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I felt it was a drag halfway through. I even defected to some Iain M Banks and Max Gladstone. I picked it back up and read some hundred pages. It was so good I could not take it off of my mind. I read this book at nights after winning big or losing miserably amidst my first Vegas trip and finished the last part in car, first time I've done that to any book. Which goes to show how satisfied I was with the end.

Wakes had Miller. Caliban's war had Avasarala. Abaddon's gate has Anna Volodov. A Christian priest that spoke sense amongst people who would rather see everyone around them die, and kept every grounded when whole world went tatters.

Holden - with his own start a war and help best to stop it!, pulling humanity away from annihilation yet again. Miller in his new avatar - helping Holden while investigating the scenario. Naomi the passionate brilliant tough engineer. Alex being the best at what he does - keep any squabble from eating everyone up.

But my new favorite this time was Amos - the tough guy showed his stable side on conversations with Anna and Clarissa while his toughness never gave way to not killing anyone if he wanted to.

I don't want to spoil the story. But here's the thing. A ring gets formed around Saturn at the end of Caliban's war. Formed from the raw materials in Venus mined by the alien proto-molecule we were introduced in the blockbuster that is Leviathan wakes. Collection of flotilla and Behemoth the big ship go to investigate it. What happens when they make contact and how it all ends is the story.

I can't write in English of how exactly I feel now. If I meet Daniel Abraham or Ty Franck - the two heads of James SA Corey, the first request would be - I need at least 50 books in this universe. Better get to making it happen.

I am torn between loving this book and hating it. For one, the book will be loved by fans of Iain M Banks. It will be an author's favorite. The quality of writing constantly tries to be complex, and while it falters sometimes, it comes out great when it doesn't.
Space operas nowadays are going through a change. I feel the genre is trying to take a hard look at itself - and from being a over expository, feed the reader about various parameters in every scene, to believing in the reader's aptitude and let them understand the inner workings of the story from the big picture the author explains.
Books like Leviathan Wakes and January dancer worked for me because of how distinct their characters were, and how them- coming together drives the story as it goes. But Ancillary Justice seemed one dimensional at best. The culture is distinct, but the world building is absent. Even the revealing of Raadch's culture reads not like a thread in a mystery story but like an encyclopedia. Even the big revelation at the end seemed 'meh' to me.
If it were written as a low science fiction, group of entities acting in a universe we can relate to, I feel I'd have liked it more.
The prose is .... different. Sentences like 'I was unsurprised to discover she hadn't meant it' reads as though someone purposefully tried to explain each step of the story in a convoluted manner. It is not a space opera except it has some space ships. Coming from a year full of Alastair Reynolds, James S.A Corey, Lois Mcmaster Bujold, this was a huge disappointment for me.
You might like this if : you like ins and outs of characterization, and you are a disjointed reader - you read 5 pages on the bus and 5 at lunch and another 5 on the throne, as every time you read you'll be explained about the point of the story.
You might not like this if : you love mystery, like a balance of world building and characterization, interaction, multi-dimentional personalities.

Believe me - many reviews go gaga about sentient ship and the culture. I felt it is just that. A sentient ship and a new culture.

I waited two weeks before penning this review[before which I've started reading the Redemption arc], just to let my feelings for the book sink in. I want to give Revelation Space 5 stars but there are few aspects that pulled it down to 4.5 stars.

I bought the book in early 2011, my second purchase from Amazon ever. Growing up with Jules Verne I was out of touch from reading for nearly a decade. The Mysterious Islands, Journey to the center of the earths were my everyday reads back in school. So when I got in touch of old nerd-buddies, I was strongly advised to ‘start’ back the reading habit with this. They couldn’t be more wrong and let me explain why.

Revelation Space starts off amongst three streams -a violent desert storm in the far-flung planet of Resurgam where Dan Sylveste investigates the 900,000 year old Amarantin civilization and it’s sudden extention, a mysterious incident called the Event. The Amarantians were found to have achieved great technological feats before getting wiped off from the history.

The second thread starts with the introduction of the great ship Nostalgia for Infinity, a slower-than light interstellar spaceship that visits the yellowstone in search of Sylveste.
The third thread of the novel happens in Chasm city, Yellowstone, where a professional assasin Ana Khouri gets recruited by mysterious The Mademoiselle to infiltrate Nostalgia for Infinity. The Mademoiselle is able to set a chance meeting making it appear as though it happened by chance, with one of the members of NFI, triumvir Ilia Volyova.
Rest of the story is about how the three threads combine and a great revelation at the end, a reason for Fermi paradox.

Not being a native English speaker or a trained reader patient enought to slug through hours even if the story is a drag, I lost my interest in the first 150 pages. After three years and some 100 books later, I picked it up by chance. One fine evening on the patio of Starbucks, coming into contact with Khouri, my favorite character, and Sylveste, I finished the book in another 3 sittings. I felt ‘wow’d. The concepts in the novel were very interesting, especially the explanation of highly-bio-modified Ultras and the sentient robots. I would even rate this as having a tinge of fantasy in them, the alpha and beta simulations of Calvin Sylveste, AI at different stages of sentience, and the suits that can carry a passenger to several Gs.

Alastair Reynolds’ universe is bleak and cold where humans feel less empathy than what it is now. The culture is spread out and has not reached it’s peak. Hardships and assholes are the deal of the day. People fight each other, against un-known terrors, hell class weapons and anti-matter bombs gets hidden inside eyes.

The world-building and the intricate explanation of every scene were detailed enough that it matched the best I’ve read with. I state this as it’s the author’s debut in a full-length novel. Every part of the POV character’s vision, every clatter his/her foot makes, every feel from the touches, explained. To a majority of readers this would be a overkill, but to me it was an experience- one I revisited since Dan Simmons’s Hyperion cantos.

Now comes the part I explain about the half-emptiness of the last star. Pacing- something that would’ve used an extra serving. Several times in the first half of the book it drags so slow that you would be tempted to take breaks. One scene that comes to my mind when I think of the pacing is some 10 page explanation (8000 words?) of the simulation scene that takes place at the spider room in NFI, between the Ultras and their new recruit Khouri. It was where I left stopped reading during my second try. I was much more patient reader with greater grasp for the language and sci-fi terms that I was able to slug through it. Once that piece got over, it is something else. I could picture a powerful mammoth carrying me to the destination- the end of the book, it’s foot stomp being the soundtrack with the shaking being the emotional fluctuations I felt through the story.

The last third of the book was so good that I vocally said ‘wow’ every 10 pages. The quantum computation was explained in couple of paragraphs, the LHC like concept was touched upon, and finally the revelation, where I thought – Alastair Reynolds love/hated the two pillars of Fermi paradox that this book was born. I enjoyed the epilogue very much although I’d have liked it to end with …………………[spoilers].

This is not for the reader who just finished The Old Man’s War, this is Hard sci-fi that pulls you in, twists your emotions and gives you a satisfying experience. The wordage and artful threading the story gets woven by is a satisfying and great read.