Chasm City

Alastair Reynolds’ tome ‘Chasm City’ isn’t my usual fare, but I gave it a try because it was so highly recommended by an old colleague, and I have to say, it made for enjoyable reading. The story is really two parallel stories; in the first, a professional assassin is chasing another man across a vast amount of space, from one world to another, because of murders committed in the past. The world they get to has been decimated by a virus which caused all of the various micro-machines in society, including those within buildings and bodies, to go haywire, and lawlessness now reigns. The assassin suffers from partial amnesia and his own life is gradually revealed to him quite effectively by Reynolds, and it goes far beyond simply show more recalling forgotten things. The second story from centuries before is told in flashbacks he sees possibly because of the virus, and is about how the first of those worlds was colonized by Earth, starting with a flotilla of spaceships making a multi-generational flight across space. The ships become rivals over the years, there are creepy secrets they come across in space, and the son of one of the ship’s officers grows up innocently enough at first, but turns marvelously dark along the way. The first time we see a character known as Clown advising him is truly chilling, and great.

I loved how realistic the novel was in its characters, none of which are simply good or evil, and also for humanity, who we see still being cruel to one another hundreds of years in the future. The technical advancements conceived by Reynolds have that element of truth to them, and he’s highly creative in extrapolating what advances in genetics and nanotechnology could lead to. Unfortunately he gets mired in some stilted dialogue at times, questionable character motivation, and an ending that isn’t completely satisfactory, though one part of it is very cool, and the stories do come together. Overall, quite solid, and worth reading. show less

“I’ve been sent here to kill someone who probably doesn’t deserve it, and my only justification for it is some absurd adherence to a code of honour no one here understands or even respects.”

While reading the book I was a little bothered by the protagonist's motivation which did not make a lot of sense to me. Suddenly Alastair Reynolds addressed my problem directly and things begin to fall into place. This book is a very intricately plotted sf novel with strong element of a noir thriller, but the emphasis is definitely on the sci-fi. On the face of it, the book may initially seem like a straightforward story of revenge. The main character Tanner Mirabel is chasing a man who killed his best friend and the love of his life but show more made the mistake of leaving him alive. The chase requires quite a bit of interstellar travel, part of which is even on a space elevator which brings to mind Arthur C. Clarke’s [b:The Fountains of Paradise|149049|The Fountains of Paradise|Arthur C. Clarke|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265959s/149049.jpg|734510] . The structure of the book is almost linear but not quite, as two different stands of flashback sequences are also woven into the main story arc. In lesser hands this sort of skipping back and forth along the timeline can cause a lot of confusion for the readers, but kudos to Mr. Reynolds for the clarity of his writing, even without any chapter labeling the reader is never confused.

In spite of the crime fiction influence the sci-fi aspect of the story is thankfully the strongest element. Reynolds is at the forefront of the sf genre for a reason, here is an author who is seemingly put upon the earth to write sf, it is either coded in his DNA or God is a sf fan, take your pick. While the story is not epic in scale as it mainly focuses on the protagonist’s adventures it is set in a brilliantly imagined universe. Chasm City is set in the **Rev space** universe but is not a continuation of that book. It is basically a standalone with brief mentions of some things from that book. Most of the book is set in the titular Chasm City, an amazing place where buildings and machinery are infected with a plague that infect nanomachines and mutate them into weird nightmarishly shaped things. What it does to people I will leave you to discover for yourself.

What makes Reynolds stand out from most other sf writers today is that he can spin a great yarn, he knows his science very well, and he cares about creating believable and interesting characters with real motivations. Most importantly for sf, he is extremely good at world building, creating astounding yet believable and vivid places and life forms, if you are looking for escapism he is your man.

There are quite a few scientists who are writing sf but (IMO) Reynolds is the best story teller and prose stylist among them. His characters do not simply wear white hats or black hats, they tend to have quite believable motivations. His prose is accessible without coming across as having been dumbed down for the semi-literates. He even slipped in the occasional flashes of humor, mostly through ironic dialogues, and the end of the book even includes some lyrical passages.

