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    Revenger
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    Revenger
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    Revenger
    Audiobook14 hours

    Revenger

    Written by Alastair Reynolds

    Narrated by Clare Corbett

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The galaxy has seen great empires rise and fall. Planets have shattered and been remade. Amongst the ruins of alien civilisations, building our own from the rubble, humanity still thrives.

    And there are vast fortunes to be made, if you know where to find them...

    Captain Rackamore and his crew do. It's their business to find the tiny, enigmatic worlds which have been hidden away, booby-trapped, surrounded with layers of protection - and to crack them open for the ancient relics and barely-remembered technologies inside. But while they ply their risky trade with integrity, not everyone is so scrupulous.

    Adrana and Fura Ness are the newest members of Rackamore's crew, signed on to save their family from bankruptcy. Only Rackamore has enemies, and there might be more waiting for them in space than adventure and fortune: the fabled and feared Bosa Sennen in particular.

    Revenger is a science fiction adventure story set in the rubble of our solar system in the dark, distant future - a tale of space pirates, buried treasure and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism... and of vengeance...

    Read by Clare Corbett

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette UK Audio
    Release dateSep 15, 2016
    ISBN9781409161530
    Unavailable
    Revenger
    Author

    Alastair Reynolds

    Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St. Andrews Universities and has a PhD in astronomy. He stopped working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency to become a full-time writer. Reynolds is a bestselling author and has been awarded the British Science Fiction award, along with being shortlisted for the Hugo Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and the Locus Award.

