Where Alastair Reynolds's previous novel, Revelation Space felt fresh and exciting, its direct sequel Redemption Ark feels like more of the same--and not in a good way.

Those who enjoyed Revelation Space will undoubtedly find a lot to like in Redemption Ark. While there are some new characters in Redemption Ark, including many from the heretofore mysterious Conjoiner clan, the book also contains comfortable old faces--in particular, the assassin Khouri, now a powerful political figure on Resurgam, and the cold-hearted Triumvir Volyova. More importantly, the book makes good on the threats posed previously by the Inhibitors, the alien machine intelligences hell-bent on wiping out intelligent life before it can rise to galactic mischief. The story starts slowly, but it quickly redeems itself when it is revealed that the Inhibitors have been dismantling several planets in the Resurgam system in order to create a super-weapon powered by Resurgam's sun. If nothing else, Reynolds thinks big--really big.

Unfortunately, the "wow factor" that powered much of the original novel has otherwise been lost here, partially due to our familiarity with the Revelation Space universe, but also due to the smaller role that its mysteries play in the current narrative. (By contrast, Revelation Space significantly involved such bizarre natural phenomena as the Pattern Jugglers.) The story is not helped by its slow-moving and occasionally bloated nature; indeed, while Revelation Space is several hundreds of pages longer than its predecessor, it almost feels like it contains less story.

Compounding these problems is Reynolds's baffling decision to simply skip over many of the main events in the story, in much the same way that Shakespeare would kill his characters off-stage; rather than allowing us to see some awe-inspiring spectacle, Reynolds instead substitutes a post hoc summary by a witness, often told in uninspiring lines of curt dialogue. These omissions rob the narrative of much of its pull. In the most egregious example, near the end of the novel, Reynolds painstakingly details the planning going into the daring armed seizure of a four-kilometer-long lighthugger--and then skips entirely over the actual attack. (There are other examples too, including the entire conclusion.) Revelation Space definitively proved that Reynolds has the capacity to write blockbuster action scenes; that he pulls back here is a puzzling defect that he will hopefully correct in the inevitable sequel.

I don't want to give the impression that I didn't enjoy Redemption Ark: after reading Revelation Space I sought out this novel eagerly and happily consumed it in huge chunks at at time. Redemption Ark is consistently entertaining, even through its slow bits, and the warm glow of memory from Revelation Space did much to sustain my interest through Redemption Ark's rough parts. But even as I was enjoying myself, this niggling feeling grew in me that Redemption Ark was not quite as fun a novel as its predecessor, a feeling that was only confirmed as I finished the book. Perhaps, to take a charitable view, Redemption Ark is merely suffering from the inevitable lull of the middle novel (Reynolds promises to round out the series with a third book soon). If so, my opinion of Redemption Ark will no doubt improve once I view its placement in the series as a whole. Until then, however, only fans of Revelation Space should continue with this novel; just be prepared to be underwhelmed.

Copyright © 2003 Steven Wu