Who would I recommend this book to?

You.

Basically you, who is reading this review. If you are interested enough to read this review this far this book is for you! show less

Starts as a seemingly straightforward revenge story, with an assassin tracking down a target with single-minded purpose. But this Reynolds we're talking about, so of course there is an exploding space elevator and multi-year interstellar travel involved. And that's before we even get to the three (3) subplots with 3 main protagonists told in flashbacks spanning centuries, slowly revealing "shifting layers of identity and memory."

All of the expected mind-bending sci-fi elements are present in spaced, from immortal post-humans, tree snakes (snake-trees?), cyborg dolphins, a nanovirus that induces stigmata and a martyr complex, etc.

But ultimately it's a story about redemption: “How long would you have to live; how much good would you show more need to do, to compensate for one act of pure evil you’d committed as a younger man?”

Probably the best book of the entire Revelation Space series (although I still have a couple of books to go, including one that was just published this week, so the ranking may change). show less

I read this because Alistair Reynolds is my teenager's favourite author. Although it is sometimes labelled as Revelation Space book 2, they reckoned this was the best book and has the advantage of being readable as a standalone story.

Although you could summarise it as a long chase story of hunter and hunted, it is a complex and well-written page turner (and there are quite a lot of pages), the main theme of which is the nature of identity and the effects of various ways of changing it (e.g. body mods, memory implants, nanotech, DNA manipulation, immortality, reefersleep to travel through time and space).

There are three main stories, set in different times and places and it swaps between them without ever being confusing. The main one show more concerns Tanner Mirabel's attempt to track down and kill Argent Reivich for revenge. This involves leaving his home planet of Sky's Edge and travelling to Chasm City on Yellowstone, once rich and technologically advanced, but now devastated by a nanotech virus. The gap between the poor who live in the Mulch and the rich in the Canopy is extreme and the idle rich liven their lives in dangerous ways. Previously, Mirabel was an ex soldier, hired as private security/bodyguard for Cahuella, a rich arms dealer with many enemies. Cahuella, and one hunting expedition in particular, is the second thread. The third strand follows Sky Haussman and is set a couple of hundred years earlier. Sky grows up as crew on one of a flotilla of space ships sent to colonise a new world. There are rivalries within and between ships, including deaths. Obviously as the book progresses, the links between these different stories gradually emerge.

The science is plausible and invariably explained as a natural part of the story, though occasionally he kept me waiting for the explanation rather longer than I wanted. Reynolds has a good feel for characters' inner thoughts and emotions (something that is not always true of sci fi) and manages to make each distinct without resorting to gimmicky dialects and non-standard spelling, although they somehow seem a little flat at the same time. He's also very good at helping the reader visualise all the strange worlds in glorious detail - at times I could "see" it as if I was watching a film.

There were a few sections that were a little clichéd, especially the ending, which felt a little rushed after nearly 600 leisurely pages, but overall, I thought it was a very good read. show less

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?

Chasm City might be my favorite Reynolds. Here, he steps down from the cosmological stakes of Revelation Space to explore a classic noir revenge plot across three timelines.

Tanner Mirabel is a security specialist aiming to finish one last job. His mistakes lead to the deaths of his employer Caheulla and Caheulla's wife Gitta at the hands of wealthy aristocrat Reivach. Reivach is fleeing the war-torn planet of Sky's Edge for the wealth and safety of Yellowstone, the capitol system of human space, which means that Tanner has to follow.

After a classic action-packed escape from a space elevator cut by a nuclear bomb, Tanner awakens in orbit above Yellowstone and discovers several uncomfortable truths. First, he's lost his memories. Second, show more he's dreaming of the mythical founder of Sky's Edge, Sky Hausmann, likely due to infection by an indoctrinal virus. Third, Yellowstone is no longer a shining wonderland, but in the near-lightspeed transit time there, has been devastated by the nanotech Melding Plague. But even with all that has changed, there's still the mission of revenge.