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    Reviews for Revenger

    3.5/5

    221 ratings20 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Or: A Young Lady's Guide To Becoming A Space BadassI'm told this isn't typical Reynolds, which is a shame as I loved it. This is hand-wavey space opera of the sort I love best, all glorious imagery and broad horizons. The set-up is practically Gothic, but the aesthetic is essentially steampunk.While I have a few minor niggles (Adrana is very inconsistent; a few things are a little too convenient; the language never does get to feel natural), I was swept away by the plot once it hit full speed. It relentlessly delivers (with interest) on ideas that are set out early on; there’s no such thing as extraneous detail. This could make it feel telegraphed, but it’s beautifully choreographed so instead I found it incredibly satisfying.Full review
    • 3/5
      The first Alastair Reynolds book I've read, and not his most popular - so I'll have to give Revelation Space a read. I enjoyed the world built in Revenger (I have a soft spot for "civ after decline" environments) where there are layers of history being peeled back as you read. The pacing is great near the beginning, with major changes in circumstances emerging within the first fifty pages. However, this pace isn't sustained - you soon find yourself lost in ten page sections details which ships watch is the most tiring. Or dozens of pages rehashing a trite "father is possessive about his kids" that you thought had been already concluded. Did the author have a bad custody battle? Whole section had a weird vibes. Also, the twist was telegraphed so clearly that it was an odd choice to have the characters not able to put the pieces together. Both twists really.
    • 2/5
      This is, I think, supposed to be a YA novel – or at least YA-ish. The narrator is a teenage girl, in a planetary system populated by billions of space habitats, and which as been colonised in waves over billions of years. It is, it must be said, a pretty cool piece of world-building. Except… it’s all a bit steampunk. The spacecraft use light-sails to travel around the system, the technology is all brass and clockwork, except for magical tech artefacts left behind by aliens from earlier waves of colonisation… One of which are the skulls. Although the alien race whose skulls they were has long since vanished, and all that remains of them are bones, the technology inside their skulls remains active, and they’re all plugged into some sort of FTL comms network. Some teenagers can eavesdrop on this network, and send signals. Both Fura Ness and her sister Adrana have this knack. Adrana, the older of the two, persuades her sister to join her in running away from their financially-ruined father and making their fortune as skull readers. They join the crew of a ship that raids “baubles”, abandoned repositories of ancient alien tech (perhaps the baubles were habitats in the distant past, it’s never entirely clear). The baubles are usually secure behind impenetrable shields, but the shields occasionally drop for short periods, and some people are able to predict when these windows of opportunity will occur and how long they will last (again, it’s never made entirely clear why the shields should do this; because plot, I guess). Unfortunately, at their first bauble, the ship is attacked by a semi-legendary pirate, Bosa Sennen, who takes Adrana to be her skull-reader, and kills everyone else. But Fura hid, and survives. She vows revenge on the pirate, but her plans are derailed when her father has her brought back home and has a doctor halt her ageing so she will remain under-age and under his control. To me, that was the most horrifying part of the whole novel – Fura imprisoned by her age and society. Of course, Fura breaks free, joins the crew of a ship, engineers an encounter with Bosa Sennen and, well, there are no real surprises at the climax. As I said, the world-building is cool, but it’s never really convincing – and the baubles reminded me of something, A Deepness in the Sky perhaps? – and I didn’t really like the faux Victoriana. Fura makes for a good protagonist, but I thought the violence over-done. There is, I believe, a sequel called Revealer, due next year or the year after. I’ll buy it, of course.
    • 4/5
      I’m a huge fan of Alastair Reynolds and would have likely given this book 5 stars except for one particlaular annoyance which I’ll get to shortly. Overall this was a much quicker read than any prior books I’ve read of Reynolds considering I finished it over the course of 2 days. In Revenger, we have a carefully crafted tale of a young girl and her sister taking on the perils of treasure hunting in space when they mean to make back money their family has lost. All this is done without their father’s permission and goes wrong almost from the outset. The pacing is just right for a pretty quick read, with plenty of little hints and tidbits of information fleshing out the main protagonist, Fura Ness, and a few other characters. The universe seems well built with lots of hints to much, much more. Even the ancillary characters and races, only half hinted at, as well as characters that never really seem one deminison is a credit to Reynolds world building. Where I had the most difficult time navigation the book was with the vernacular of the future. I had a hard time attempting to attribute what I know with what I’m being told and not all of it seems to work, which is my biggest umbrage with the story. It almost seems as if this wasn’t as carefully written as his Revelation Space series or his other stand along books. However, if you’re a fan I highly suggest the read as it was a fun ride.
    • 4/5
      I liked this! It's a novel length, but actually feels more like a novella setting out the universe for hopefully another long series! Having spent some time exploring the constraints that cyropreservation would allow on space flight journeys Reynolds turns his hand to other possibilities - ion drives and solar sails. These limit you to solar system extents more or less, but as he demonstrates, that's still a vast volume, especially when extended throughout possible time. Mankind has left Earth (or had it shattered in the past?) and moved into a Cogregation of habitats, each vast enough to be a small world in their own right, but not really planets. They've discovered they weren't the first or even the 2nd wave of inhabitants though, and currently believe they're the 13th Occupation. There are a few other existent aliens species around, but not many. Between these worlds lie Baubles - museums of alien technology protected by forcefields that occasionally drop for long enough periods that the interior is accessible. No reason is ever given for their existence, but that doesn't stop human commerce thriving on them. Anyone who can scrape together the capital and crew for a small solar sail vessel can make a living exploring them, and selling on the artefacts they find - whether or not they know what they are or how to use them. It's not a safe business, but the risks are imaginable and much lore surrounds surviving the secrets. Against this backdrop a pair of sisters run away from their father. Having determined they have the correct genetics to help read the quantum? spaceship communications technology, they think they can earn a small quick fortune to offset their family woes, and return happy and having experienced some of the wonders of Solar System. Despite having the good fortune to land on a ship with a friendly crew and better than average captain, they soon become immersed in the captain's long running squabble with pirates who lurk in the dark outer reaches. Wherever there are treasures there are those who'd rather not do the hard work of the collecting themselves. pirates in space is an old theme, but Reynolds brings new light to it by his fascinating worldbuilding and exceptional hard sf. No infodumps, no explanations, but it all works, it's all practical, and more or less possible. To be honest these are not his best characters, a bit thin in places, and motivationally naive. For all this though it remains somewhat lighter in feel than Revelation Space, and is hopefully very much a prelude to more detailed look at some of the implications raised throughout the story.
    • 2/5
      Steampunk Riff SF: "Revenger" by Alastair Reynolds I've literally just finished the book and put it down, and I'm still reeling. Two sisters go on a space quest; get separated in an atrocious event; and then one of them seeks the other as well as revenge for the said appalling event. Sound familiar? I'm just out of the latest Reynolds after the wonderful short story collection, and this latest installment confirms it once again. Reynolds should only write short fiction...In the middle of the book I couldn't give a dam about the demise of these ridiculous characters. Why would anyone one want to support something that is completely self-absorbed and inane alive just to balance gender in the publishing industry? Please. Some real intelligence here if at all possible. Nowadays we're starting to have lots of female dominated YA SF novels. No problem with that, just to compensate for the misogyny of the 40s and 50s. What I've got a problem with is when the novels are riddled with the same idiotic characters as their male counterpart novels....

