Customer Reviews

Pushing Ice

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Pushing Ice is at its core about a fight between two close friends. The twist is that this fight takes place on a comet mining ship that is pursuing an alien artifact, the conflict between the two quickly escalates to encompass the entire crew of the ship and advanced technologies come into play as the true nature of the alien artifact is revealed. Ok, it sounds a little familiar. After the more experimental Century City, Pushing Ice is Reynold's take a crack at some of the more established themes in hard SF and does a very good job of it.

Not to say there aren't faults. Some parts of the novel, especially those dealing with the more advanced technological aspects seem pared back. Also, the novel starts slowly only to race to a finish as things get interesting. Still, at a little under 400 pages there is no dearth of material.

As with his earlier work, Pushing Ice is loaded with scienctific concepts real (relativity) and hypothetical(femtotech). What is surprising is how well this technology is integrated into the story line. Infodumps are a mainstay of hard SF and it is refreshing to see it handled so well here. Another well handled device is to have the characters and by implication the reader essentially traveling blind. There is an element of mystery and surprise present throughout the entire novel which keeps the pages turning.

For those who have enjoyed Reynolds' previous books this one will not dissapoint. For those who have not yet read his other work, this is the one to start with.

Alastair Reynolds's novels are reliably fascinating at the "big idea" level. He's got a truly first rate hard-SF imagination, and the chops to take cool ideas and reveal them via action plots, often hiding the really neat ideas convincingly until the end. He is a "light speed limit" author, and fascinated with Deep Time. And all this describes Pushing Ice quite excellently.

The novel opens with a curious prologue set 18,000 years in the future, describing an ambitious plan to celebrate the legendary Benefactor who started humanity on the road toward expansion into the Galaxy. Then we get a flashback to 2057, and the story of this Benefactor, a woman named Bella Lind. Bella is the captain of an ice mining spaceship, the Rockhopper. This ship is diverted to chase a moon of Saturn, Janus, which has suddenly accelerated and headed out of the Solar System: clearly, it's an alien artifact of some sort. Bella, however, must convince her crew to go along: it's a highly dangerous mission, and their corporate bosses do not inspire confidence. One of Bella's key links to the crew is her close friend, engineer Svetlana Borghesian.

Svetlana originally supports Bella, but when she later discovers that they have less fuel than they thought, and that the corporation seems to have been hiding his fact, she begs for a turnaround, and turns against Bella when she refuses. This sets up the central human conflict of the story, between Bella and Svetlana, who oscillate as leaders of the expedition over time. And what about the expedition? Eventually they reach a point of no return, and they are forced to essentially colonize Janus, while trying to unlock its secrets. Janus is traveling towards a Structure around the star Spica, 260 light years distant, which means a long journey is ahead of them. And in the end this journey turns out to be unimaginably longer than they can ever have expected.

Pushing Ice gives us a dramatic, though not to my mind entirely convincing, human story of the conflict between the two women and their factions. Both have some reason for their actions, but both also do terrible things, commit tremendous betrayals. At the same time we are given a tense story of survival in an alien environment, which I found interesting but again not quite convincing. And finally we have a story about contact and communication with aliens, embroilment in inscrutable alien politics, and at the end, a story of confronting truly Deep Time, the very far future. This, to me, works best of all: the payoff here is very effective, mysterious and awe-inspiring.

I've been known to suggest that Reynolds's novels are a bit too long, and this one is as long as his others, but I must say that I was gripped throughout. There's a lot going on: a lot of neat SFnal ideas, some "small" in the sense of being fairly near future technological speculation, and others "big" in the sense of dealing with the ultimate fate of intelligent races. It's not perfect: I've already quibbled about a couple of things, and I have to say that I could not quite believe in the main characters, even though I did manage to care for them. But it is, well... cool, and it pushes my SF reader buttons just right.

After his hugely successful debut quartet (Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, and Absolution Gap) Alastair Reynolds has begun widening his range. Century Rain and his latest, Pushing Ice, are set in different universes from each other, and from the shared universe of the first four books. And whereas Century Rain takes place at a time intermediate between the present and that of Revelation Space, Pushing Ice starts in the near future - 2057, to be precise. As to where it ends... well, that would be telling.

The action begins when Janus, one of Saturn's moons, mysteriously leaves orbit and accelerates towards the edge of the Solar System. The only vehicle in position to intercept its path is the nuclear-powered mining ship Rockhopper, with its crew of 145 captained by Bella Lind. At the request of Deepshaft, the owners, Bella asks the crew if they are willing to take the unknowable risks involved. Swayed by the promise of huge bonuses, a majority votes to go for it, and the chase is on. But instead of three days of high acceleration, a week of observation, and laughing all the way home to the bank, they soon find themselves fighting for their lives.

