EVERSION is a fascinating, thought-provoking, complex Intellectual Hard Science Fiction novel that at its core holds the theme of what it means to be human, and what is consciousness. Does the capacity for kindness, compassion, and goodness mean one is human, in whatever element or form? This is Hard Science both because of the spacefaring aspects but also due to the mathematical theme explored at great length by one of the characters (whom I personally believe is on the Asperger's continuum, and who is compassionately delineated and made endearing and a character with whom we can empathize in his struggles). Author Alastair Reynolds well knows his Space segments, also delivering different periods of History, and complexly delineated characters. I readily empathized and cheered on certain characters, and eagerly followed the various permutations of events while my imagination and intellect were provoked by the Science, Mathematics, and considerations of consciousness, humanity, and sentience.

Release August 2022.

Alastair Reynolds delivers a nifty hard sci-fi take on Groundhog Day with Eversion. Dr. Silas Coade keeps reliving the same events time and again, with only the period changing place as he progresses from, initially, the Age of Sail up to space exploration. The details remain the same, though -- he is serving as a physician aboard the Demeter, a ship exploring Antarctica for the derelict Europa, which holds a mysterious artifact and a ledger from the last survivor warning away any who may find the ship. Narrator Harry Myers does a fantastic job bringing Reynolds's words to life, giving each member of the Demeter distinct voices and manners. His performance helps separate the large cast from one another throughout., and delivers a wide range of emotion over the course of the book's 10-hour listen. For his part, Reynolds delivers some great surprises throughout the narrative. Although the story has a requisite bit of repetition thanks to the central conceit, Reynolds keeps the story moving forward swiftly, incorporating new information and some welcome wrinkles to these unfolding events.

Alastair Reynolds is one of my favorite writers of hard science fiction. His stories sweep me up in adventure, mystery, and very cool ideas. With Eversion, he’s reached new heights of complex yet rewarding storytelling. In it, he builds mystery upon mystery, with each layer adding connections and insights. He always “plays fair,” giving the reader everything they need to understand the characters and the dilemmas he has thrust them into at that moment. The book is a primer of brilliantly handled plot twists!

The story begins as a sea adventure: an 1800s expedition to discover an enigmatic structure, “the Edifice,” deep within a fissure in the ice cliffs of Norway. The narrator is the ship’s physician, recruited at the last minute and therefore not on the ship’s manifest. As he performs his medical duties, he develops relationships with the rest of the crew and passengers, including the arrogant tycoon who’s financed the expedition, a brilliant but tortured young mathematician, and a disturbingly flirtatious woman who seems to have no other function than to torment the doctor. Soon, however, things go horribly wrong. Even as the ship finds the bizarre, possibly inhuman structures of the Edifice, it also discovers the wreckage of an earlier ship, one the tycoon lied about… and then the doctor dies and finds himself a century later on an airship encountering the Edifice in a different, expanded form, and the previous ship, but with strange, fragmented memories of having been in a similar situation before. With each iteration of an exploration gone horribly wrong, the doctor makes new connections and comes closer to what’s really going on, the truth beneath the narratives. It’s a gorgeous spiral of self-discovery, tense action, and ultimate sacrifice.

Oh boy, this one went over my head. It just couldn’t hold my interest and I kind of just gave up. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this copy in exchange for a review

In Alastair Reynolds’ Eversion (Orbit, 2022), the setting keep changing—the epoch, location, and technology—but the characters remain more or less the same as they carry out an expedition to a mysterious object at the behest of a private investor.

I, along with co-host Rob Wolf, interviewed the author for the New Books in Science Fiction podcast.

While I read the description of this book before getting it, it had been a while by the time I picked it up so I couldn’t remember much about it. The beginning therefore took me rather off guard as the cover made me expect something much different. And due to that unexpected start, it took me a while to get into it as I was rather confused.

