Reception
While some reviews noted flaws in characterisation and heavy expository dialogue, a common theme echoed by many reviewers centered on the sharp descriptive writing, mood, and large-scale ideas featured in the book.
Thomas M. Wagner of SF Reviews wrote that "images and bits and pieces of the novel simply would not get out of my head. This is saying something, since, with the volume of SF and fantasy I read, I do not exactly retain an eidetic memory of everything I've read that I can call up in a second or two unless the book literally bowled me over. But in the case of Revelation Space, two and three years later I still could remember the opening scene in the archaeological dig on the lonely planet of Resurgam with remarkable clarity. The dark, eerie corridors of the vast starship Nostalgia for Infinity still brought haunting images to mind."
A Dragonsworn review notes "there's plenty of beautifully scripted action sequences, and gorgeous descriptions—especially where the Nostalgia for Infinity is concerned. Reynolds paints a vivid picture of a haunting machine in decline, and a crew that may as well be ghosts."
In a Blogcritics review, Nick Barrett describes Revelation Space as "black, bleak, extremely well written, with an undercurrent of menace and increasing danger, and it's a thriller to keep you turning the pages until you lose sleep."
Read more about this topic: Revelation Space
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)