(2005)Very good SF story about a comet mining ship that is unexpectedly assigned to chase one of Saturn's moons, Janus, as it suddenly seems to be intelligently controlled and leaves the solar system. As this spectacular, large-scale space opera opens, Janus, a moon of Saturn, now revealed as an alien artifact, has suddenly left orbit and headed for interstellar space. The Rockhopper, a comet miner commanded by Capt. Bella Lind, is the only spacecraft in the solar system positioned to catch the huge alien machine. Though a short exploration is all that's planned, the Rockhopper soon finds itself trapped in Janus's time- and distance-distorting slipstream. Determining that Janus is heading toward an even more gigantic artifact orbiting the star Spica, the comet miners settle down to form their own castaway civilization, a process marred by the bad blood between those who support Captain Lind and those who blame her for their fate. Janus soon proves itself to be an incredibly strange and ever changing environment. Eventually, the castaways reach the Spica artifact, encounter several very alien species and discover that their fate is even stranger than they could have imagined. Reynolds (Century Rain) is occasionally clumsy in his character interactions, but he has a genius for big-concept SF and fans of Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Larry Niven's Ringworld will love this novel. (PW)

This book had all of what I am coming to view as Reynolds' signature strengths and weaknesses. The setting is imaginative; the science is accurate; the first half is engrossing. But the characters become annoying (in this novel more than his others); the plot drags on too long; and he reaches for too big of a climax (though not as badly in this novel as in others).
If someone wanted to read a Reynolds novel, I would be more inclined to steer them towards Redemption Ark or Century Rain. ( )

Pushing Ice is a multi-generational, sprawling space opera that packs a punch. In Pushing Ice, one of Saturn’s moons suddenly departs from its orbit and shoots off into deep space. Bella and her crew are desperate for some much needed R&R – until Janus, one of Saturn’s ice moons, inexplicably leaves its natural orbit. Bella takes the bait and hopes to beat the Chinese to Janus. As it heads out into the solar system at high acceleration, layers of camouflage fall away; it appears that Janus was never a moon in the first place but a sophisticated machine. Now this moon-shaped machine is headed towards the star system Spica, two hundred and sixty light-years away. As Rockhopper gives chase events begin to cast doubt in the minds of some of the crew, particularly Bella’s closest friend Svetlana, who thinks that they might be being kept in the dark about certain things by the owners of the ship back on Earth. As they get nearer to Janus, tensions rise and eventually an immense decision will have to be made, which tears Bella and Svetlana’s friendship apart, as well as the Rockhopper crew. They will either have to land on Janus and get carried out into space or find a way of dropping out of its slipstream, possibly destroying themselves in the process, and hope that Earth sends a rescue ship before systems run down. For now, Bella is victorious, but this is only the beginning of the adventure for the Rockhopper and its crew.

Janus's arrival at a huge structure in the Spica star system leaves the crew of the Rockhopper with no choice. They have to colonize the moon they just chased and landed on. They spend decades making the moon their home, during which time they meet an alien race (The Fountainheads) that is not responsible for creating the Janus ship and are able to somewhat rejuvenate the aging crew . But before too long other alien races show up and all hell soon break loose. Can the humans withstand hostile alien cultures?

This is a story including actual hard science and speculative physics, and of personal crew conflicts and leadership, and yes, of aliens! It all feels realistic and never unbelievable. The characters felt well-drawn out, in comparison to what many other reviewers have said. I will say I did find myself skimming the more science driven dialogue but even then Reynolds find a way to make science readable and passable to the average joe. But every now and then, the action would slow down, and the writing would seem a tad bit dry. Still, Pushing Ice was for me a good mix of classic science-fiction with modern space opera. Think Arthur C. Clarke meets James S.A. Corey.

I'd certainly like to revisit this novel in the future as it is filled with really interesting concepts and bizarre alien cultures. Ultimately, this story is about human survival and a good human survival story is always riveting.

For fans of: Arthur C. Clarke, James S.A. Corey, Larry Niven. ( )

Little bit conflicted about this, as I really enjoyed the read; plot pulled me along; lots of interesting ideas; and it goes in unexpected directions, surprising me frequently. So that's all good. But a lot of the personal interactions were just... kinda trite. Everyone behaved in the way to keep the plot going, not as humans might behave. Someone suspects The Corporation of treating the crew as expendable in order to make more money; then The Corporation says, no, no, everything's fine and it's that person who accused us who is falsifying data; and everyone just takes them at their word? There are a whole bunch of instances like this where seemingly rational people suddenly do something bizarre, and nobody thinks about anyone's motives for doing anything, which I found really jarring. But ignoring that, I enjoyed it a lot. Kinda halfway between The Expanse (only read the first one) and Culture novels. ( )

Another one of those super long 10000 Loc point novels that Alastair seems to enjoy writing.

The story starts with an ice pusher, named Rockhopper. Rockhopper is a big space ship that finds valuable comets, etc., around the solar system, attaches big mass drivers to them and pushes them wherever they’re needed in the solar system for their materials: ergo “Pushing Ice”. It just so happens that Rockhopper ends up as the only space ship owned by the big corporations that is capable of catching up with one of Saturn’s moons that has just decided to fly away from Saturn and the rest of the solar system.

And thus begins the big chase, with mutinies, murders, aliens, and all kinds of other mayhem thrown in for good measure: did i mention there’s 10000 Loc points of this?

It does begin fairly slow going but as you go along it all picks up speed as the stakes become higher and higher and by the last third of the book i was in couldn’t-put-it-down mode, turning pages at any brief opportunity life presented.

Super good, and it’s also left very well open for another episode should Alastair ever wish to let us have some more: please can we have some more, Alastair?

And next book on the Alastair time line will be Feeling Rejected, from 2005. ( )