The repeating storyline made it clear eventually what kind of story it would be and the author did a good job of not making it so repetitive that you knew exactly what was going to happen each time. After discussing it with someone, I think it was just the historical fiction feel of the first half of the book that made me feel skeptical about it. Once we moved on to more modern and futuristic times, my interest grew as that was the type of story I was in the mood for when I picked this up. And I definitely felt a lot more invested when I finally learned the truth about our MC and the decisions and emotions related to that revelation. While I probably could’ve done with one less narrative earlier on, this did add to the feeling of desperation and confusion a lot so I can’t fault the book too much for that either.

While it took a while for me to get truly invested in this story, I do find that the way it all came together in the end was very satisfying and it touched my heart quite a bit. There were also a couple of characters that I really enjoyed so seeing how those relationships developed throughout was great too.

I enjoyed the narrator quite a bit. He really grew on me and felt like a good choice for the MC. The only thing that grated a little for me was the stereotypical portrayal of the German guy with the way he kept saying “ja” at the ends of sentences. It’s not something that I’ve personally done (as a German speaking German or English) or have heard other Germans do. I’m not sure if this was also done in varying ways for the other nationalities but this one just stood out to me probably because of my own experience. This was a choice by the author though rather than the narrator, whose accents and voices I did enjoy.

Strange story line as each time everyone dies they also come back in the future. I liked it but it did take time for me to be vomited to finishing it. .if you don’t see how it is Science Fiction just keep reading.

n Alastair Reynolds’ Eversion (Orbit, 2022), the setting keep changing—the epoch, location, and technology—but the characters remain more or less the same as they carry out an expedition to a mysterious object at the behest of a private investor.

The novel starts on a tall ship in the early 1800s in waters in the Arctic, then jumps to a paddle-steamer near the Antarctic, then a dirigible over Antarctica, and eventually concludes in the future on a submarine-like explorer under the ice of Europa, the Jupiter moon.

The story is a puzzle, challenging the reader to figure out which if any place and time is real. Adding to the mystery is the reader’s dependence on a first-person narrator Silas Coade, the expedition’s physician. Is the story a book he is writing, a delusion, a series of alternate realities or something else?

In our conversation on the new episode of New Books in Science Fiction, Reynolds tells Brenda Noiseux and me that his original intention with Eversion was to “recap the entire history of science fiction … We were going to start in a kind of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe mode. And then it was going to go into sort of Jules Verne and then maybe a bit of H.G. Wells, then a sort of early pulp sleuth thing.” That would have been followed by classic space opera and episodes in the styles of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov followed by 1960s and ’70s new wave.

“But once I started writing the book, I realized that there was no way I could bring sufficient variety to the craft to make those episodes work,” he says. “So I cut it down drastically to four or five episodes for the finished product.

Reynolds is a former research fellow at the European Space Agency. He’s been writing fiction full-time since 2004 and has 19 novels and more than 70 short stories to show for it. His work has been shortlisted for the Hugo, Arthur C Clarke and Sturgeon awards. He’s won the Seiun, Sidewise, European Science Fiction Society and Locus awards, and his stories have been adapted for stage and television.

I thought the plot line sounded really good and interesting.

This book felt dragged out and I felt bored most of the time when I was reading it.

This book kept me guessing from page one. It is a slow, slightly confusing start more reminiscent of Moby Dick or a similar seafaring epic than science fiction but around the 30% mark, I just could not put this one down! There are several twists I did not see coming, moments that made my eyes well with tears, and an ending that left me just gutted for so many reasons. I cannot wait to read more by Reynolds after taking a dive into Eversion with Dr. Coade and his ragtag crew across time!

So ultimately, yes its a slow-burn beginning but I strongly feel that the ultimate payoff was worth it in this reality-bending sci-fi adventure.

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit for granting me a digital advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

If you decide to read Alastair Reynolds’ new science fiction book Eversion, you’ll be asking yourself questions most of the way through the story.

Imagine David Tennant saying, "What?" That might become your favorite question.

Did I like the book? Yes, I loved it. I moved from “what in the hell is going on” to “oh, it’s a puzzle.”

