Revelation Space is about an archeological investigation into the destruction of an entire civilization 9000 years ago and why it might happen again. Slow Bullets deals with a mysterious alien prism that crosses all of human space, minutely changing space to send humanity into a dark age. Reynolds seems to have a thing for alien artifacts and their impact on unwitting humans. Regardless, it immediately gripped me, and I read it quickly. I’m not sure why I chose Pushing Ice, except that perhaps it was what I could find quickly from the library. I picked up Pushing Ice on the heels of finishing Reynolds’ Hugo Nominated short story Slow Bullets. Then, before Rockhopper can veer away, it is sucked into the vortex created by Janus’ subterranean space drive and its crew is shanghaied for an interstellar journey. The Rockhopper, an ice miner captained by Bella Lind, is the closest spacecraft to the rapidly accelerating moon, and it is sent in hot pursuit as Janus aims for a giant structure, light minutes long and centuries away. Then, in a moment, the moon Janus, one of Saturn’s ice moons, begins to leave first the orbit of the gas giant and then to chart a course out of the solar system…all without showing any sign of the machinery it has hidden carefully for millennia. Forty years from now, we have stepped out into the solar system, mining the asteroids and salvaging ice from comets to provide resources for humanity’s expansion.

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds