For the THIRD month in a row, we are reading a science fiction book; this time, we are reading Pushing Ice, by space scientists, Alastair Reynolds. As far as hard science goes, this has got to be one of the better ones. I think Reynolds tries his best to pushing the boundaries of what science fiction is while treading lightly on what could be real versus silly. With that said, there are plenty of dense moments in the novel that talk about time dilation, modern physics, astronomy, etc. – but all this to really try to “justify” how this science fiction novel COULD have a real foundation.
The idea of the whole novel is pretty great – we are in the future, where mining asteroids is a thing, one of the more important “asteroid” leaves orbit and we follow it only to discover something completely new. At times. however, it felt more like the science fiction ideas where more of a support character to a drama between a couple of engineerings that never were at each other for a LONG LONG time.
Overall, I think this was a great novel and deserves its spot as a go-to science fiction book. Space, aliens, time dilation were all handled pretty great. A solid 7/10 from me!