I didn’t expect a science fiction book to start out with a story about explorers in the 1800s, sailing around looking for a treasure. Guess I should have read the blurb more carefully.

This will probably be the shortest review I’ve ever written because of zero spoilers. I want you to read it and make discoveries for yourself.

Here’s what I will say: Everything makes sense, and all the clues to solve the puzzle are within the stories.
Early on, I realized I needed to pay attention to actions and dialogue. I love mysteries and part of the fun is figuring out “who done it” before the revelation.

So when I figured out the answer to “what’s going on?” a couple of chapters before the big reveal, I felt a little smug. However, I didn’t get everything, just the basic “aha” moment.

My Recommendation?

Set back, enjoy the voyage, look for clues, and savor the end, which is satisfying, emotional, and surprisingly sweet.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Orbit books for an ARC copy of Alastair Reynolds’ Eversion.

I know they say not to judge a book by its cover, but that is exactly what initially drew me to Eversion. The cover plus the idea behind the story really made me curious to read this book. It took me far longer to finish than it normally would, but it was worth every minute.

Eversion initially takes place on a ship called the Demeter. It's a fifth-rate frigate sailing north in search of a fissure in the seaside cliffs. Inside this fissure should be something the crew comes to call the Edifice. This venture is being funded by a man named Topolsky, and the story is told from the point of view of the ship's doctor, Silas Coade. Silas is more concerned with his work and the safety of the crew than he is interested in the Edifice. He just wants to see the crew safely along on their voyage and home again, and it may also be nice to finish the novel he's been writing.

However, the closer they get to their goal, the more things go wrong. The passage through the cliffs is much narrower than anticipated, and it is difficult to navigate safely. Just when the ship seems to be making it through the passage, a wave clips the ship wrong, wrecking it. Silas is killed when the mast falls onto him. That is, until, Silas jolts awake. He had been sleeping at his desk when a midshipman woke him. The dream becomes hazy, and he quickly makes his way above onto the deck of the steamship Demeter.

This cycle is the framework for the majority of the story. Each time Silas "wakes up" from the previous disastrous voyage, Demeter is a newer version of ship, but the crew all remain the same with the same jobs, the same personalities, and the same goal of finding the Edifice.

This was a very unique way to approach the story, in my opinion, and since everything is narrated by the same person, it leads the reader to start questioning the reliability of that narrator. In fact, by nearly half-way through the story, the reader is given evidence that not all is well with Silas Coade. He suffers from bizarre dreams of running through a stone passageway only to peel back his hood and see a skeleton staring at him. Throughout each iteration of the voyage he admits to being addicted to some substance or another. These addictions lead to bouts of withdrawal behaviors and make trusting Silas's story even more difficult.

The way in which Silas narrates was enjoyable as well. With each iteration moving forward in time, the diction and structure of speech changes to match the time period. The book goes from reading like something from the era of Dracula or Frankenstein to a gradually more modern mode of speech. I felt this coupled with the author's ability to craft a new setting for each iteration that is believable, immersive, and interesting to be a highlight of the book.

Finally, I would hesitate to pigeon-hole this book as straight sci-fi. The story has elements of mystery and horror to it as well. From the very beginning the reader is subjected to mysteries that must be solved. Why are they on this voyage? What is the Edifice, and why is it so important they find it? Can Silas be trusted, and if not, what is actually going on with him? All of these questions do get answered, but the author goes about answering them in such a way that the reader feels a slow, creeping horror at each new revelation. It was an exhilarating way to reveal the answers to what is going on in the story.

Eversion is a story of adventure, mystery, betrayal, and hardship. It's about survival as much as discovery, and every character is important for different reasons. I truly loved how the story ended. It may be considered a bittersweet ending by some readers, but to me it was the perfect ending to all the hardship Silas experiences.

