anyone familiar with alastair reynolds?

[Kai Winn]

and the 'revelation space' universe of his novels? arguably the best of sf literature ever. elegant solution of the 'fermi paradox'. if there were other intelligent races out there, and they spread by as little as 1/100 of a lightyear per year, they would settle all over the whole galaxy in a mere 10 million years. the galaxy is billions of year old. so, where are they?
reynolds solves it by an unfriendly race that wipes out all the others ones who develope interstellar travel. the eventual victors of a catastrophic galaxy wide war one billion years ago which destroyed most of the habitable worlds, and produced the many gaps in the galaxy. they don't want to happen it again, and because they think long-term, measure the time in revolutions of the galaxy, they prepare for the collision of our galaxy with andromeda. they've got no issues with races that stick to their stellar system, even protect them, but expanding is frowned upon. humanity runs into them eventually.
reynolds stands out for his up to date science and sf, he read physics and astronomy before turning to writing.

 

[Timo]

Reynolds is learning, I think. The first four or five books were full of repetition, lacking in economy of expression, but at least they had great ideas. A couple of very bad ideas, too - "idiot plots" whose only purpose was to place the heroes or bystanders in situations where they would be subjected to futuristic cruelty and to as graphic torture as one can manage without illustrations.

One wonders if it will ever be possible to describe superhuman intellects through any other method besides showing them being superbly cruel to humans?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Smitty]

Yep, love me some Reynolds. I also love Peter F. Hamilton as well. I lump them together because they write huge books, spending a lot of time on world building. When I am not in a Trek mania I tackle their stuff.

 

[Kopernikus]

I wouldn't as far as calling his novels the best SF-Books ever, but Reynolds is definitely one the best current Hard-SF-Authors. My favourite of his books so far is "Century Rain", a brilliant combination of Space Opera and Alternate History.

 

[JHoffman555]

I love A.R.
I've read Revelation Space & Chasm City - plan on reading more.

 

[Steve Roby]

I've heard of him, I've read a lot of reviews of his books, I have one of them and haven't read it yet, and I wonder why this is here instead of in Science Fiction and Fantasy, where there have been a few discussions of Reynolds already.