endured centuries of horrific plague and a particularly brutal interstellar war . . . but there is still no time for peace and quiet. Stirred from aeons of sleep, the Inhibitors - ancient alien killing machines - have begun the process of ridding the galaxy of its latest emergent intelligence: mankind. As a ragtag bag of refugees fleeing the first wave of the cull head towards an apparently insignificant moon light-years away, they discover an avenging angel, a girl born in ice. She has the power to lead mankind to safety, and the ability to draw down their darkest enemy. And on a planet where vast travelling cathedrals crawl towards the treacherous fissure known as Absolution Gap, an unsettling truth becomes apparent: to beat one enemy, it may be necessary to forge an alliance with something much, much worse . . .

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9338 in Books
• Published on: 2008-12-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 704 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
With Absolution Gap, Alastair Reynolds completes the star-spanning Inhibitors trilogy in which the previous books were Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. The Inhibitors are a mechanical plague, mindlessly but very resourcefully wiping out space-going civilisations that come to their notice. Their latest target is humanity, which lost a round in Redemption Ark. One small human faction now has stealth weapons and technologies that can almost fight Inhibitor assault to a standstill, but running away still seems the only long-term option.

From the same cryptic source as that supertechnology, filtered through a young girl's mind, comes the urgent message to make an interstellar trek to Hela, barren moon of the gas-giant Haldora. Hela is home to an obsessive religion fuelled partly by mind viruses and partly by the miracle of Haldora. This unpredictable, unbelievable event happens in an eyeblink, but more and more often. For the devout this increasing frequency is a signal of the End Times, which is why a group of vast mobile cathedrals lumbers forever around Hela--to keep Haldora at the zenith for best observation of its marvels. And on this last circuit, with a madman in command, the greatest cathedral of all plans an impossible short cut over the mysterious, delicate bridge spanning an immense rift in Hela's surface: Absolution Gap.

There's a lot of action with both familiar and enjoyably exotic weapons; there's suffering, deceit, loss and triumph; there's a hideous revenge straight out of Jacobean tragedy, a series of awesome revelations and the last voyage of the lightship Nostalgia for Infinity that was so strangely transformed in Revelation Space. Ultimately, behind the enigma of Haldora, a dreadful choice awaits: whether or not to bargain with powers that may be the answer to the Inhibitors--but may be something worse. Alastair Reynolds makes his huge story compellingly readable, with characters we care about, and gives impressive descriptions of beauty and cataclysm. This is very superior space opera. --David Langford

About the Author
Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. 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

Too Much Deus Ex Machina
This is my first online review, so will be a little ragged. Having read Revelation Space and Redemption Ark some time ago I was looking forward to Absolution Gap with eager anticipation.

Firstly, the aspect of this novel that I really enjoyed was the emphasis on the characters rather than the narrative. I felt like I was getting to know and feel for the characters better than the previous two novels.

The narrative however seems to have come under attack by one of the Inhibitor's weapons and has suffered severe damage. Reynolds has not capitalised on or expanded the story lines from the previous two installments and has introduced many plot elements that add nothing of value.

Deus Ex Machina is invoked far too liberally.

He is also rather inconsistent with his arbitrary adherence to or violation of the known laws of physics.

Having been rather negative so far I will conclude by saying that I still thoroughly enjoyed the book and would recommend it to any space opera or hard(ish) SF fan.

Holy Disappointing Ending Batman!
Was Reynolds rushing to finish this in time for the holiday shopping season? Completing this book brought back memories of my rush in grad school to conclude a thesis that I was losing interest in and time to complete. If I had blinked quickly I may have missed the Nestbuilders that seemed to be thrown in as a last-minute solution to what could have been a grand trilogy. I would have liked the satisfaction of actually seeing the inhibitors thrashed and ripped out of space (vice reading a synopsis in the epilogue) and of reading a plausible development of the mysterious Nestbuilders/galactic saviors. I knew I was in trouble when I held the last few pages in my fingers and felt cheated at the end to have invested so much time and, afterwards, handed a muddled unsatisfying ending. Too bad the heroes of the story failed to save the ending for the readers. I think we are all being too nice in our reviews because each of us enjoyed the previous books too much to trash the final chapter.

A rushed ending
As with Redemption ark I felt the final chapter was a bit rushed almost as if Alastair had run out of time to follow all the threads of the story to their natural end. In Redemption Ark I felt that the fate of the Nestbuilder could have been explored a bit more 'in the present' as opposed to being rushed through. The whole nestbuilder story could have made a novel in itself.

The same here, there are certain sub plots that could have been brought to the front. With revelation space and Chasm City you get the sense that your just peeking at a bit of the grand story and you are left with ideas swimming around your head, I wasnt left with the same feeling. I did enjoy it very much though.