Pushing Ice

[ewx]

naath bought me Pushing Ice for my birthday, which I have now read.

There's some familiar Reynolds ideas - human characters encountering technology far beyond their own culture; powerful aliens with questionable motives; important off-stage action; intense personal and societal politics within the human communities.

The book opens with a chase of a moon-sized quest object, with a definite hint of Rendezvous with Rama. Success in this, however, turns out to be a highly mixed blessing, with consequences that give the story a more claustrophobic in feel than the Revelation Space series in the medium and longer terms.

There's a couple of points where I wasn't quite convinced by the actions of some of the characters. In the first example this could reasonably be put down to the viewpoint we get; in the second there is simply not enough suspicion from someone who ought to know better by that point in the story.

That aside, I stayed up far too late reading it last night, which is generally a good sign l-)