Chasm City: Alastair Reynolds

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This is blended with a very dark cyberpunk tale of revenge centered on Tanner Mirabell, a former military operative who leaves Sky’s Edge to pursue a man named Reivich who killed the woman he loved but who was also his former boss wife. Of course, by that point the true nature of Tanner’s complicated identity issues has been revealed, changing everything. Chasm City became one of humanity's greatest achievements when the Demarchists presided over a golden age known as the Belle Epoque, from roughly 2350 to 2510.

Everywhere we see signs of decay and collapse, as the machinery that mankind has painstakingly developed over centuries rebels against humans and taken on a life of its own. I don’t think it is intended to be one; there is sufficient foreshadowing as to where things are possibly heading. Tanner's pursuit of Reivich takes him across light-years of space to Chasm City, the domed human settlement on the otherwise inhospitable planet of Yellowstone. We all have triggers, certain topics in our beloved genres that instantly make us sit up and pay attention.I know it sounds gross, and I suppose that's partially the meaning I intend to convey, but I also mean that Chasm City oozes darkness and human desperation, and I further mean that the setting—Chasm City itself—oozes around you while your read, displacing your warm and comfortable wealthy Western surroundings. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. This is a bare bones description of the plot, which is enhanced by elaborate world-building and descriptions of futuristic weapons, technology, and novel beings - such as pig people.

In this chaos of plague and desolation, Tanner seeks his prey, only to discover that Reivich is more clever than he originally thought. The narrative is tight and well told with very little "fluff" or areas where you feel the plot is dragging - each side plot feels essential to a story you know you just don't have all the pieces of yet but you WANT to find out because you also care about the characters, they're conflicted and multi-dimensional enough to be interesting, and you just get sucked right into the story.I remember the gargantuan, Gormenghast-esque spaceship with a miniscule crew spending decades to travel between stars; I remember the archaeological dig of an extinct alien species whose myths hinted at some terrible and vengeful god; I remember the impression that humanity’s scattered, isolated colonies were all authoritarian dictatorships, their little remaining statecraft consisting mostly of threats and coercion.