Chasm City (2001)

This book seemed somewhat longer than needed.
Good space opera.I didn't like the end at all, but I enjoyed the travel enough. The passages featuring Sky were great. ( )

Okay. So. Much like Revelation Space, this was excellent and gripping, but I'm at the end still not really sure why things happened.

Amazing first chapter. Chasm City has a lot of potential. I wish we saw more of the Melding Plague and more noir of the city--it was mostly just a boring Running Man for the time we were there, and no matter how hard a place it is, Tanner seemed to get through it effortlessly.

The flashbacks were way more interesting than the present--there was one notable flashback that was more than a book's worth of fascinating exposition, and hopefully something AR explores in the books to come.

Say it with me now, Nameless Ones: What can change the nature of a man? ( )

Þessi saga Reynolds markar upphaf komu mannkyns til tveggja sólkerfa. Hún er sögð frá sjónarhorni manns sem er í hefndarleiðangri vegna þess sem virðist morðs á ástkonu hans. Hann glímir hins vegar við gloppótt minni og eftir því sem á líður söguna þá verður honum ljóst að ævisaga hans stenst ekki auk þess sem hann á æ meiri aðgang að þversagnarkenndum minningum og upplýsingum sem engum öðrum eru ljósar.
Um leið og Reynolds byggir upp heimsmyndina sem er grunnurinn að Revelation Space heiminum sem er í annarri seríu skoðar hann framlengingu lífs, kosti þess og galla. Ef auðugasti hluti manna á kost á eilífu lífi án hættu á dauða, hvers virði verður lífið þá? ( )

This is a tough book for me to evaluate, let alone 'rate,' given its chimeric nature and all the prior, comprehensive reviews. That it is a stand-alone novel within Reynolds' Revelation Space Universe further complicates my perceptions, since "Chasm City" adds crucial background and definition to the entire world setting while sitting outside of any of the other salient storylines. Ultimately, the overwhelming foreknowledge that I'll _want_ to reread this book bumps my call up to the full 5 stars.

First and foremost, "Chasm City" is an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink novel, cobbling together a laundry list of SF tropes into a noir-gumshoe, mistaken-identity, gangster-land snipe hunt. This could have gone horribly awry a thousand different ways, but Reynolds' attention to detail and clean prose keep the reader from getting lost; the increasingly-unreliable narrator makes the reader more and more invested as one progresses, needing to find out what the hell is going on. That we finally get to the bottom [smirk] of the Melding Plague so central to RevSpace doings makes me see how much I now need to reread "Revelation Space" itself, since it chronologically occurs just subsequent to "CC" and both Yellowstone (the world) and the Sylveste clan are just tossed at you cold in that book.

As a recommendation, this might be the gateway novel for readers not already familiar with Reynolds' oeuvre, though it does take some patience and persistence to consume. ( )

A 3.5 is more accurate.

Did not find it as enjoyable as Revelation Space (I probably am more of a sucker for big ideas, cosmic horror, and existential dread). It also really slogged through the middle and the reveal was sorta dragged out (much like a good deal of the book). But all in all, it’s still a good read. ( )