Excellent conclusion to the Revelation Space sequence. Brilliant story, outstanding writing for a ripping yarn. Very, very satisfying read. ( )

It had been a bit of a wait since Galactic North but now that Inhibitor Phase has arrived, was it worth the wait?

Well, ok, i'm gonna get my rant out of the way before i go any further.

To begin, we find ourselves on one of the few remaining human colonies that the Inhibitors haven't got to, that of Sun Hollow.   We're lead to believe that the people of Sun Hollow live inside a star scoured planet where resources are incredibly tight and the struggle to survive is always right on the edge.

Ok, that's fair enough.

So why, oh why, oh why the fuck, does Alastair have to put sheep farming into this already over-stretched and under-resourced ecosystem?   This is the most imbecilic thing that is possible to write into this situation.   Where, for a start, do the sheep get their feed from?   Surely, if there are resources enough to keep a viable gene pool of sheep going just so these idiots can taste mutton every day then Sun Hollow must be a paradise to live with resources and space aplenty.

I put the question to anyone who disagrees with me: how many calories of plant foods does it take to make a calorie of mutton?

And as there is absolutely no nutritional need for Homo sapiens, or any other monkey/ape to eat dead animals, why would the people of Sun Hollow be throwing good plant food (that humans do need to eat) away like this?

Yes, Alastair, you screwed up royally on this one.

Anyway, rant over.

The rest of the book is good though, picking up after the events upon Hela that we left off in Absolution Gap, we get to meet Scorpio and Aura again with a new bunch of interesting characters thrown into the mix.

And best of all is that the ending certainly leaves things well and truly open for further books in the series: which i do look forward to as long as Alastair realises that there is no place for animal agriculture in the future of humanity because Homo sapiens have no nutritional needs that can be met by eating dead animals, and animal agriculture is the biggest contributor to environmental destruction on the planet Earth so it certainly won't be part of any future space colonies that we set up, unless we want them to fail miserably. ( )

I’ve read virtually everything that Alastair Reynolds has written, enjoying almost all of it. This recently released science fiction novel takes place in the Revelation Space universe, the site of his most widely read works.

It has been a number of years since I read the Revelation Space books, and I confess to not being entirely familiar with them anymore, but luckily, this is a largely stand-alone work. While I vaguely recognized certain aspects of the backstory, failure to having read the prequels should not affect your reading experience here.

In a nutshell, the Inhibitors (wolves) have largely exterminated human life from the galaxy. Small colonies remain, only existing by remaining scrupulously well hidden. A group of human survivors is on a mission to acquire a doomsday weapon of sorts in a last gasp effort to fight off the Inhibitors. This story follows the humans through a combination of steps necessary to acquire the weapon, with the Inhibitors constantly nipping at their heels.

I found this to be one of Reynolds’s weaker efforts, especially as relates to dialog, which many times came off as forced and unrealistic. The science fiction is good, as is the case with all his work, but this was not his best effort. In the end, there is no end, as things remain unresolved. I guess there will be a sequel. ( )

After some considerable time, Alastair Reynolds returns to his Revelation Space universe with this tale of the beginning of the fight back against the technology-destroying alien Inhibitors (or 'wolves' as they are referred to throughout this book). Inhibitor Phase ticks all the boxes of his Revelation Space series, but without seeming too obvious; the book can stand alone even though there are various reveals in it. Many of the characters have pasts that earlier books covered, but it's not completely necessary to have read those books to enjoy this (but it will help). There's lots of what the Golden Age would have called "super-science", but with Reynolds, there's a reasonable expectation that there's some real world science at the bottom of it all.

Having said that, there are few surprises and a lot of plot token collecting. Conjoiner Heaven appears to have revolving doors, though they cannot be trusted to always deliver the result you expect.

Given how long it's been since there was a Revelation Space novel (in what we might call the "main sequence" of stories set in that universe; Reynolds has been returning to this universe as a whole with a recent second Prefect Dreyfus novel), it's likely that the target market for this book is the long-time Reynolds reader, who will find their memory jogged by elements in this book. I enjoyed it, though it will not be for everyone: the human race is split into a small number of isolated settlements hiding from the Inhibitors, and the action of the novel takes place against a background of humankind under threat and with no guarantee of any sort of future. The novel concludes with the outcome showing signs of hope rather than a clear-cut favourable outcome, though a glance at the timeline that Reynolds adds to the end of the book will set the tremulous reader's mind at ease.

I've looked back over some of my other reviews of earlier books in the series, and whilst at one stage I thought they were all standalone titles, I was taken by surprise by one that wasn't. A new reader might well find enough in Inhibitor Phase to pique their interest and inspire them to seek out the other books in the series, though a reader entirely new to science fiction might find the acceptance of the remarkable a bit too unlikely. Possibly one specifically for the enthusiastic Alastair Reynolds reader, then. ( )

Great book in the revelation space series from a master of science fiction. We need more books like this that have great story, characters, and science. ( )