In the third book in the acclaimed author Alastair Reynolds's Inhibitor Trilogy, the last remnants of humanity realize that their only chance for survival may mean forging an alliance with a mysterious alien force.

The Inhibitors were designed to eliminate any life-form reaching a certain level of intelligence - and they've targeted humanity.  War veteran Clavain and a ragtag group of refugees have fled into hiding.  Their leadership is faltering, and their situation is growing more desperate.  But their little colony has just received an unexpected visitor: an avenging angel with the power to lead mankind to safety - or draw down its darkest enemy.

"Revelation, Repemption, Absolution...  Reynolds provides them all."  - GUARDIAN

"A book of great fascination, rich description, and memorable action." - LOCUS

"Absolution Gap is as good as it gets, and should solidify Alastair Reynolds's reputation as one of the best hard SF writers in the field."  - SF SITE

Acclaimed space opera writer Alastair Reynolds returns, to the world of Revelation Space with this British Science Fiction Award-winning stand-alone novel about a young man hell-bent on revenge, on the surface of a corrupted planet.

The once-utopian Chasm City has been overrun by a virus known as the Melding Plague, capable of infecting any body, organic or computerized.  Now, with the entire city corrupted - from the people to the very buildings they inhabit - only the most wretched sort of existence remains.  For security operative Tanner Mirabel, it is the landscape of nightmares through which he searches for a low-life killer.  But the stakes are raised when his search brings him face-to-face with a centuries-old atrocity that history would rather forget.

"Deep, complex, and always more than [it] seems.  Reynolds succeeds in the hardest task of good science fiction, creating a new world full of wonder."
- DENVER POST

"[A] worthy follow-up to... Revelation Space....  Reynolds transmutes space opera into a noirish, baroque, picaresque mystery tale....  Inventiveness and tone are Reynolds's strong points....  The novel's details are consistently startling but convincing in context....  Reynolds remains one of the hottest new SF writers around."
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)

"Successfully combines SF noir with technothriller in a dark vision of the future." - LIBRARY JOURNAL

"[An] impressive book....  Another step toward what could become a very significant twenty-first-century hard SF career." - SF SITE

TEN THOUSAND CITY-STATE HABITATS ORBIT
THE PLANET YELLOWSTONE, FORMING A
NEAR-PERFECT DEMOCRATIC
HUMAN PARADISE.

But even utopia has a dark side...

Across the habitats people are dying suddenly and randomly, leaving no clues as to the cause of their deaths.  And while panic rises in the populace, a charismatic figure is sowing insurrection, convincing a small but growing number of habitats to break away from the Glitter Band - literally tearing society apart.

Elysium Fire is a smoldering tale of murderers, secret cultists, tampered memories, and unthinkable power, of bottomless corruption and overpowering idealism from the king of modern space opera.

PRAISE FOR ALASTAIR REYNOLDS

"Heir to writers like Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, Reynolds keeps up the tradition of forward thinking."
- THE A.V. CLUB

"A leading light of the New Space Opera movement in science fiction."
- LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS

"[Reynolds is] a mastersinger of the space opera."
- THE TIMES

"One of the giants of the new British space opera."
- io9

From audible.com:

Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.

Not only are Campion and Purslane late for their 30-second reunion but they have also brought along an amnesiac golden robot for a guest. But the wayward shatterlings get more than the scolding they expect: they face the discovery that someone has a very serious grudge against the Gentian line, and there is a very real possibility of traitors in their midst. The surviving shatterlings have to dodge exotic weapons while they regroup to try to solve the mystery of who is persecuting them and why---before their ancient line is wiped out of existence forever.

Award-winning author Alastair Reynolds returns to the bestselling Revelation Space Universe with an epic tale of humanity's struggle to survive among the stars.

For thirty years a tiny band of humans has been sheltering in the caverns of an airless, crater-packed world called Michaelmas.  Beyond their solar system lie the ruins of human intersellar civilization, stalked by a ruthless, infinitly patient cybernetic entity determined to root out the last few bands of survivors.  One man has guided the people of Michaelmas through the hardest of times and given them hope against the wolves: Miguel de Ruyter.

When a lone human ship blunders into their system and threatens to lead the wolves to Michaelmas, de Ruyter embarks on a desperate, near-suicidal mission to prevent catastrophe.  But an encounter with a refugee from the ship - the enigmatic woman who calls herself only Glass - leads to de Ruyter's world being turned upside down.

In the second book of The Inhibitor Trilogy, Alastair Reynolds pushes the boundaries of science fiction and "confirms his place among the leaders of the hard-science space-opera renaissance" (Publishers Weekly).

Late in the twenty-sixth century, the human race has advanced enough to accidentally trigger the Inhibitors -- alien killing machines designed to detect intelligent life and destroy it. The only hope for humanity lies in the recovery of a secret cache of doomsday weapons -- and a renegade named Clavain who is determined to find them. But other factions want the weapons for their own purposes -- and the weapons themselves have another agenda altogether . . .

Alastair Reynolds has been one of the most powerful voices in space opera for twenty years.  In this, his debut novel and the first book in his Revelation Space universe, one man will journey across time and space on a single-minded quest for the truth....

Nine hundred thousand years ago, something annihilated the Amarantin civilization just as it was on the verge of discovering space flight.

Now one scientist, the brilliant and ruthless Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the mystery of the ancient civilization's disappearance.  But the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason - and if that reason is uncovered, the universe, and reality itself, could be irrevocably altered....

"A delight. A refreshing and entertaining reconsideration of some of the genre's oldest tropes.  An impressive first novel, quite possibly the space opera of the year." - LOCUS

"I was hooked from page one.  Billion-year-gone alien wars, killer intelligences - and perhaps the most stunning and original alien artifact in modern science-fiction - and all rendered with the authentic voice of a working scientist."  - STEPHEN BAXTER

"[A] sci-fi tour de force....  Clearly intoxicated by cutting-edge scientific research - in bioengineering, space physics, cybernetics - Reynolds spins a ravishingly inventive- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

From audible.com:

Spearpoint, the last human city, is an atmosphere-piercing spire of vast size. Clinging to its skin are the zones, a series of semi-autonomous city-states, each of which enjoys a different - and rigidly enforced - level of technology. Following an infiltration mission that went tragically wrong, Quillon has been living incognito, working as a pathologist in the district morgue.

But when a near-dead angel drops onto his dissecting table, Quillon's world is wrenched apart one more time. If Quillon is to save his life, he must leave his home and journey into the cold and hostile lands beyond Spearpoint's base, starting an exile that will take him further than he could ever imagine. But there is far more at stake than just Quillon's own survival, for the limiting technologies of the zones are determined not by governments or police but by the very nature of reality---and reality itself is showing worrying signs of instability.