Century Rain

Absolutely Brilliant!

I've voraciously consumed science fiction since I was a teenager (that's a long time) and Century Rain ranks up there with the best. The concept that Alastair Reynolds bases this novel on will twist your brain inside out as you begin to understand the reality he has created. While this is the first work of Reynolds that I've come across, I feel quite comfortable in saying that I believe he is absolutely brilliant and now I'm looking forward to reading all his other works.

Excuse me, but I am a fan.

I bought the paperback book and after reading it I loaned it out twice but only got it back once. Thus I now have the Nook copy and have read it multiple times. Noir meets SciFi. 1959 and the 23rd century meet in a blaze of nano tech war attempting to destroy all life on earth for a home for future life. What does it matter if 3 Billion people lose their lives in the process? All that stand in the way are one descraced archeologist and a jazz musician.

Sci-fi with a twist!

This novel lives on it's excellent characters. There is a big shocker in the plot but is logical and well done. Read this book out of all his if you only read one. It's the best!

sigh....

For a post-spike nano society, nothing is different nothing is interesting. It's more of a laudite scream than anything else.

No Action, No Plot, No Interest

I have been a moderate fan of Reynold's previous works. I am not a fan of this one. I slogged my way through two-thirds of it, waiting for something of interest to occur. Instead, I got endless scenes from a semi-scientific soap opera (not space opera) in which the action (what there was of it) flowed like...well, it didn't flow at all. It just sort of laid there. I cannot recall the last time I did not finish a book. With this one, I fervently wish that I had stopped sooner. Authors are supposed to asiduously push the story forward. It is apparent that this story was much too heavy for Mr. Reynolds to move at all.

Best SciFi Book this Century?

I did not want this book to end, but it did, as surely all must, and it ended in the way I like stories to end. Vague. Uncertain. So persuasive and delightful is the fiction of Alastair Reynolds, that he places you three hundred years in the future and then like a loving parent gently pushing a child on a swing, moves you back to a 1959 that never knew World War II and at once, you are irretrievably hooked and flying high above his pair of fantasy worlds. One reason I love science fiction, is that while there is sometimes romance, there is little physical face-to-face lovemaking. For that, I can go to the Internet. As I began reading this five hundred and three paged hardback, thinking I missed something, some explanation of what was happening, or had happened, I kept retracing my steps to see what I had missed. But I had skimmed or skipped over no evidence. Mysteries tantalizingly exposed in the first pages of the book are slowly revealed as you float through the font covered leaves. Possibly because I did not wish this novel to end, I throttled down my reading velocity and let my mind's eye actually view the allusions while I allowed the fingers of my soul feel the richly painted tapestries author Reynolds created for his readers: 'The river flowing sluggishly under the Pont de la Concorde was flat and gray, like worn-out linoleum.' In Century Rain, the Earth has been made uninhabitable due to ocean-sized swarms of nanobots similar to those wrote about in Michael Chrichton's book Prey. Once again, Alastair's Ph.D. in astronomy comes shining through as he writes of a situation impossible for us to know, but plausible enough for someone as familiar with physics as me to buy into. How this gifted man arrives at these scenarios (as Stephen King reveals) he probably does not even know. This is one of the best SciFi books I have ever read. Period.

Unbelievable!

I've raced through all of his others, including the short stories, and Century Rain is on par with his best. The last 200 pages of unbelievable plot twists and revelations made me feel as if on a ride with no control. I don't know where Reynolds gets his ideas, but if you are fan, this is a MUST read. If you are new to Reynolds, start with Chasm City first.

Highly Reccommended

Intelligent, thought-provoking and mesmerizing! Since, as an avid sci-fi reader, I can't tolerate the 'reviewers' who reiterate the synopsis on the dust jackets, let me succinctly state that fans of Alastair Reynolds will not be disappointed and readers new to his work will have found a new 'must-have' author. I sincerely hope he revisits these worlds.

exciting mixing of an Urban Noir inside a fabulous quantum physics SF thriller

Not long after the end of World War II, American jazz musician Wendell Floyd came to Paris to play. Though he had some gigs, he and his band partner Andre Custine earn their keep as private investigators. French landlord Blanchard hires them to investigate the death of a tenant Susan White; the cops declared her death a suicide or accident, but their current client believes a homicide occurred. --- Three hundred years later, the earth is a frozen wasteland devastated by the twenty-third century technological calamity the Nanocaust. Archeologist Verity Augur leads a dig beneath the icy landscape of Paris until an assistant is killed during the excavation. Verity expects to be blamed and her career aborted when the tribunal hearing rules. Still, she keeps working as the bureaucracy is slow to begin the inquiry. Soon she finds ¿threads¿ that tie her present to 1950s Paris and the route to arrive in this warmer upbeat city. There she meets Wendell; they quickly realize they need one another to solve their respective scenarios; neither expected nor prepared for an overarching revelation that they find in the Paris Metro that could destroy space occupying both worlds. --- CENTURY RAIN is an exciting mixing of an Urban Noir inside a fabulous quantum physics based science fiction thriller. The story line is action-packed, moving back and forth between the ages but mostly commingling in the 1950s. Wendell and Verity are a fine pairing while the support cast enhances understanding of both ages and the string that bounds time and place. The set up for the finale is so good that a wonderfully developed finish feels almost anti-climatic as Alastair Reynolds is at his best.--- Harriet Klausner

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