2008-07-25 Pretty amazing, but is it classic Reynolds?

This is a great book by any standards, though I do wonder whether it's classic Reynolds. It takes place over eons of objective time, but it's really just a chase / revenge / redemption story arc - with far too much time setting the scene.

The narrative is in the first person between the two main characters and that runs as a bit of a love story. This is interspersed with the narrative of another character (no spoilers), which is intriguing at the start, then an interruption in the middle that made me stop and put the book down, until at the end it really did come together with the main story.

That in itself is telling. I felt I could easily put the book down at those points. They were coffee breaks in what is usually a full on juggernaut-type experience. The only benefit they served was that I felt I'd not sped through it and left hanging until the next novel (yes, I'm really that much of a Reynolds fan).

However I didn't get the feeling of awe that I usually do with Reynolds. Something that left me feel a little cheated or short changed. The awe creeps in with the scale of the story, though it doesn't come crashing down on you - more like one big idea and a few smaller ones that interplay than a mass of ideas that blow your mind.

It would be interesting to see whether his next work builds on this or branches out for pastures new.

Having said that, it is a finely crafted work and a smashing read. Great book, read it, enjoy it, but not the best in the Reynolds stable. For that, Amazon would need a sixth star.