Chasm City - Alastair Reynolds

Chasm City might be called book 1.5 in the Revalation Space saga. That's not to say it's any less of a good read than the others in the series - far from it - but its action is independent from the others, and doesn't really advance the overarching narrative very much. This one is written in the first person, the narrator a hardboiled space assassin/bodyguard named Tanner Mirabel. Mirabel is carrying out a vendetta against the aristocratic Reivich, who is responsible for the death of his boss and his boss's wife, with whom Mirabel had something of a thing going. Mirabel travels across the galaxy to pursue his prey, and along the way becomes infected ...  Read the complete review

I reviewed Alastair Reynolds first book 'Revelation Space' some while ago and have updated that opinion to get it noticed again, it should be sitting just behind this one in my profile. I have done this for two reasons; I thought that people might want to read reviews of both books by the same reviewer back to back and I hoped that the first review would pick up some more reads. All I've done to the updated version is correct a few typos. I titled the first review 'A Revelation in Sci Fi writing? Nearly' and am now confident that this, second book in the series fulfils that earlier promise. Reynolds has achieved what so many fail to do or overdo a ...  Read the complete review