      If you're into SF, you can read the rest of this review on my blog.

      SF = Speculative Fiction.
    • 3/5
      On the whole my reaction to this novel was essentially "meh;" and this is factoring in that I realized from the start that this book was YA in reading level and essentially "spring punk" in space. Not a problem in that I had enjoyed Scott Westerfeld's "Leviathan" to give one example. For whatever reasons though I just couldn't connect with the story; maybe I just didn't believe in the female protagonist, maybe I just found the made-up language deployed to be wearing very quickly. As always, your mileage may differ.
    • 3/5
      Talk about going into a book with the wrong expectations. I was in the mood for something space opera so when I stumbled across Revenger I thought I was in luck. It had a decent average rating and this was the synopsis:Revenger is a science fiction adventure story set in the rubble of our solar system in the dark, distant future--a tale of space pirates, buried treasure, and phantom weapons, of unspeakable hazards and single-minded heroism and of vengeance...I definitely should have scanned some reviews first. What the synopsis fails to mention is how incredibly YA this story is. Now I definitely like my share of YA books. Unfortunately Revenger just didn't do it for me. A big part of the problem I had was the juvenile vocabulary used by a society that was advanced enough to have figured out space travel. Lungstuff, the glowy, the grey, swirly, squaker... it took me half the book to not be taken out of the story each time those words were used, though I never really could get used to "lungstuff." The characters also never grew on me. The story follows Fura Ness as she goes from a naive, privileged rich girl to a toughened, street-wise teen who will do anything to rescue her sister. While I can understand her motivation, the character growth never felt authentic. It's rushed through and suddenly she can plan strategy better than professionals who have been pirating for their whole lives. The most interesting character for me was the story's villain, Bosa Sennan. Bosa and her ship have a whole mythology built up around them that was fun if horrifying and made the final conflict intense.What I did like, and wish there was more of, was the whole concept behind the baubles and the treasure to be found. Once we actually get to see one and start to get proper descriptions of the "loot" I started to enjoy the story. Too bad this didn't happen until the last 15% of the book. Also the final show down was action packed.I listened to the audio book narrated by Clare Corbett. It took me a good half of the book to get used to her voice. She also had a bad habit of whispering, making the narration so quiet it was hard to understand the dialog. Unless it was just the recording and not the actress? I'm not sure.
    • 5/5
      Great book. What seems to be another piece of Firefly homage turns out to be a ripper piece of space opera. Adrana and Arafura are two young girls who run away from their cosseted life and overbearing father to join the Monetta's Mourn, which travels the space surrounding the Congregation, a collection of 50 million artificial worlds huddling against the darkness between the galaxies, in search of baubles, relic planets left by ancient civilizations which contain caches of advanced technology. The girls become bone readers, able to tap into the psychic emanations emitted by a long-dead alien skull to communicate across vast distance and spy on other ships who are also hunting the most valuable baubles. Howver, any thought that this is just another comfortable Firefly clone - rackety old ship, crusty but lovable captain, crew of misfits - is turned on its head when within the first 100 pages most of the crew are slaughtered and the ship destroyed by a vicious pirate. Adrana is captured by the evil Bosa Sennen, and Fura is left to foment a plan to recover her sister and put an end to Bosa's reign of terror forever. Great writing, really rips along, strong characters, and solid creation of a believable universe. This takes Firefly homage space opera to new levels, I can't wait for the sequel
    • 4/5
      In a Alastair Reynolds style, the character building is exhaustive and doesn’t give any hints or clues of what there is to come. But the result gives the reader a longing for the characters and a thorough understanding of their thought process.

