Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds

Pushing Ice - Alastair Reynolds

It’s been a while since I’ve read astronomer turned scifi author Alaster Reynolds. I loved his earlier books (Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Absolution Gap, and Diamond Dogs/Turquoise Days), although Chasm City didn’t really do it for me. So I was excited when I saw Pushing Ice in a local book store.

Pushing Ice is about a crew of comet miners (or more actually comet harvesters (Although why the comets are actually harvested is never really explained. It is probably just such a standard science fiction theme that it doesn’t really need elaboration)) who are the only ones that are in position to get a close look at Saturn’s moon Janus when it begins accelerating out of the solar system under some unknown means.

While I won’t go to far into the plot, let me just say this is a story that Reynold’s talents are really suited for. The affects or relativity, long term space travel, work in a near vacuum, nanotechnology and first contact are all dealt with. And few people do really hard scifi as well as Reynolds in my opinion. My one gripe is that some of the characters are a little flat and some of the dialog seems forced. But none of this takes away from a really great read. I pounded this book down in 4 days (which is pretty good for my old rear end).

So if you’ve never read any Alister Reynolds, this would not be a bad introduction (although I would recommend Revelation Space as the best introduction to Reynolds). I’d recommend this book to anyone looking for some a good novel with some interesting ideas.