Eversion, by Alastair Reynolds (Orbit)
Alastair Reynolds is one of my favorite writers of hard
science fiction. His stories sweep me up in adventure, mystery, and very cool
ideas. With Eversion, he’s reached new heights of complex yet rewarding
storytelling. In it, he builds mystery upon mystery, with each layer adding
connections and insights. He always “plays fair,” giving the reader everything
they need to understand the characters and the dilemmas he has thrust them into
at that moment. The book is a primer of brilliantly handled plot twists!
The story begins as a sea adventure: an 1800s expedition to
discover an enigmatic structure, “the Edifice,” deep within a fissure in the ice
cliffs of Norway. The narrator is the ship’s physician, recruited at the last
minute and therefore not on the ship’s manifest. As he performs his medical
duties, he develops relationships with the rest of the crew and passengers,
including the arrogant tycoon who’s financed the expedition, a brilliant but
tortured young mathematician, and a disturbingly flirtatious woman who seems to
have no other function than to torment the doctor. Soon, however, things go
horribly wrong. Even as the ship finds the bizarre, possibly inhuman structures
of the Edifice, it also discovers the wreckage of an earlier ship, one the tycoon
lied about… and then the doctor dies and finds himself a century later on an
airship encountering the Edifice in a different, expanded form, and the
previous ship, but with strange, fragmented memories of having been in a
similar situation before. With each iteration of an exploration gone horribly
wrong, the doctor makes new connections and comes closer to what’s really going
on, the truth beneath the narratives. It’s a gorgeous spiral of self-discovery,
tense action, and ultimate sacrifice.
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