I've just tried picking this up again after a long hiatus but I'm going to have to give up and call this one unfinished. This doesn't happen to me often but I can't face reading any more.The main problem for me is the characterisation. It's all so cardboard cut-out, thrown-together stereotypes, as if stereotypes are somehow okay as long as you mix them up a bit; everyone's reasons for doing things are either underexamined or just make no sense. The only person who feels vaguely non-cardboard is

3.5 starsBy the year 2057 worldwide corporations, under the aegis of the United Earth Entities, are mining the outer solar system. One mining ship called Rockhopper..........captained by Bella Lind, extracts ice from comets. Rockhopper is going about its business when Janus, an ice moon circling Saturn, abandons its orbit and heads for outer space. As the ice sloughs off Janus's surface it's clear the 'moon' is an alien craft, perhaps put in place to spy on our solar system. Rockhopper's corpora...

DNF at 20%I was intending to keep reading until the point that some said "they really got hooked," but I don't care about this book enough to slog through another 50-60 pages. Someone dying was the highlight of my reading experience in the first 86 pages, and that doesn't seem like a great recommendation for it.I bounced hard off this. Part of it might be mood, but I think most of it is just my personal pet peeves.Here is a list:-The prologue angered me. It's about an interplanetary parliament c...

Very long time space colonization caught in time paradoxes, alien artifacts, and a literally endless battle for dominance between different fractions. A bit too much character focus that escalates toward drivel I wonder how this could have happened to Reynolds, because he usually tends to fully focus on worldbuilding or future humans´ modifications and its effects on their psychology, ideology, and, duh, physiology cyborging full throttle, but here he escalates towards redundancy. That´s especia...

This is the second Non Revelation Space universe book I've read - the first being Century Rain. I liked it more than Century Rain (Review) but not as much as the Revelation Space books.In some ways it reminds me of Absolution Gap because it involves a group of humans trying to survive in an alien environment and it was hard not make a superficial comparison between the main ship Rockhopper and Nostalgia for Infinity as far as there relegated role in both books went.The book covers mellennia

HOW HAVE I NEVER READ ANYTHING BY THIS AUTHOR BEFORE!?? WOW! What a book! I am so pleased that I have a whole lot of books by Alastair Reynolds to read now. Like finding a fortune under your mattress! I am so excited to have added another 20+ books to my TBR!It is 2057 and Bella Lind is the captain of a comet-mining vessel The Rockhopper. They get some disturbing news. One of Saturn’s moons Janus has left orbit and is on its way out of the solar system. The Rockhopper is the only ship that has t...

I'm discovering something rather odd about myself. I thought I would never like Reynold's stand-alone novels more than I liked the large-scale history and time books surrounding Revelation Space, but one after another, these books are rather blowing me away.Pushing Ice, as a title, leaves a lot to be desired. It seems... rather pedestrian for what it actually IS.Janus, one of Jupiter's moons, happens to be a spaceship. And more than that, forgive my spoilering, it's full of far-future tech (whic...

My other half kept telling me to pick this one up, but I was hesitant, simply because I don't usually read hard SF. It's her favourite Reynolds book, so I finally decided to give it a go.Pushing Ice is gripping from the very first page. Janus, one of Saturn's moons, suddenly zooms away, and of course, we give it chase. (Who wouldn't?)Janus turns out to be a spaceship in disguise, and the people giving it chase are the unfortunate souls on board of a ice miner who just happened to be the nearest

Alastair Reynolds is like a sci-fi triple threat, big “SFnal ideas”, unpredictable plot, and well developed characters, all wrapped up in very readable narrative. After reading six books by him I now feel like I can always come back to him a “reliable author” for a good reading experience. One of these days he will probably let me down badly because that always happens when I become complacent about an author but I see no sign of that so far. Pushing Ice is often cited as one of Reynolds’ best b...

