Poseidon’s Wake by Alastair Reynolds

Alastair Reynolds has been one of my favorite authors ever since I discovered him. In recent years, with his departure from the Revelation Space universe, his work hasn’t been as good. He was a master at hard science-fiction, creating intricate storylines that blew me aways.It was with high hopes that I anticipated his Poseidon’s Children series. I started the last book in the series, Poseidon’s Wake, a few days ago and finished it quite quickly.

Although I can still feel that his writing is gripping, the actual content isn’t as good as it was before. We’re very far from some of my favorites of his, like Pushing Ice or House of Suns. Instead, we’re in uncharted waters. It kind of reminds me of Terminal World. There are some very interesting ideas in his writing, mainly concerning the elder races that predated humans. However, there is way too much bickering between the protagonists, fluff that could have been deleted, and just bad chapters. It feels a lot less well edited that his previous works. The arguments and the unhelpful stuff in the book are also staggering. Honestly, the problem is with the characters. If Reynolds had tried to keep it clean, it would have been a lot better. Instead, every chapter is filled with Goma, Ru, Kanu, or Nissa arguing over some BS. It got annoying very quickly. It’s like the author lost the plot on his own book.

His ideas about the M-builders and Watchkeepers continue to remind me of some of his great work beforehand. However, the questions that are posed are never fully answered. We’re also left in a vague cliffhanger, knowing full well that there won’t be another book in this series, which is also very annoying.

I’m somewhat happy that he has finished writing Poseidon’s Children. Hopefully, he’ll leave this universe and write something more compelling.