It would be wrong to give away any more of the plot, as its effectiveness rests largely on a series of surprises that go on right to the end of the book. Suffice it to say that, while slowly but steadily building up the tension and introducing us to a wide cast of characters, Reynolds weaves in some fascinating technical ideas - from an effective method of freezing dying people for future resuscitation to the potential implications of femtotech (a step beyond nanotech) and relativistic time compression. Watch out, too, for some mind-boggling aliens: in 45 years of reading SF, I have never come across anything quite like the Musk Dogs or the Fountainheads.

Other reviewers seem to have been disappointed at the obvious differences between Pushing Ice and Reynolds' first four books. It seems to me that these are the inevitable consequences of his decision to tackle a near-future scenario, along with slightly greater emphasis on characterisation and social relationships. The people of Absolution Gap, for example, are so alien to us - what with their nanotech implants and exotic lifestyles - that it is difficult to empathise with them. Hard SF writers are always being criticised for neglecting the "wetware element", but often their attempts to introduce it backfire badly. Reynolds does pretty well, I think: his people are believable, well differentiated, and easy to like or dislike. All in all, I still think he is the best SF writer active today, and this book is a worthy successor to his previous work. It certainly isn't Jane Austen, and it won't suit readers who want a brisk, action-packed, 200-page novel; but it is ideal for those of us who love to get stuck into a long, detailed SF saga.

"Pushing Ice" tells the tale of a ship and its crew, originally meant to be harvesting comets, instead pulled along by an alien artifact to destinations and times unknown. The central relationship in the book is that of two women; acting captain Bella Lind and chief engineer Svetlana Barseghian. As the ship and its crew advance into the unknown, their relationship, both good and bad (and completely non-romantic) will define the future of the crew.

This book is well written, and where it is SF it is great, although there are a few plot holes that Mr. Reynolds left in there. However, there aren't many and they are easy to overlook/forgive. However, in the human interaction side of the story, things seem very forced and melodramatic, not particularly believable. Certain things tie up too neatly, and some characters behave too predictably.

Overall this is an enjoyable book, but unlike many of the reviews I read, I would describe it as "not all that and a bag of chips."

Very nice near-future "hard" SF, the kind you don't see much of anymore. The science is solid enough for most fans to adequately suspend disbelief. The level of technology is not so displaced from our own that you can't relate, a problem I have had with some of Reynolds' other works.

I, too, thought the main relationship theme was a bit overused. Most of it did add to the story, but after the halfway point it seemed more of a contrivance.

I would have liked to have seen the main alien race fleshed out more, and some solid conclusions arrived at concerning their motives. I suppose if you're setting up for a series some of that is to be expected.

All in all a great read. The best from this author since Chasm City.

Alastair Reynolds is excellent, sometimes brilliant, when it comes to science. Unfortunately he doesn't understand people as well as he understands physics. In his books "Revelation Space" and "Redemption Ark" the characters tend to lack depth and be a little two dimensional, but not so much that it interferes with the story. In "Pushing Ice", however, the characters make it very difficult to enjoy the book. The characters do things which are so incredibly stupid that you almost want them all to die. And it's not as if a character was written with a flaw that causes them to make a poor decision. Mr Reynolds needs to get the plot from point A to point B, and instead of thinking of a really clever way to make the transition, as he has in some of his other books, he makes a character do something completely retarded.
I really enjoy Mr Reynolds' books, and regret giving this one a bad review. But not as much as I regret the huge flaws in "Pushing Ice". Read "Revelation Space" instead, it is an excellent book.

I've enjoyed Alastair Reynolds' books since I stumbled upon Revelation Space. I was a bit disappointed by Century Rain - partly because I just wanted more in the Revelation Space series... partly because it didn't live up to the promise of Reynolds' earlier books. I enjoyed reading it, but not as much as I'd hoped.

Pushing Ice is an improvement... it's a good solid epic space story. Reynolds has a knack for good ideas and good characters, and it shows in Pushing Ice. There's a particular conflict in the story that doesn't quite work for me; unfortunately it's central to the plot, but it felt a bit forced (like these people should have known better). I could have done with a bit more explanation/exploration of the bigger picture, too. Regardless, I really enjoyed the story and am looking forward to his next book.

For the most part I enjoy hard science fiction novels like this. But this one was hard going. A celestial object, thought to be the small moon of Saturn- Janus, suddenly takes off, leaving the solar system in a hurry. Long range scans and the the sudden acceleration reveal that the object is some type of alien artifact. The crew of Rockhopper, a giant ice mining spaceship, is assigned to rendevous with the mysterious object. This assignment comes because they are the only ship that can possibly catch up with the unknown artifact.

The crew is divided as to the proper course of action. Some believe that they will expend so much fuel that they will be unable to return to earth. Tensions mount as they arrive at the point of no return. the female Captain, Bella insists that they push ahead while one her top engineers, Svetlana believes that their earth handlers are deliberately misleading them as to their chances to make a return journey home. Eventually they become stranded on this alien worldlet. And they have a long journey, many light years ahead of them. This middle portion of the book reminds me of the Garden of Rama saga as they are stranded on a huge alien space vehicle whose purpose is a total mystery.

