Skip to main content

Eversion (SF) - Alastair Reynolds *****

Alastair Reynolds has already proved himself a master of intelligent space opera such as Shadow Captain - with Eversion he enters more exotic territory, giving us an SF novel where things are much more weird and wonderful, and he succeeds equally well here.

We start Eversion on a nineteenth century sailing ship, looking for a strange fissure in the sub-Atlantic ice that is thought to lead to a vast, mysterious structure. The narrative is told from the point of view of Dr Coade, the Demeter's surgeon, along with a number of suitably disparate characters (one with a name surely intended to bring A. E. van Vogt to mind). These range from a greedy financier to an obsessively driven mathematician and cartographer, plus a titled lady who seems intent on ridiculing Coade, particularly over his attempt at writing a scientific romance.

Before long, soon after the crew discover the wreck of the Europa, the ship that was supposed to have brought back news of the walled city (or whatever the structure is), the Demeter faces disaster. From here on in things get decidedly strange: Coade is suddenly on a steam ship rounding Cape Horn, but with the same crew and the same mission.

The mystery we - and Coade - are faced with is working out what is really happening, what the vast structure is and what has happened to the crew of the Europa. This is the kind of long-lasting, puzzling, 'what the heck is going on?' scenario that occurs in some of the best of Gene Wolfe's fantasies such as Castleview and There Are Doors - but it is less often found in science fiction, and Reynolds makes a great job of dealing it.

The only problem with such an 'unwrap the multi-layered puzzle' book is how to end it. Wolfe has a tendency to not really bother, leaving it to the reader to work out. The alternative, which Reynolds uses here, is to have quite a lot of exposition at the end. I'm not sure either works perfectly - but this doesn't stop the mystery being a wonderful experience for the reader, as long as you are prepared to let go and see how things develop, rather than expect to understand everything that's happening before getting near the end.

One thing that, frustratingly, isn't fully explained is the eversion of the title - I can't sensibly describe what this refers to without giving too much away, but it's pretty much presented as a given without the reason for it happening being explored. Again, though, this doesn't get in the way of the excellent storytelling.

Overall, Reynolds paces things well and builds the mystery at the same time as giving clues that will allow some to enjoy a sense of achievement in getting ahead of the narrative - it's a beautifully constructed novel and never fails to keep the reader engaged. I'm not a natural audience for the opening period nautical setting - but it still interested me and as the situation develops and changes, the book really takes off. An excellent addition to Reynolds' impressive collection of reliably entertaining science fiction.

Hardback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin Five Way Interview

Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (born in 1999) is a distinguished composer, concert pianist, music theorist and researcher. Three of his piano CDs have been released in Germany. He started his undergraduate degree at the age of 13 in Kazakhstan, and having completed three musical doctorates in prominent Italian music institutions at the age of 20, he has mastered advanced composition techniques. In 2024 he completed a PhD in music at the University of St Andrews / Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (researching timbre-texture co-ordinate in avant- garde music), and was awarded The Silver Medal of The Worshipful Company of Musicians, London. He has held visiting affiliations at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL, and has been lecturing and giving talks internationally since the age of 13. His latest book is Quantum Mechanics and Avant Garde Music . What links quantum physics and avant-garde music? The entire book is devoted to this question. To put it briefly, there are many different link...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Bright Side - Sumit Paul-Choudhury ***

When I first saw The Bright Side (the subtitle doesn't help), I was worried it was a self-help manual, a format that rarely contains good science. In reality, Sumit Paul-Choudhury does not give us a checklist for becoming an optimist or anything similar - and there is a fair amount of science content. But to be honest, I didn't get on very well with this book. What Paul-Choudhury sets out to do is to both identify what optimism is and to assess its place in a world where we are beset with big problems such as climate change (which he goes into in some detail) that some activists position as an existential threat. This is all done in a friendly, approachable fashion. In that sense it's a classic pop-psychology title. For me, Paul-Choudhury certainly has it right about the lack of logic of extreme doom-mongers, such as Extinction Rebellion and teenage climate protestors, and his assessment of the nature of optimism seems very reasonable, if presented at a fairly overview leve...
Post a Comment
Read more

Everything is Predictable - Tom Chivers *****

There's a stereotype of computer users: Mac users are creative and cool, while PC users are businesslike and unimaginative. Less well-known is that the world of statistics has an equivalent division. Bayesians are the Mac users of the stats world, where frequentists are the PC people. This book sets out to show why Bayesians are not just cool, but also mostly right. Tom Chivers does an excellent job of giving us some historical background, then dives into two key aspects of the use of statistics. These are in science, where the standard approach is frequentist and Bayes only creeps into a few specific applications, such as the accuracy of medical tests, and in decision theory where Bayes is dominant. If this all sounds very dry and unexciting, it's quite the reverse. I admit, I love probability and statistics, and I am something of a closet Bayesian*), but Chivers' light and entertaining style means that what could have been the mathematical equivalent of debating angels on...
Post a Comment
Read more