Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Chasm City

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds is a book set in a future where humanity has already moved to the stars. Tanner Mirabel, is an ex-soldier and now security specialist for a notorious crime boss on a planet called Sky's edge.

But as the book starts off, the boss is dead and Tanner is following the person who did it to get revenge. But the person he is following is leaving Sky's Edge to another system called Yellowstone, and Tanner intends to follow. Along the way Tanner gets infected with a cultist virus that makes him have visions of the long dead infamous founder of Sky's Edge and now pseudo religious figure.

The virus is something that he thinks he can deal with, and can be ignored, but soon it's interfering with his plans, both short term and long.

This was a cool book. I've read the other ones set in this universe and I wasn't planning on reading this, since it is a stand alone story, and not part of the larger Revelation Space trilogy. But I'm glad I gave it a try.

It has some twists in it that sneak up on you, and make you question your loyalty to the main character.

I would definitely recommend it.

And if you haven't read the Revelation Space Trilogy, stop what you're doing and go by all three, it's awesome. (Cautionary note, the first 80 pages of Revelation Space drag, but once you get past them, you will fall in love with the book. And the last book in the series has some weirdness that you really don't want to miss!)

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