During this long journey the large crew is divided into 2 factions, supportive of either Bella or Svetlana. In order to survive the crew must unlock the secrets of Janus. All of this is an interesting big concept sci fi stuff. The trouble is the character development is so poor I lost interest in the plight of crew. Many key elements that should lead to character building are only briefly mentioned. For instance the author only casually mentions the birth of children on Janus and only briefly mentions how and why a murder was committed. The narrative concerning the scientific study of Janus is well detailed but there is much less of the important dialog that makes the reader care about the main characters.

There's a great sci-fi story in here. If someone were to sit and spin the outline over the watercooler, it'd sound like a must-read. But despite all the character building, when it comes to crunch time, Reynolds downs crafting tools and merely brutalizes the characters like an [...]with sock puppets.

This book does have some of the cant-put-down qualities of Rama, calling it a space opera doesn't do some of the long, delightful sci-fi segments justice, but when the author intervenes to bully the characters into plot-conformance, I had to leave the book for several days until I could pretend those pages never happened.

Pushing Ice (2005) is a standalone SF novel. In the far future, eighteen millennia from now, some descendents of the Terran species were trying to establish a suitable memorial for their political organization. Some suggested a fountain or other public work. Chromis Pasqueflower Bowerbird proposed sending messages to the Benefactor, wherever she might be, by scattering artifacts to all possible locations.

In this novel, Bella Lind is Captain and manager of the Rockhopper, a comet chaser owned by Deepshaft Corporation. She has called a special meeting of her top staff to discuss a new assignment from corporate headquarters. The United Economic Entities has requested that the company send the ship to chase Janus.

The former moon of Saturn has left orbit and is accelerating out of the system, Its trajectory indicates that it is heading toward Spica. Synthetic aperture images suggest the presence of a very large Structure in that system.

Rockhopper is the only vessel capable to intersecting with the former moon. At the most, it would only have enough fuel to follow the moon for five days before decelerating and returning to the inner planets. The UEE is convinced that this effort could pay off big in new scientific paradigms.

Svetlana Bardeghian is head of the engineering staff on the Rockhopper. She becomes suspicious about the fuel supply after noticing a glitch in the monitoring equipment. She checks the onboard message buffers and finds a discrepancy. Apparently Deepshaft is manipulating the data and lying to the Rockhopper crew about the available fuel.

Svetlana takes this information to her boss, but Bella insists on checking back with headquarters. Naturally, the suits suggest that Svetlana has gone loopy and ask that the buffer data be rechecked. When that data confirms the earlier corporate statements, Bella puts Svetlana under house arrest.

Then Janus changes its propulsive mode once it is far enough from the Solar System. Now it is using some sort of frameshift drive and dragging Rockhopper along in its slipstream. They are going to Spica unless they decelerate out of its frame.

In this story, Bella begins to believe Svetlana and decides to tag along with Janus rather than risking the return attempt. Craig Schrope -- the new second in command -- leads a mutiny against Bella in order to return the ship to its owners. Then another crewmember turns the tables on the mutineers and restores Bella as commander.

Janus is actually a large machine camouflaged as an ice moon. During its flight, the ice melts or falls away from the bow surface, exposing large machines, lava rivers and other inexplicable artifacts. The crew members land the Rockhopper in an excavated cradle on the ice at the stern and build a hamlet around it.

Traveling at almost the speed of light, Janus will take about thirteen shipboard years to reach the Structure at Spica. Yet the moon doesn't decelerate when they get close. Instead, it builds a shell completely around the moon.

Shortly after they should have reached the Structure, seismic sensors record a shock toward the stern of the moon. Afterward, alien things appear to many of the crew in the vicinity of the seismic event. Several searches of the area are made, but nothing is found until a lander overflies the area.

A circular piece is discovered on the ice within a shallow crater. The thing seems to be inert. Searching the shell above the crater, they find a hole to the outside. Apparently someone, or something, has cut their way into the shell.

This story tells of the factions on Janus and their efforts to survive. Some of the machinery is adapted to generate power, but strange things happen to people within the machinery. Although they make themselves comfortable, tension becomes a way of life.

After the aliens arrive, the Rockhopper crew begins to learn more about their surroundings. The Fountainheads are not the only aliens within the Structure. Then Bella touches an ancient artifact and the image of Chromis Pasqueflower Bowerbird appears before her as a hallucination. Her worldview has to undergo another change.

The tale is enthralling most of the time, but the emotional reactions of the crew can drive the reader to distraction. Several times I had to put down the book and do other activities for a while. It was well worth the reading, but it was aggravating at times.

Recommended for Reynolds fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of the far future, alien cultures, and human politics.

-Arthur W. Jordin