      Gave it a 4/5 because the book leaves out quite a few topics that may have been worth explaining for context.
    • 4/5
      Adventure, treasure hunting, and revenge in space. A sci-fi Pirates of the Caribbean, starring a teenage girl. A quick, exciting, and satisfying read was a bit of a departure from the hard sci-fi we’ve come to love from Reynolds. 3.5 stars, rounded up.

      The good:

      - I loved the setting: a lived in universe, filled with a civilization that constantly collapses and rebuilds. Everyone is a scavenger: it’s not even clear if the “current” civilization can even build computers (everything is handwritten!). I’m hoping Reynolds spends some more time in this universe – a more traditional Reynolds book, filled with hard science, grand scale, and intrigue, would work well here.

      - Pacing: never a dull moment.

      - The treasure hunts: I would read an entire book about people racing against time to find discarded technological artifacts in an abandon city of a bygone civilization. Kind of niche, but I’d love it.

      Some criticisms:

      - Wooden Characters: Reynolds is getting closer, but still not there. I’m not sure the perspective of a teenage girl was the best for Reynolds to adapt. Many of the supporting characters were your typical “motley crew” stereotypes

      - Not enough hard science: Narratively, it makes sense that a non-technological teenager would not spend much time of the sciencey-stuff, but I have no idea why Reynolds would shoot himself in the foot like this.

      Common, but unfair criticisms:
      - “Reynolds got paid 10 Billion Dollarz over 10 years for writing books!!! Wut a sellout!?! (gif) (meme) (meme) (one star) (did not finish the book).”

      First of all, children, [1] cool it with the media. If I wanted to scroll through 20 pages of shitty memes, I’d be wasting my lunch break on Reddit, not Goodreads.[1]

      Second, are you implying the unthinkable, that authors get paid for their work? And, gasp, that more popular ones get paid more? Have you considered the possibility that some small financial security allows the author to take risks and depart from her typical formula? I think this book is a perfect example of this: Reynolds tries something faster paced, from a new perspective. Its not perfect, but nor is it more of the same.