The only negative thing I have to say about this book is that the story became a little tedious about 2/3 through. It was the repetition that did it. Once I understood the idea that the crew and ship would meet some sort of disaster only to be seemingly reborn, the only thing that kept the pace going was the trickle of new details helping solve the mystery surrounding Silas. There are so many little details that are important throughout the story, and they don't make sense until thinking back on them after reading. I definitely plan to re-read this book at some point!

I gave Eversion by Alastair Reynolds four out of five stars. It was truly an amazing read, and I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who wants to read sci-fi without being bogged down by technical details. The story explores so many important ideas, such as what it means to be human, through an interesting framework I haven't seen in other books.

What a beautiful novel that in a different author's hands would falter into trope-y, metatext quippery. What opens as a slow, melancholic exploration in the 19th century adventure style seas to find a fissure and obelisk of sailing legend becomes an early-20th century fantasy zeppelin searching the Hollow Earth for the same becomes a 21st century science-fiction space ship searching the moons of Jupiter... always in search of the same goal.

For the first half what you end up getting is the same story told in multiple genres, each one continuing past the point the previous came to an ugly end. What makes this at all bearable is not just the unfolding mystery of how these same characters exist in multiple time periods and multiple genres (because it could get very tiring very quickly), but that Alastair Reynolds adapts the narration, pacing, and events to these once evolving genres; his writing *changes* to suit the genre he is aping and he's phenomenal at it. The first half of this book *feels* like you are reading a history of these adventure/exploration genres from the High Seas to the Hollow Earth to High Space.

I've had Alastair Reynolds on a list of science-fiction authors I've been meaning to read for 15 years, and while I am sad that I have been missing out if this is indicative of his quality of work, this was perhaps the best introduction to him as an author I could have imagined. It's not a perfect book -- I find the second half's adherence to modern-science-fiction super-fast pacing not as enjoyable when sat next to the beauty of his early interpretations of the exploration genre, and wish the ending had included a cute circular reference to trephination, as it was such an important thematic point throughout the novel -- but it's a solid, well-attempted, beautifully written work.

Having read excellent hardcore space opera written by Alastair Reynolds before, I jumped at the chance to read "Eversion". Never mind that I didn't know the definition of the word "eversion", I was confident that book would be an entertaining space opera. (Yes! "eversion" is a real word (even though the spell checker I am using does not know it), and is eventually defined in the book. If you plan to read the book there is no need to look this word up.) I was absolutely pleased in every way at what this book had to offer. However, I started scratching my head on the second sentence of the book, and kept scratching through the first couple of chapters, wondering if this was really the hardcore scifi that I was expecting. To be sure, it was an enjoyable adventure from the very start but, initially it was not what I was expecting. Alastair did a great job of gradually revealing the situation in this thrilling adventure novel that fed my sense of curiosity and mystery. It was certainly hard to put this book down. And as the promotional introductions promise, this is absolutely the hardcore space opera I was expecting. I look forward to reading more by Alastair Reynolds!

I thank Alastair Reynolds and Orbit Books for graciously providing a temporary electronic review copy of this excellent and entertaining scifi novel.

Another fascinating standalone from Alastair Reynolds! I am continually impressed that he can swing from millennia-spanning space operas, to space pirates, to vintage-feeling sci fi like this. Eversion could easily be an episode of Doctor Who, Star Trek, or the Twilight Zone. So obviously it's one of my favorite reads of the year! This type of sci fi is not for everyone. It's light, it's formulaic; but it's also fantastically written and just what I needed. Whenever anyone asks for author recommendations, Alastair Reynolds is top of my list.

I've only read one other work by Alastair Reynolds (Century Rain), and I really did not enjoy it, so I went into Eversion with some trepidation, but I ended up really liking it and am more willing to give some of his other works a chance.

I think if you're coming to this from Revelation Space, you might be disappointed because this seems to be a big departure. Where that seems to be an expansive space opera series with detailed worldbuiling, Eversion is shorter, quieter, and a standalone.

