Content:

Reynold's sequel to "Revelation Space" (link) brings in "time-travel" of sorts. Not of actual objects or even people, but in form of memories and thoughts travelling from the future of a parallel universe back into the past of our own.

Mankind is having a war of its own (technologically "enhanced" vs. "all natural") while a mechanical race, whose duty it is to extinguish space-faring intelligence is setting up camp to come after mankind. Simply because some people were curious enough in the first book to trigger the alarm.

Reynolds takes human nature and fights and sets them against a meta-level. And as if that weren't enough he now introduces another meta-level: The "Inhibitors" (or "wolves") actually don't object to space-faring intelligence (getting rid of it whereever it pops up), they "trim it down" in order to guide "intelligence" itself through an even bigger catastrophe to come ...

It does move at a steady pace, this one, with different storylines joining up neatly. It does feel a bit tacky at certain times, especially the Clavain character is oddly reminding me of Perry Rhodan. But hey, it is extremely well written, holds the tension and makes you want to read the third book.

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