Poseidon's Wake

Reynolds wrote his first short stories in 1990, while still a graduate student. In 1991 Reynolds graduated and moved from Scotland to the Netherlands to work at ESA. He then started spending much of his writing time on a first novel, which eventually turned into Revelation Space. In 1995 his story ”Byrd Land Six” was published, which he says marked the beginning of a more serious phase of writing.

Reynolds's first published novel was Revelation Space (2000), which was shortlisted for the BSFA and Arthur C Clarke awards. His second novel, Chasm City (2001), won the BSFA award in 2002. A number of his other novels and stories have been shortlisted for the BSFA and Clarke awards.

Reynolds' works reflect his professional expertise with physics and astronomy, included by extrapolating future technologies in terms that are consistent, for the most part, with current science. Reynolds has said he prefers to keep the science in his books to what he personally believes will be possible, and he does not believe faster-than-light travel will ever be possible, but that he adopts science he believes will be impossible when it is necessary for the story. Most of Reynolds's novels contain multiple storylines that originally appear to be completely unrelated, but merge later in the story.

Five of his novels and several of his short stories take place within one consistent future universe, usually now called the Revelation Space universe after the first novel published in it, although it was originally developed in short stories for several years before the first novel. In this universe, extraterrestrial sentience exists but is elusive, and interstellar travel is primarily undertaken by a class of vessel called a lighthugger which only approaches the speed of light.

Reynolds's future worlds are notable in that human societies have not departed to either positive or negative extremes, but instead are similar to those of today in terms of moral ambiguity and a mixture of cruelty and decency, corruption and opportunity, despite their technology being dramatically advanced. The Revelation Space universe contains elements of Lovecraftian horror, but, the main storyline is essentially optimistic, with humans continuing to survive even in a universe which seems fundamentally hostile to intelligent life.

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