Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds might seems innocuous enough, but I'll promise it will blow you over especially if you a fan of space opera. Pushing Ice's beginning might leave you surprised (or confused), set ten of thousand of years in the future. But the further you go, the more it will left you confused, you will eventually ask yourself, what the hell is happening? Throughout the whole book, you will be left with the feeling that something is wrong, but you can't pinpoint exactly why. That's where the twist lies.
And of course, as the case with Reynolds, he will pass a huge span of time in just a blink of an eye. Personally I found his ability quite disturbing yet amazed. Now, for the real meat.
SPOILER ALERT!
In the beginning, I really thought it would ended up with Chromis rescuring the crew of Rockhopper, but the bleaker it goes, as Svieta led the community through more than thirteen years of isolation inside Janus, the more dubious the role Chromis might have in the future. When they finally arrived in the Spican structure, things get weirder, with the prison-like Structure.
Through the encounters with the Fountainhead (which must've been humanity's first contact, but its significance dwarved by the situation Rockhopper has), they were provided technology seventy-years ahead of their time when they left the Solar System, in exchange for them tapping the energy of Janus. Benevolent alien!
Three-fourth to the end, Chromis make appearance, and delivered the fact that she herself might be an ancient past already by the point where Bella 'unlocks' Chromis' cube. So, no Chromis ending for Bella.
Fast forward, the ending is what sent me reeling, with the enormity of the Structure's size. It is implied that it is as big as a solar system, filled with torus of the Structure, that must have numbered at least in thousands strands, stretching for light hours (tens of AUs). I am still left with sickening feeling after reading that chapter for a few time. The helplessness that the last vestige of humanity in the universe is facing, or just how gigantic the structure is, or the fact that they might be billions of light years away from Earth, or maybe the fact that there the Spicans are gone and the zoo is now overran. I simply have no idea.
Overall, Pushing Ice is one of the only books that left me with empty feelings afterwards, even though I speedread it in like four days. The rivalry between Bella and Svieta, their ego, is indeed an interesting part of the story, one that I think is lacking in Reynolds' books. If you like having existential crisis over how insignificant we are in the universe, this book is for you.