Tanner gets sucked into the underworld of Chasm City, centered around a healing drug called Dream Fuel, and a deadly human hunt played by bored immortals. Meanwhile, we uncover more of Sky's journey on a generation ship, and the paranoia and crimes which led to the permanent war on Sky Edge. And Tanner explains the events back home that lead to all this.

The revelations of identity at the climax are a little a pat, and the dialogue stilted noir clichés, but something about the journey is greater than the sum of the pieces. show less

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Title: Chasm City
Series: Revelation Space #2
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 708
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis: Spoilers

Tanner Mirabel wakes up with his memories scrambled. All he really knows is that he has to track down and kill one Argent Reivich, the man who killed his boss and boss's wife. Tanner is now on Chasm City, light years from Sky's Edge and he is without allies, without money and without much show more information. Thankfully, his memory is slowly coming back.

Tanner gets involved in problems on Chasm City when he's kidnapped and used for a Hunt. The rich immortals living on Chasm City are bored and the Hunt is one way they alleviate such boredom. Between some unexpected allies and his own military background, Tanner turns the tables and suddenly has some allies, some money and some serious firepower. Unfortunately, while his memory is returning, other memories are also returning, the memories of Sky Haussman, the founder of Sky's Edge. Which is impossible as Sky was crucified and killed a LONG time ago. Maybe Tanner is just going insane.

Tanner tracks Reivich down to an asteroid where Reivich is undergoing a Deep Scan, one where he will destroy his body but upload his mind. During all of this more and more memories are returning and Tanner finds out that the real Tanner is hunting HIM. Tanner is Kahuella, a war criminal from Sky's Edge. There is a showdown between the two Tanners and “our” Tanner wins when he releases an unknown ability, the ability to bite with envenomed fangs and kills the original Tanner. ALL of “our” Tanner's memories come crashing back and he realizes he is Sky Haussman and that the dreams of Haussman he's been having aren't from a bio-plague but true memories.

Tanner chooses to remain as Tanner and start a security company on Chasm City and give the Hunt the set of rules we are familiar with from the previous book.

My Thoughts:

In-freaking-credible! I enjoyed this read so much that I'm not really sure what to focus on. The only downside I guess.

I didn't give this 5stars because I'm not sure how this will hold up to a re-read. 75% of the tension was not knowing what was going on with Tanner and his memories and now that I know, I don't know how that will affect future re-reads. And that is it.

This had everything I wanted in a good Science Fiction story. Aliens, sentient and otherwise, weapons of mass destruction and little weapons, a grand amount of fighting and death and carnage that really racks up the body count. It was very similar to a Polity novel but Alastair's style is so different from Neal Asher that there is NO mistaking the difference or feeling that you're retreading territory.

The Sky Haussman episodes felt very much like history lessons but there was enough intrigue going on that it didn't come across as boring info dumps. I have to admit though, most of the time info dumps don't bother me, except when they do. I still haven't figured out what the difference is though.

Alastair handles the time differentials skillfully. This book pretty much takes place at the same time as Revelation Space and so we get ties to make that book slightly fuller and here we find out information to make a re-read of RS richer.

Tanner makes for a great character. He's driven, has a great skill set, has a conscience and still isn't above killing people who are gunning for him. Following him as he remembers things was great fun. The whole memory thing was wicked weird, as the very idea was unsettling. If the mind can be so easily mucked around with, nothing is then sacred. But then, most materialists believe that the mind is just a series of synapses and electrical responses that can be transposed onto another medium “once we know enough”.

Apparently this was a novella first before it was expanded to this full length novel. So check the length of the one you're reading if you're not sure. I read the full novel and am not sure I'd want to try this as a novella.

★★★★½ show less