For me, this book started slow, if only because I was expecting space sci-fi and the first several chapters all take place on a ship in the 1800s, leaving me to wonder what was going on. But as we follow Silas through that shipwreck and then Groundhog Day through other shipwrecks we learn along with him why this keeps happening and I really liked the twists the story took. Reynolds explores a lot of big concepts and throws in some hard science and horror but also keeps a human element to the story, and I thought he balanced all of that really well, especially given the short page count.

A time-traveling romp through the Halls of History. Science-fiction slash historical thriller with a chunk of Groundhog Day thrown in. Seems to be a departure from his other streamlined fiction, but a welcome one nonetheless. Recommended!

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read.

The nitty-gritty: A mind-bending mystery through time and space, Eversion takes readers on a dangerous journey of discovery.

Eversion was such a unique book! This is one of those stories that doesn’t really come together until the very end, so readers will need to be patient. But the ultimate payoff was worth the wait, and the journey was fascinating. Despite my confusion for most of the book, I loved following the mystery of the Demeter and its fantastical voyage through time and space.

We meet Doctor Silas Coade in the 1800s, ship’s doctor on the Demeter, a sailing vessel on an expedition to find something called the Edifice. The expedition ends in tragedy, but that’s not really the end, not by a long shot. Later, we find Coade on the steam ship Demeter, also headed on an expedition to locate the Edifice. And again, things do not go well for the crew. Silas Coade pops up many years later in an airship with the same crew, and even later in a spaceship. Each time, the ship meets a terrible fate, but the crew seems to get closer and closer to their goal.

Why is this happening? You’ll have to read the book to find out, otherwise I’ll be venturing into spoiler territory if I tell you anything else about the plot. This is my first time reading anything by Alastair Reynolds, and from what I understand, Eversion is quite different from his other books. Reynolds usually writes sprawling space operas, and this story feels much more intimate, especially since most of the story takes place inside various ships and focuses on a core group of characters.

Just like a carefully plotted mystery, Eversion keeps readers guessing for a very long time, but that’s why this book is so much fun. Reynolds lays down strategic clues throughout his tale, but unless you’re paying attention, you might miss them. I will say that one particular story element popped up in the first chapter, and it was so jarring and out of place that I just knew it was going to be important later on. And sure enough, that element was a recurring theme in each iteration of the Demeter. When this particular mystery is finally revealed near the end, I wanted to go back and see what I had missed along the way. There are other clues too, although they’re harder to spot. But I didn’t mind the confusion, because putting all the pieces together was so much fun.

Alastair Reynolds’ atmospheric descriptions of the different time periods were so well done. In each time period, Doctor Coade is addicted to some kind of substance. First it’s opium, and later morphine. At one point, photography has been invented and we get to see how the characters use it on the ship. We also get to witness the progression of medicine, as Coade is always a doctor, but his equipment and methods keep evolving as the story goes along. In the beginning, he’s treating a patient with a serious head injury, and later that same character appears with the same injury, but medical practices have improved, and so Coade is able to better help his patient. I found this evolution fascinating!

And if you’re looking for mind-bending fiction, then look no further. Reynolds includes high concept ideas from physics and mathematics that supply some of the answers to this very strange story, and he even includes a cartographer/mathematician on the crew who is obsessed with solving the problem the crew is facing. I loved the way this character takes on an important role at the end as well. The author also plays with perspective, which I loved. Imagine seeing things from the prow of a steam ship, and then finding yourself floating through the air in an airship. Both vessels approach the Edifice from different directions and the result is a dizzying experience.

By far my favorite part of the book was the last chapter, where Reynolds has one more surprise in store for his readers. After finally revealing what's going on, the author takes things one step further and gives us an emotional, feel good ending that I wasn’t expecting. If you’re looking for something different that will completely twist your view of reality, then Eversion is a must read.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

This was a rare DNF for me. I love Alastair Reynolds and just really struggled to get into this book. I may try to return to it another time since Reynolds generally is an enjoyable read and I hope that it will pick up if I can just get far enough. The characters are likeable enough but not much seems to happen, at least in the first quarter or so of the book, and especially not for the genre.

I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.