Book Review: Inhibitor Phase by Alastair Reynolds

Inhibitor Phase (Revelation Space, #4) by Alastair Reynolds
Narrator: John Lee
Series: Revelation Space #4
Published by Orbit on October 12, 2021
Genres: Science-Fiction
Pages: 432
Length: 19 hrs and 34 mins
Format: Audiobook
Goodreads

Miguel de Ruyter is a man with a past.
Fleeing the 'wolves' - the xenocidal alien machines known as Inhibitors - he has protected his family and community from attack for forty years, sheltering in the caves of an airless, battered world called Michaelmas. The slightest hint of human activity could draw the wolves to their home, to destroy everything ... utterly. Which is how Miguel finds himself on a one-way mission with his own destructive mandate: to eliminate a passing ship, before it can bring unwanted attention down on them.
Only something goes wrong.
There's a lone survivor.
And she knows far more about Miguel than she's letting on . . .
Ranging from the depths of space to the deeps of Pattern Juggler waters, from nervous, isolated communities to the ruins of empire, this is a stealthy space opera from an author at the top of his game.
Praise for Al Reynolds' Revenger
'A swashbuckling thriller' The Guardian
'A blindingly clever imagining of our solar system in the far flung future' The Sun
'A rollicking adventure yarn with action, abduction, fights and properly scary hazards' The Daily Telegraph

Well, this was a slog. While I ended up enjoying Absolution Gap, I couldn’t care less for Inhibitor Phase.

The story is told in first person from the point of view of a new character in the series. Reynolds’ character development is usually on the bare bones side, but I found it even worse in this book. None of the characters had any recognizable characteristics beyond being generally dislikable. There are a couple of characters from previous books who are totally unrecognizable. I don’t know if it’s because we see them through the main character’s eyes, or because Reynolds forgot about them. I remember Scoprio being pretty epic in the previous book, and here there’s nothing distinctive about him. And talking about Scorpio, I remember how reefer sleep was becoming more and more risky for him, to the point that he was surely going to die the next time. In this book, I lost count of the times he was put to sleep during voyages.

Going back to the characters, they were all very flat, and their intentions and actions seemed to change at random to fit the story. I wonder if the characters’ poor development was just due to the fact that we see things from the main character’s point of view, and this character doesn’t seem to have a very strong personality.

There was again a lot more deus ex machina that I’d like to see, especially towards the end, and memory loss was used once again as a plot device. I don’t know, it was all pretty bad.

I really wanted to read Chasm City after this one, but right now, I don’t feel like reading anything by Alastair Reynolds in a while.

I listened to the audio version and didn’t particularly enjoy John Lee’s performance. There was a lack of consistency in the characters’ voices and tone compared with previous books, and even within this particular one.