Revelation Space
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Hardcover edition
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| Author | Alastair Reynolds |
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| Audio read by | John Lee |
| Cover artist | Chris Moore |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Revelation Space |
| Genre | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Gollancz |
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Publication date
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2000 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) |
| Pages | 560 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 51945804 |
| Followed by | Chasm City |
Revelation Space is a 2000 science fiction space opera novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. It was the first novel set in the Revelation Space universe, although the then-unnamed universe had already been established by several published short stories.
The novel reflects Reynolds's professional background: he has a PhD in astronomy and worked for many years for the European Space Agency.
Revelation Space was short listed for the 2000 BSFA and Arthur C. Clarke Awards.
Revelation Space starts off with three seemingly unrelated narrative strands that merge as the novel progresses. This plot structure is characteristic of many of Reynolds's works.
The first strand centres around Dan Sylveste, beginning in the year 2551. Sylveste is an archaeologist excavating the remains of the long-dead Amarantin race. Over the course of decades, Sylveste learns that the Amarantin may have become technologically sophisticated before their sun destroyed life on the planet Resurgam nearly a million years prior.
The next strand centres around Ilia Volyova aboard the Nostalgia for Infinity, a large ship capable of interstellar travel. Volyova and the other members of her skeleton crew wish to find Sylveste because they believe he can help them with their captain, who has been infected with the Melding Plague, a nanotech virus that attacks human cells and machine implants to pervert them into grotesque combinations.
The third strand focuses on Ana Khouri, an assassin living on the planet Yellowstone (in the Epsilon Eridani system). Khouri is hired by a mysterious figure known as the Mademoiselle to assassinate Sylveste.
With help from the Mademoiselle, Khouri infiltrates the crew of the Nostalgia for Infinity as it reaches orbit around Yellowstone, knowing that they will then travel to Resurgam. The Nostalgia for Infinity arrives in orbit around Resurgam in 2566. Desperate to secure Sylveste's expertise to help cure her captain, Volyova and the other two members of the ship's ruling triumvirate (Sajaki and Hegazi) threaten the defenceless Resurgam civilisation, prompting its rulers to turn Sylveste over to them.
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Wikipedia