/lit/ - Literature

>>18991535
Inhibitor Phase, Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (2021)
Although Reynolds states that this can be read as a standalone, I don't think he'd want to want to say otherwise. It's true that it can be, but I think that would be decidedly inadvisable. This books draws upon thirty-one years of Revelation Space stories, though mostly it references from the last-twenty two years. If you're someone who cares about getting all the references, you'll need to have read all his previous RS works before reading this. If that's too much, then having read Great Wall of Mars, the Revelation Space Trilogy, and Chasm City should be sufficient to recognize almost all of them. This takes place between the end of the final chapter of Absolution Gap and its epilogue and at the time of Great Wall of Mars for the flashbacks.
There are noticeable differences in this as compared to the RS trilogy. While I still consider it rather bloated for how much is accomplished in around 500 pages, at least he's improved his pacing and avoided skipping parts of the plot for whatever reason he may have had in previous books. The characters still have some very silly dialogue and questionable characterizations at times, though he's become better at presenting them consistently.
The weakest part to me was the plot. It's odd in that it's more of a fantasy plot than what I'd typically consider science fiction. This isn't necessarily undesirable, but it was strange to have read it in what's often described as a "Hard SF" series, not that I'd agree with that. If this were a fantasy story, it'd be that a wizard comes to find the chosen one who has to acquire the sacred keys to unlock the forbidden temple of the gods to acquire the holy relic of power to defeat the evil overlord. It was similar to that to me, but as science fiction. I don't know how much this would matter to the average reader because the purpose of much of it is to show off tech and do fancy space things.
The best part was that finally the Inhibitors are shown in battle and are given much more detail of how they go about destroying everything than has been shown in all the past books combined probably. I would have preferred much more involvement from them, but it wasn't meant to be. If there's another book, maybe it'll be about fighting them, but I doubt it.
Rating: 3/5