‘Pushing Ice’ is a story that promises so much, and still manages to deliver more than expected. If the crew of a far future ice-hauling ship latching onto a hidden alien space craft hurtling away from the Sun at unheard of speeds sounds like a banger of a beginning, then this book is already for you. It’s a long read, not necessarily by word count, but by content. The material can be a little dense, as Reynolds leans heavily into some hard sci-fi topics from astrophysics and engineering, to EVA procedures in deep space, but it all serves a grand purpose. The book is extremely convincing in its narrative and atmosphere thanks to these real-world scientific concepts, such that if you’re willing to suspend your disbelief for one part of the novel, its only logical that the rest of the story would happen. Reynolds also includes some more subtle Easter eggs, a few of which I caught, but I have no doubt many went over my head. The book is, like all of his work, well-researched. It’s obvious how much he cares about plausibility in his stories.

I’d hate to spoil this book too badly because I think a lot of its power lies in the imagination behind it, but the concepts at hand are too cool not to discuss. Reynolds executes a variety of different story archetypes and mechanics through his characters over the course of many decades on the runaway moon Janus. The crew of the ice hauler Rockhopper assigned to investigate the alien craft gets stuck in the wake of the moon’s powerful drive system, and has to survive in deep space while careening out of control toward an alien mega structure built around a blue star. Its a framework ripe for exploration, in the alien machine landscape of Janus’ surface, the societal bonds that hold us together, and the nature of life in the galaxy. Reynolds turns the conflicts amongst the crew of Rockhopper on their terrible odyssey into a narrative spine that holds the far-flung pieces together as they travel deeper and deeper into the abyss.

My personal favorite bit of sci-fi (without giving too much away) involves the use of a monolithic alien structure that slowly turns on an axis to generate electricity through a complex array of clockwork gears and generators. The visuals in this part of the novel are stunning, and I think their investigation of the alien structures are when the horror of something unknowable is at its greatest. It hits many of the same beats I find in eldritch horror. The strange machinations of the moon are what kept me the most interested throughout long stretches of the book.

This novel is a lot of fun, but requires a good memory and a bit of patience too in order to keep everything straight between the dozens of characters, concepts, and year+ time skips. I think its well-worth the investment it asks of the reader though, and I certainly enjoyed it as much if not more than his earlier Revelation Space series. I can’t wait to pick up another of his novels in the future.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley