Naturally, this doesn’t mean it moves slowly on the contrary, the distances our characters have to cross are vast and the events they become entangled in numerous. To begin with, the story itself is a rather long one, spanning three books, each one being approximately six hundred pages long. Revelation Space fits into this type of mould about as perfectly as the genre’s most highly-touted works.

I think it’s reasonable to say one ought to go into an epic science-fiction novel prepared for a long-winded story which, most likely, will end on some sort of cliffhanger heralding the next work in the series. Humanity’s story might be coming to an end, but Dan Sylveste’s is just beginning. At the same time, an assassin also makes her way on-board the ship, with the express mission of killing Dan Sylveste before he can get close enough to the truth.Īs the scientist-archaeologist finds himself ensnared into a vast adventure filled with deceit and conspiracies, the real enemy is patiently waiting, observing from afar, and drifting on an unlikely collision course with the man. While he is busy piercing the mysteries of the disappeared civilization, Sylveste is recruited aboard a spaceship, the Nostalgia, to attempt to heal the captain who has contracted a deadly plague. Naturally, he comes to realize such a fate might await humanity, and sets out to try and avert it at all costs… however, he must first identify what kind of enemy he is facing. Precisely-speaking, it seems to suggest an ancient race of beings, from the planet Amarantin, was wiped out almost instantly by an encounter with infinitely superior alien technology. Dated as being over nine hundred thousand years old, it becomes a source of immense fascination for Sylveste, who begins to make some worrying discoveries in his study of the relic. The story introduces us to scientist-archaeologist Dan Sylveste and the resplendent success of his latest dig on the planet Resurgam, unveiling an alien artifact. In his novel Revelation Space, the first entry in the Revelation Space: The Inhibitor Trilogy, Alastair Reynolds takes us to a fantastical future where the colonization has already taken place, leading us on a collision course with something a whole lot more ancient than ourselves. Alastair Reynolds Creates the Inhibitor SagaĪs great as Earth might be, our efforts to milk it dry and procreate without pause all but guarantee we will one day be forced to colonize outer space.

The revelation space series