At last

[threemonkeys]

Finally finished Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds. This is the book that has been taking me so long to get through. But even though it is 660 odd pages of small print and densely written prose, it hasn't been the book's fault that I have taken so long. The problem is my ability to concentrate. The book is a good one. It may well be Reynold's best to date. Certainly it is the most coherent all the way through which I appreciate - if it hadn't been, I almost certainly would not have finished it. I am going to have to try something lighter for the next one though. I need a break from the transhuman.

Comments

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Reynolds like most others publishing in this space these days is modern space opera - not what I would call tradiional hard SF at all - just possessing some of its trappings. I.e. space opera does not have, as you say, technology driven plots. Hard SF can be difficult to pin down however as these quotes (http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~templer/tm9.htm) illustrate.

Sheffield was (http://www.sfwa.org/News/sheffield.htm) one the last of the tradional hard SF authors around and I greatly admired his work. A couple of much beloved dinosaurs still survive in Jack Williamson and Fred Pohl but there are not many others who write hard SF. Nancy Kress (Sheffield's wife) and Jack McDevitt are the only ones which, to my mind, come close.

I don't like Hamilton - I think he writes horror novels set in a space opera setting and it does not work for me.