Chasm City: Alastair Reynolds

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His characters do not simply wear white hats or black hats, they tend to have quite believable motivations. Although numerous descriptions of technical appliances I found a little difficult to understand, and Tanner's character indeed verged to turn into obnoxious superman at times, the book will definitely keep you guessing till the very last chapter. He's also very good at helping the reader visualise all the strange worlds in glorious detail - at times I could "see" it as if I was watching a film. Previously, Mirabel was an ex soldier, hired as private security/bodyguard for Cahuella, a rich arms dealer with many enemies.

By contrast, the relatively few wealthy people in Chasm City - who've had their 'mechanics' removed - live in elevated homes in the canopy. The main trilogy (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap) featured a lot of good hard SF world-building, but was heavily weighed down by clunky characters, dialogue, and extremely bloated page-count.

The book takes us on a hunt on the planet Sky's Edge, where society has been torn apart by a centuries-long war with no end in sight, where—unless you are very wealthy—your life is sure to feel the unpleasant impact of the war's constant hammering. Recommend this book fits in nicely with the others in this series, a little sad that mankind endeavor to colonize it's first planets, and their trip over many centuries, still can't get along and greed and ambition is humans only goal. While the rest of the Revelation Space series deals with big ticket narrative items- One existential threat to human existence, please! It’s a good thing that the main character (or characters, I guess, since Sky’s story is almost a novella in its own right) is so multi-dimensional and complex. man was asteroid mining when an alien spaceship gave her/him a tip to go to an artifact where she/ he opened a wormhole to… I don´t see much real difference, although they may certainly cut the hard science part for better and easier understanding.

There are quite a few scientists who are writing sf but (IMO) Reynolds is the best story teller and prose stylist among them. Reynolds has a good feel for characters' inner thoughts and emotions (something that is not always true of sci fi) and manages to make each distinct without resorting to gimmicky dialects and non-standard spelling, although they somehow seem a little flat at the same time. Such an interesting place, partly dominated by steampunk and primitive trade and barter economy, some areas ruled by gangs of hybrids, and wait what is lurking in the abyss. Humanity survived though, falling back onto long abandoned technology such as steam power, and the city stratified itself into two layers: The Mulch, and The Canopy.He gets thrust into a “Most Dangerous Game” hunt (as the quarry), then he gets rescued, betrays his rescuer, goes on a fact-finding mission, hooks up with his rescuer again, etc.

The main elements that distinguish Chasm City from many other space opera and cyberpunk offerings is its unique “gothic cyberpunk” feel. mirabel, my man, you are on a planet where people have their brains transplanted into animals, limbs can be regrown (including your own!The story is convoluted and action-packed, with a diverse array of characters - some human, some animal, and some other.

I picked up on it around 1/3 of the way through, and was initially disappointed, thinking that it might be a shocking twist ending that was too obvious and heavy handed. and mirabel never feels like he’s part of the impressive world that alastair reynolds sketches: a wonkily colonized galaxy, where a plague threatens all the complex nanobot-like tech that humans use to enhance themselves and enforce immortality.

He begins as an ambitious but sympathetic young man, but through various events he starts to make decisions that take him to the dark side, as he morphs into a power-hungry individual who seeks to take over the starships and destroy his rivals. In the midst of his hunt, he begins experiencing virus-induced flashbacks from the life of Sky Haussmann, the founder of his home world Sky's Edge, who is both revered and reviled for the crimes he committed for his people. The science is plausible and invariably explained as a natural part of the story, though occasionally he kept me waiting for the explanation rather longer than I wanted. He works from a fairly hard-SF mindset, so most of the tech in Chasm City is pretty plausible, ranging from nanotech ‘medichines’ in people’s blood to gigantic sub-light ships that take decades to cross the expanses between stars.