Pushing Ice / Alastair Reynolds

Pushing Ice

(category: science fiction)
by

Alastair Reynolds

published by Gollancz in 2005
read in August 2009

Agamedes' rating: 6 out of 10

Agamedes' opinion:

A great book, great scope, great characters... potentially... Sure, it starts with an everyday spaceship, limited to the Solar System, and ends with a super-ship with Galactic drive -- way, way... way... in the future. But then there’s the deus ex machina device which saves the day... Okay, it fits in with the prologue and epilogue. Except... How did it get into the sealed area of space with the good guys? Then there’s the hint that there are millions of the things, just waiting to save the hero, millions of times. Yet the hero ends up still stuck inside the sealed space! Will the devices ever find her again? Who knows! Who cares? Well, it was a good enough book to care. As long as you skim quickly through the boring bit in the middle, where the two main characters spend all their time and effort not speaking to each other. Great idea, could be a tighter plot.