Miguel de Ruyter is a man with a past. Fleeing the 'wolves' - the xenocidal alien machines known as Inhibitors - he has protected his family and community from attack for forty years, sheltering in the caves of an airless, battered world called Michaelmas. The slightest hint of human activity could draw the wolves to their home, to destroy everything ... utterly. Which is how Miguel finds himself on a one-way mission with his own destructive mandate: to eliminate a passing ship, before it can bring unwanted attention down on them. Only something goes wrong. There's a lone survivor. And she knows far more about Miguel than she's letting on . . . Ranging from the depths of space to the deeps of Pattern Juggler waters, from nervous, isolated communities to the ruins of empire, this is a stealthy space opera from an author at the top of his game. Praise for Al Reynolds' Revenger 'A swashbuckling thriller' The Guardian 'A blindingly clever imagining of our solar system in the far flung future' The Sun 'A rollicking adventure yarn with action, abduction, fights and properly scary hazards' The Daily Telegraph 'By far the most enjoyable book Reynolds has ever written' SFX
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Find Inhibitor Phase Alastair Reynolds in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
11 books in catalog
Hard science fiction and sprawling space opera intersect in expansive far-future universes where real orbital mechanics, deep-time stretches, and uncompromising astrophysics shape human destiny. Welsh author Alastair Reynolds established his reputation with Revelation Space, a seminal novel that launched a dark, intricate future history spanning millennia.
Drawing directly on his professional background in astronomy, Reynolds brings scientific rigor to grand interstellar scale, creating complex narratives grounded in realistic physical constraints such as the speed of light.
Born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966, Reynolds spent his early years in Wales and Cornwall before studying physics and astronomy at Newcastle University. He went on to earn a PhD in astronomy from the University of St Andrews in Scotland.
Reynolds moved to the Netherlands in 1991 to work as a research astronomer for the European Space Agency (ESA), where he contributed to astrophysics research while writing science fiction in his spare time. After publishing his first short story, "Nunivak Snowflakes," in Interzone in 1990, he steadily built a extensive body of work before leaving ESA to become a full-time writer. He has won the British Science Fiction Award and received nominations for the Hugo Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, John W. Campbell Memorial Award, Theodore Sturgeon Award, and Locus Award.
Reynolds's writing is characterized by hard science fiction anchored in real-world physics, deep time, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and high-concept space exploration. His narratives routinely avoid faster-than-light travel, forcing starships to rely on relativistic travel across centuries and emphasizing the immense physical distances of interstellar space.
His works frequently explore themes of post-humanity, cybernetic evolution, archaeological discovery among dead alien civilizations, and existential threats to intelligence. These elements appear both in his standalone novels and across his extensive catalog of short fiction.
Revelation Space