      [1] I wanted to quote this picture, but I know better than to make what might be interpreted as sexist remarks about the popular kids on Goodreads.
    • 4/5
      Adventure and revenge in a world of photon sailing spaceships, buccaneers seeking treasure in "baubles" from ancient civilizations, revenge and a secret quest for answersAdrana and Fura Ness are the usual bored young adult girls escaping to find adventure on the legendary Captain Rackamore's ship.  They are both Bone Readers - they use ancient skulls as communication devices in space.  They are taken by Bosa Sennen, a legendary space pirate, separated with Adrana held prisoner. Fura hides with the help of another crew member, escapes, swears she will find her sister and kill Bosa Sennen.  The technology of space travel is as realistic as possible, there are escapes, adventures, betrayals and battles, the prose is not too simple, and the plot has several turns and surprising revelations. 
    • 4/5
      The first 100 pages set the scenerio by have the 2 sisters run away from home into deep space. And then all hell breaks loose. The backround of stellar civilizations growing up and inhabiting the remnants of the many previous civilizations, only to fade away...making room for the next, is very intriguing. That it's a YA story is not to its discredit, but the intense needle-point focus on revenge leads to a very unsatisfactory ending. I'm not all that interested in reading the rest of the trilogy--but not saying I won't. If I had any hope that the good guys would remain good, I would be more interested. Meanwhile, there is plenty enough action and tension to suck you along past the corny moments.
    • 3/5
      This is my eighteenth Alastair Reynolds novel. I pretty much ordered it without doing any research, because after eighteen tries, I had yet to hit a dud (to be honest Century Rain and Slow Bullets were not great). And I would not so much label this a dud, as just different than his previous books. Turns out it is a YA title, and that is soon obvious. There is none of the outstanding hard science fiction found in his previous works. The story essentially follows two young girls who take to space in an attempt to rescue their Dad from poverty. It is very simply written and the dialogue is atrocious. For some reason, in the far future, everyone talks like a pirate.Unfortunately, I purchased all three books in the series, so will likely read them all.
    • 5/5
      This was an unexpected gem of a novel. Although its light on the science aspects of space travel, the story is engrossing. Its the story of 2 sisters who leave home to seek adventure in space. Each has the latent ability to operate an alien communication device. They are separated after their merchant ship is attacked by a legendary pirate ship and captain. One sister is captured into a life of forced labor. The other is sister believed dead and left behind on the now gutted merchant ship. The writing of this part of the novel is good.
      Its in the second part of the novel that it becomes great. The sister that is left vows to destroy the pirate captain and get back her sister. Here the story splits into 2 streams. One we watch the free sister transform herself from inexperienced spacer to a capable woman who becomes more like the pirate captain.The other stream is the story of the crew transforming a gathering of dis- heartened strangers into a true crew available for each other and to act as a team.
    • 4/5
      Meet Arafura and Adrana Ness - the 17 and 18 year old sisters who are bored from their live on Mazarile and really want to help their father through some financial difficulties. As it turns out they have an ability that is sought after from space ship captains - they can read the bones which are used for communication between ships - and that is their ticket to the stars and adventure. The Universe built by Reynolds is mysterious in this first book of the trilogy - partially because we are actually reading Arafura's story told in her own voice (we even learn how that account got to be at the end of the book) and partially because there are a lot of secrets in the universe that noone really knows. Humanity is still around although it lives on 20,000 small worlds orbiting a single sun and they had been doing it for awhile - disappearing and reappearing in Occupations - short periods of a few thousand years when there is civilization, interspersed with much longer periods where there is none. And then there are the aliens and the weird currency which keeps the economy going. The two innocent girls end up way over their heads when their ship is targeted by a pirate, Adrana is taken and Arafura manages to escape and decides to rescue her sister. It is a coming of age story wrapped into a pirate envelope and tied together with a space opera ribbon. Arafura has to grow up and lose her innocence so she can save her older sister - and she does. It should have sounded tired and old-style but somehow Reynolds pulls it off - the book is very readable and you really want to know what happens next. Technically this first book can stand alone - while almost no details of the world are revealed, most of the questions are not even asked.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed and look forward to more but at the same time it felt like there was a lot to explore early then it just got to the climax and was done. The characters were interesting and many of the crews seemed interesting but very much on the surface and then done with. Left with a lot of questions.
    • 3/5
      nope, sorry. too simplistic to suit me. why is Reynolds always either very good or pretty mediocre, with little territory in between?
    • 4/5
      Revenger by Alistair Reynolds is quite simply a space adventure. It’s the story of two sisters who run away to space and get hired as Bone Readers to a captain that is a treasure hunter, scavenging items from the past. Reading the bones appears to be a mysterious power that only a few have and the two sisters seem to have a natural gift for it. But just as they are settling into their new surroundings, their ship is jumped by space pirates led by the dreaded Bosa Sennen who manages to murder most of the crew and take one of the sisters. The story then changes into a dark tale of revenge. The sister that is still free plots to lure Bosa Sennen out into the open again in order to get her sister back and take retribution for the deaths of her friends. While the story was entertaining enough, it could have been better if the author had taken the time to develop the world in which the story takes place in. Instead he relies on his characters to drive the story and unfortunately the characters weren’t strong enough or as well developed as they could have been. And there were many intriguing aspects to the constellation that they travel through but little explanation offered.Revenger also was obviously the first book in a planned series or trilogy so I suspect the author is counting on the readers to be interested in continuing on and has plans to expand his world building in subsequent volumes. While I enjoyed the story well enough, I am not that invested in the characters that I feel a need to pick up another series.
    • 4/5
      This is a re-read for me, since the third of the trilogy was just released. I love the world building, and the characters are deeply flawed and interesting for it. I love it's about pirates, and baubles left by previous civilizations, and how we know so little about so much.I read the audio which was excellently done.Happily continuing on to second of the series.