In Alastair Reynolds's Pushing Ice, a mining spaceship is ordered to investigate an odd orbital deviation in one of Saturn's moons. But as the ship approaches, the moon suddenly takes off, dragging the ship in its inertial wake. The ship and its unfortunate crew end up light-years away from home in an astonishing alien construct: a vast "web" of tubes as large as a galaxy. And they are not alone.

I read Pushing Ice months ago. I no longer remember its story or its large cast of characters in any detail. But I cannot shake its unforgettable invention. The crew's exploration of the not-quite-a-moon and their alien prison is filled with the same delicious sense of exploration that made classics of such novels as Ringworld and Rendezvous with Rama. And the sheer scale of what Reynolds has imagined here is breathtaking; Pushing Ice, better than almost any novel I've read recently, conveys with perfect pitch the haunting, lonely vastness of interstellar space and the relentless progression of time.

My only major criticisms of the book are that it provides few answers for its mysteries and that, although the ending fairly screams for a sequel, none appears to be forthcoming. I'm hoping Reynolds decides to rectify both problems soon.

Copyright © 2009 Steven Wu