Chasm City: Alastair Reynolds

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Weather” is best read after Revelation Space, and “Grafenwalder's Bestiary” and “Nightingale” after Chasm City. Reynolds writes exciting action scenes, featuring plenty of graphic violence. But he has a prudish aversion to sex, as in the only scene hinting at love making:

Blast Out: Averted most of the time. The only bigger shoot outs occur at the end of Revelation Space and Absolution Gap and in some parts of Chasm City. Most of the action scenes avoid gunfights altogether. I am very glad he wrote this one from first-person viewpoint. I also rather enjoy the info-dumps that Reynolds puts into a lot of his stories - a plot device not used by everyone and even reviled by some, but I think it's necessary with stories of this complexity. Besides, they always appear at just the right moments and helps to avoid the frustration of wondering what's really going on that some authors make you go through. Mnemosyme: Hades, Cerberus (Greek mythology), Hela, Haldora (Norse mythology), Roc (giant bird from Persian/Oriental mythology), Zion, Ararat, Golgotha (Biblical), Fand (Irish mythology) At the end of a chapter in Absolution Gap, when Grelier mentions the alternate name of "Ginnungagap Rift" in his internal monologue.Mind Virus: Features in some of the novels. Chasm City has a virus that gives it's victims dreams of a cult leader's messiah, along with slowly altering their thoughts until they are believers. Also, several other characters make various comments about Earth history, with varying degrees of accuracy.

It also plays an important part of the plot in Chasm City, where Sky Haussmann became one of the first people treated in infancy with the unique longevity treatment that stops the aging on reaching adulthood.Legendary Carp: In "Chasm City", research involving carp produced the earliest immortality treatments. As a result, the postmortal upper class reveres carp in general, and there is also a specific carp which is also several hundred years old and therefore extra-revered. This is a really dark, kind of creepy story and Reynolds uses such evocative language through much of the book that I was surprised a couple of times while listening to look up and realize it was a nice sunny day out - in my head I was tip-toeing through ghost spaceships, diving into the mists of Chasm City, and evading hunters on the mean streets at night. There are two story lines interwoven into the novel and both are told first person. Reynolds has done a wonderful job in pulling the listener into both stories and the plot is well organized so it is easy to follow although it is rather intricate. The first person perspective in this novel can give you the willies at times - I didn't like the decisions that one of the POV characters was making as he becomes rather megalomaniacal, but I had already so identified with him that I couldn't quite stop rooting for him even while hating him. Now, THAT is creepy-good writing! In Inhibitor Phase the Slugs are revealed to have done this to the Nestbuilders at a species level. Future Slang: Hoo boy ! Reefersleep, entoptics, slush puppies, volantors, brezgatniks, Ultras, Stoners... And the list goes on. loved. However, that's just the skeleton on which a more complex plot is hung. The story unfolds in three

Scary Dogmatic Aliens: The Inhibitors live and breathe this trope and even self-justify their ultimate goals in a Well-Intentioned Extremist type of way.The Prefects try to find connections amidst the victims, but struggle to find any significant leads other than the possibility that they appear to be risk takers. At Shell House, Aliya and Marlon Voi bring up their non identical twin sons, Julius and Cabel. The boys are taught to use extraordinary powers that give them the ability to challenge democracy. However, the boys have dreams that question who they are and hint at horrors from the past. In the meantime, Garlin's machinations raise the stakes as his popularity soars, meaning others are on the brink of choosing to become independent. Garlin's true identity is revealed, and it seems the multiple and disparate threads are all connected, as the looming danger to the Glitter Band and the Prefects becomes transparent. Will they manage to survive and save the lives of thousands? Seriously, I seldom see such masterful sleight-of-hand. Reynolds pulls off a reveal both complicated and potentially corny enough that it could have ruined the entire book. As it is, it deepened my enjoyment of Chasm City immensely. Suddenly this was no longer a simple tale about a super-soldier assassin on a quest for revenge. Instead, it was about a conflicted and very broken man slowly rediscovering his identity and realizing how little he understands about himself.

Antimatter: Antimatter weapons are small, hard to get, and extremely destructive; one character has one bomb implanted in his eyes (the eyes are artificial) and could destroy a kilometre long spacecraft with a thought. Small projectile weapons firing shielded antimatter fragments are also known, but seldom used outside of serious conflicts between very well equipped parties. BFG: The Breitenbach cannon, a portable particle beam weapon similar to a light machine gun. But since the series deliberately isn't built around gun fights and actiony scenes, it makes only brief appearances. Invisible Aliens: the handful of species humanity encounters are found to do this to avoid attracting the Inhibitors. The Faceless: The shipmaster Queen Jasmina of the lighthugger Gnostic Ascension hides her true appearance by using the remote controlled clone bodies. Only Smart People May Pass: The plot of Diamond Dogs is a deconstruction of this trope and the characters.

Mysterious Antarctica / Grim Up North: Resurgam from Revelation Space and the moon Hela from Absolution Gap are a sci-fi variation of this. Diadem from the short story Glacial starts out with a characterization like this, but it gets subverted at the end. Human Popsicle: Most starship passengers, as it's either cryo or spend years or decades awake between stars.