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Pushing Ice Alastair Reynolds 9780441014019 Books

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Pushing Ice Alastair Reynolds 9780441014019 Books

I very much enjoyed reading this. It is a page turner, I think I knocked it out in two days, which is to say I could not stop reading it, even when there were other things I should have been doing...

Fantastic story, interesting concept, complex personalities, strong female roles, good pacing, and I couldn't predict the last few chapters, which is always nice.

I think my only complaint might be that it was difficult at time to recognize the giant leaps in the timeline right away, and I had to go back and reread a few pages to make sense of what just happened. A little editing there might clean this up, but it may just be me, and others won't have this issue.

The book itself is relatively clean of simple editing errors, which is a nice change of pace. I've been reading a lot of independent fiction on Amazon, and sometimes it can get in the way of enjoying a novel. I only ran across a handful of those type of errors, so nothing to worry about.


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Pushing Ice Alastair Reynolds 9780441014019 Books Reviews

Unlike most of his space opera novels, Pushing Ice is set in a different universe than the one of the Inhibitors. This gives Reynolds the freedom of a new history and new ideas, but he keeps the high speed but not FTL travel that is a hallmark of much of his space opera.

The story begins as a frame story set some thousands of years in the future, on a distant planet. The polity gathered there have done so to honor the person they consider responsible for the existence of their civilization and progress, and a debate is to be had on just what is to be done to honor her.

The story then cuts back to that founder's story, in the 21st century solar system. Bella Lind operates the Rockhopper, a ship designed to mine comets for ice in the outer solar system. Its not the easiest work and job out there. And when the Saturnian moon Janus suddenly starts acting more like a high speed alien spacecraft than a moon, the Rockhopper is dispatched to try and rendevous with it before the moon leaves the solar system. However, events conspire so that the Rockhopper is caught and trapped in the moon's wake, for a long journey in store to the star Spica...

Interesting and plausible factions aboard the rockhopper. Neat use of technology of medium-term human, far-future human, and alien technology. There are even multiple BDO (Big Dumb Objects), with Janus, and the strange complex at Spica that the moon speeds toward. It's a classic space opera part with 21st century sensibilities, and Reynolds works hard to make it work.

Sure, his characterization skills aren't as strong as some authors, but Reynolds doesn't make them into complete cardboard cutouts--characters simply aren't his forte. (I can sympathize, believe me!) Reynolds does much better when he is playing with technology and ideas than with the faction leaders Bella and Svetlana, but one must admit that if this novel was written 20 or 30 years ago, its dead certain that these two characters would have been unavoidably male. I don't think that, even then, the characterization would have improved. The female characters never feel like they are "men in drag".

Still, sometimes for a F&SF reader, nothing less than space opera will do, and despite its relatively shallow faults, I was thoroughly and completely entertained and satisfied with the journey of the Rockhopper and its crew in Pushing Ice. Fans of Reynolds will enjoy this novel. If you haven't tried any of his Inhibitor novels, Pushing Ice works very well as a standalone introduction to Reynolds work and style.
I really enjoyed this story although it has a few stylistic shortcomings in my opinion. I listened to an unabridged version on CD, and one of the stylistic problems that arose was the continual shifting or moving from one setting to another without any kind of transition. At times the story jumps ahead many years without any kind of warning. The author very deftly fills in those sudden gaps with exposition as the story unfolds, but sometimes it was a little exasperating, especially when the jump to another place or time occurs at a near climatic moment in the particular episode--almost the way TV commercials are placed at climatictic moments on re-runs of movies. Sometimes the depiction of aliens seemed a little far-fetched, such as the musk-dogs who urinate all over everything and everyone, etc. Finally, the narrator in the audio version is good, but when he is not narrating in his normal voice, it seems that everyone either has a deep, Humphrey Bogart accent, or a Russian accent, even if the character is Chineese or French. Aside from these things, it was a great story that held my interest throughout, and I was sorry to hear it come to an end. Enough so that I ordered several more of Reynold's books on CD.
First off, the pace on this novel was way too slow for me. It is well written and may keep you reading; but, dang – literally millennia go by just to flesh out one insignificant plot point after another. In the end, this novel got me thinking about some of the other books that I’ve read from Alastair Reynolds. The similarity being that there are stupendous blind spots for Reynolds’ characters. Always asking “what is going on over there?” but, never really going over there to get to the bottom of things. When and if they ever do, the novel ends and leaves you wondering what just happened. In this case, the guessing games and the epic spans of time created a bit of a yawner for me. Shooting off into the unknown with more questions than answers is how this novel starts and finishes.
I very much enjoyed reading this. It is a page turner, I think I knocked it out in two days, which is to say I could not stop reading it, even when there were other things I should have been doing...

Fantastic story, interesting concept, complex personalities, strong female roles, good pacing, and I couldn't predict the last few chapters, which is always nice.

I think my only complaint might be that it was difficult at time to recognize the giant leaps in the timeline right away, and I had to go back and reread a few pages to make sense of what just happened. A little editing there might clean this up, but it may just be me, and others won't have this issue.

The book itself is relatively clean of simple editing errors, which is a nice change of pace. I've been reading a lot of independent fiction on , and sometimes it can get in the way of enjoying a novel. I only ran across a handful of those type of errors, so nothing to worry about.