Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds

Pushing Ice, by Alastair Reynolds is a heck of an audiobook. The story is of comet miners detoured to the outer reaches of the solar system to chase Janus, an ice moon of Saturn[0] that has suddenly accelerated away from orbit. They are the only ship within range, so not really a lot of choice…and there is the rub.  Some choices get made, and some terrible things happen.

In Space!

Sorry.  Had to get that out.

This isn’t just a scantily-clad space opera; I genuinely felt for the characters as mountains of Bad Things happened to them over really long time spans…because they got a little tiny bit time-dilated[1]. Okay, more than a tiny bit. There are ultimately power grabs, friendships lost, horrible deaths, miraculous medicine, aliens[2], war, rebellion, intrigue, tropical fish, heroic rescues and weird science.

A yummy confection that took about twenty hours and I found it intense enough to turn off often, as I was feeling the characters fear and grief.  Nice work, that.

Available on Amazon (link above) and at sfpl.org.

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[0] “Janis, Ice Maid of Saturn” would make a great movie serial.

[1] Not a science book at all, but simple discussion of physics here and there didn’t break narrative flow.

[2] It’s no fun without aliens.