This book starts 18,000 years in the future with a woman who's wanting to arrange for something to get in the hands of "the progenitor". It goes back to 2059 on the comet mining ship Rock Hopper hearing that Saturn's moon, Janus, has broken orbit and turned around, heading off into interstellar space. After polling the crew, Rock Hopper, partially at the behest of the corporation that owns them, heads after it. They hope to catch up to Janus and stay ahead of the Chinese in the process.Reynolds

I got a whiptimelash just from reading it. Vertigo-inducing experience of super-relativistic speeds and time dilation. Elusive entities, gristleships, alien structures encompassing dozens of galaxies - quirky!Now, who in their sane minds would think to trust anything to a pack of aliens calling themselves 'Musky Dogs' and engaged in consta-pissing contests? Svetlana was getting on my nerves a lot with this crap.Q:“Some promises are best broken. Trust me on this: I’m a politician.” (c)Q:‘We push

This is my favorite book by Reynolds so far. This novel demonstrates the full genius of his plotting. The main storyline focuses on a moon that has been orbiting Saturn for a very long time which suddenly disengages and heads on a destination for parts unknown. Only one ship has the chance of following and catching it and that ship is the Rockhopper- an ice mining ship. The crew is, of course, offered a generous salary and they decide to pursue the alien looking craft. This looks a lot like it w...

Yet again I am picking myself up from where I was blown away by a hard-science novel this month!; )'Pushing Ice' will be one of the most unusual generation sagas most readers have ever encountered. Hint: Einstein's Theory of Relativity is involved...Bella Lind is Captain of the Rockhopper, a mining space ship which is equipped with nuclear devices and other heavy machines for mining ice. The year is 2057. Jim Chisholm, Bella's second-in-command, is in sickbay with a newly discovered brain cancer...

Dear Alastair Reynolds,Why do I come back to your books? That's the question I kept asking myself, when reading this book.This is not to say that all of your books are absolute drivel, like this one is. And, it's true, Pushing Ice is not without some interesting ideas and speculation... that could have been explored in about half as many pages and one third the flat dialogue that one can only skim after awhile. Now, the tech you have down, and you know your science, which I very much appreciate....

In 2057, Bella Lind and her crew of comet-miner 'Rockhopper', are working when they are given a sudden mission: to trail for a few days the path of Janus, a Saturn moon that has turned out to be an alien machine, - "that's no moon!"-now moving towards the star system of Spica, 260 light years away, and it's pipe-like giant thing (that turns out to be something surpising, too). But destiny has more in mind, surprises that are all not pleasant (but we see from prologue and epilogue some benefits f...

warning : might contain slight spoilers ![7/10] this book falls about halfway between "OK" and "really like it" . Well written, but a bit verbose and light on the scientific speculative part. A lot of good ideas are only touched upon or mentioned in passing, leaving the focus of the novel on interpersonal relationships and some space opera fireworks.Of the three distinctive parts of this epic, the first - dealing with an industrial spaceship chasing after a rogue satelite - reminded me of the mo...

Very dark, claustrophobic to the limits, but one of Reynolds’ best. Although it’s pretty static in action, its scope is as colossal as we got used to. And we get some really interesting alien species as well.There is also a change in the way the story is told: in bits and pieces, with gaps between the events, on which eventually we get some answers, but mostly the reader is let to draw its own scenario; I really liked that – it put my imagination to work. Also, it is not focused on technology or...

I picked it up at a car boot sale for £1!

Review - Retcon OK. Here’s the thing. In my initial review (quite a while ago) I ranted a bit about one or two things that bothered me about Pushing Ice. Lately though, I find that the novel keeps haunting me. A lot. Since this is exceptional, I went back and had a quick glance at some of the details. While I still have an issue with some aspects of the power struggle dominating the story, I have to admit that there is quite a bit of wonder to be had from the novel. The Structure, in particul

I think this might be a good book. I just hated it. The characters are unlikeable. I can think of only one minor character in the book that didn't need a lobotomy. The rest irritated me with either their lack of depth, ridiculous pettiness, or inexplicable decision making. Beyond that, the plot was pretty boring. There is actually very little true plot. The vast majority of the wordcount describes a 100 year long grudgematch between the two main characters. That's right. An interstellar catfight...