Eversion by Alastair Reynolds
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“A ship is a dream of whispers, the dead man said.
Whispers and dreams.
So I dreamed.”
I’ve been familiar with Alastair Reynolds through his epic high-tech Revelation Space universe.
Well, this is nothing like that.
This starts more like if “Moby Dick” (but an interesting version of it) had a literary baby with “Groundhog Day” while cheating on Jules Verne — but don’t worry, there will still be science fiction to come, although certainly not as space opera. But you still get to travel through time and space, on sailboats and steamboats and dirigibles and spaceships. The plot is a puzzle and a quest and an adventure, and even if a savvy reader manages to figure out what’s going on before the reveals, it’s still very much worth it and very clever. Nothing is as it seems.
And I loved it.
Alastair Reynolds is a very good writer. There is something crisply precise about his writing, even when stylized along the 19th century lines with a steampunk flavoring and a set of what seem to be alternate realities, all converging into a story that makes sense despite initial touch of confusion. It’s odd and weird and compelling, a story of denial and acceptance, friendship and hard ethical choices. A mind unraveling under pressure, forced to make choices that cause pain no matter how you look at that. Humanity, personhood, self-delusion, the question of what being alive means — all this is touched upon and is unexpectedly poignant.
I loved it. And I’m certainly planning to catch up with Reynolds’ back catalog since he seems to be consistently good.
4.5 stars.
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Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit Books for providing me with a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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