Absolution Gap

Table of Contents

 

 

One of the Best Science Fiction Novels of the Year,
Locus
One of the Top Ten Science Fiction Novels of the Year,
SF Site

 

“Reynolds’s plot rapidly builds momentum, hurtling to a stunning conclusion. Cinematic imagery and strong characters ably carry this juggernaut of a story, with Big Ideas strewn about like pebbles on a beach.”
—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

 

“A book of great fascination, rich description, and memorable action.”
—Locus

 

“Reynolds writes a lean and muscular prose where the intense action scenes are leavened with the kind of bright, shining, mind-boggling science talk that characterizes the best of post-modern space opera (Gregs Bear, Benford, and Egan come to mind as prior instances of such quantum poetry) . . . One of the archetypical SF pleasures of Reynolds’s brand of space opera [is] the sense of pushing the envelope of conceptualization till it rips.”—Paul Di Filippo,
Science Fiction Weekly

 

“Features complex political intrigue, space battles, and intellectual challenges. A good choice.”
—Library Journal

 

“At a time when large-scale SF is flourishing,
Absolution Gap
is as good as it gets and should solidify Alastair Reynolds’s reputation as one of the best hard SF writers in the field.”

 

“An entertaining science fiction tale . . . The story line contains several brilliantly developed concepts . . . an intriguing look at religion, war, societies, and economics in outer space.”

 

“Fascinating technology, a titanic plot, and beautiful ambience . . . Captivating . . . a supremely entertaining book. It’s got everything you’d want in a hard sci-fi novel.”
—Dragonsworn

Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year,
Chronicle
One of the Best Science Fiction Novels of the Year,
Locus

 

“The best of the new breed of space opera. Wild action on a grand scale spans well-imagined and developed worlds—bold and new with sharply defined differences in both characters and the changed definitions of humanity.”
—The Denver Post

 

“Clearly one of the year’s major science fiction novels . . . The book Reynolds’s readers have been waiting for.”
—Locus

 

“Political snarking worthy of Graham Greene.”

 

“Reynolds’s sequel . . . features intense personal drama and large-scale scenes of space warfare. Told with skill and an attention to detail.”
—Library Journal

 

“Alastair Reynolds’s work is hard-science fiction at its best. Full of suspense, great characters, and science.”

—The Olympian
(Olympia, WA)

 

“A terrific story. Alastair Reynolds is one of the most interesting writers of hard SF today, easily ranking with Greg Benford, Stephen Baxter, and Ken MacLeod.”
—SFRA Review

 

“A large, sprawling tale of war, politics, ideology, and alien invasion. Skilled narrative technique and well-developed characters make this a novel most readers will find absorbing.”
—Booklist

Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year,
Chronicle
One of the Best First Novels of the Year,
Locus

 

“A terrific treat. I was hooked from page one . . . Ferociously intelligent and imbued with a chilling logic—it may really be like this Out There.”

—
Stephen Baxter, coauthor of
The Light of Other Days

 

“Intensely compelling; darkly intelligent; hugely ambitious.”
—
Paul J. McAuley, author of
Ancients of Days

 

“This distant-past/far-future, hard sci-fi tour de force probes a galaxy-wide enigma: Why does spacefaring humanity encounter so few remnants of intelligent life? . . . Clearly intoxicated by cutting-edge scientific research—in bioengineering, space physics, cybernetics—Reynolds spins a ravishingly inventive tale of intrigue . . . Reynolds’s vision of a future dominated by artificial intelligence trembles with the ultimate cold of the dark between the stars.”

 

“An inventive, wide-ranging, fascinating, and exciting space adventure . . . The best first novel I’ve ever read since
A Canticle for Lebowitz
.”

—
Don D’Ammassa,
Science Fiction Chronicle

 

“A striking first novel. Reynolds is the next writer to watch in the resurrection of the conceptually intelligent space opera.”
—
Gary Wolfe,
Locus

 

“Reynolds does not lack in big ideas . . . awe-inspiring . . . cutting-edge and convincingly rendered.”
—SF Site

REVELATION SPACE
CHASM CITY
REDEMPTION ARK
ABSOLUTION GAP
DIAMOND DOGS, TURQUOISE DAYS
CENTURY RAIN

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
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(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

ABSOLUTION GAP

 

An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

 

Copyright © 2003 by Alastair Reynolds.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-440-67816-5

 

ACE
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

 

For my Grandparents.

“The Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”

SIR JAMES JEANS

She stands alone at the jetty’s end, watching the sky. In the moonlight, the planked boarding of the jetty is a shimmering silver-blue ribbon reaching back to shore. The sea is ink-black, lapping calmly against the jetty’s supports. Across the bay, out towards the western horizon, there are patches of luminosity: smudges of twinkling pastel-green, as if a fleet of galleons has gone down with all lights ablaze.

She is clothed, if that is the word, in a white cloud of mechanical butterflies. She urges them to draw closer, their wings meshing tight. They form themselves into a kind of armour. It is not that she is cold—the evening breeze is warm and freighted with the faint, exotic tang of distant islands—but that she feels vulnerable, sensing the scrutiny of something vaster and older than she. Had she arrived a month earlier, when there were still tens of thousands of people on this planet, she doubted that the sea would have paid her this much attention. But the islands are all abandoned now, save for a handful of stubborn laggards, or newly arrived latecomers like herself. She is something new here—or, rather, something that has been away for a great while—and her chemical signal is awakening the sea. The smudges of light across the bay have appeared since her descent. It is not coincidence.

After all this time, the sea still remembers her.

“We should go now,” her protector calls, his voice reaching her from the black wedge of land where he waits, leaning impatiently on his stick. “It isn’t safe, now that they’ve stopped shepherding the ring.”

The ring, yes: she sees it now, bisecting the sky like an exaggerated, heavy-handed rendition of the Milky Way. It spangles and glimmers: countless flinty chips of rubble catching the light from the closer sun. When she arrived, the planetary authorities were still maintaining it: every few minutes or so, she would see the pink glint of a steering rocket as one of the drones boosted the orbit of a piece of debris, keeping it from grazing the planet’s atmosphere and falling into the sea. She understood that the locals made wishes on the glints. They were no more superstitious than any of the other planet dwellers she had met, but they understood the utter fragility of their world—that without the glints there was no future. It would have cost the authorities nothing to continue shepherding the ring: the self-repairing drones had been performing the same mindless task for four hundred years, ever since the resettlement. Turning them off had been a purely symbolic gesture, designed to encourage the evacuation.