After reading The Prefect, I was looking forward to Revelation Space. I finished it in France, but have only just got round to writing about it.

The first thing that comes to mind is that Reynolds uses the word 'caul' too much.
Revelation Space is a space opera of vast scope, Prefect is more character driven. I prefer Prefect. I think I can detect Iain M. Banks' influence on a lot of sci-fi. Did he set up the Jeeves and Wooster relationship between AIs and humans? Also the ironic naming of ships.

Reynolds is to be applauded for giving some of his human characters technological modifications. We haven't gone far enough though. It's not going to be too much longer before humans will have changed beyond recognition. How this issue pans out in the future depends on the nature of consciousness. Perhaps consciousness can merge and separate? Perhaps it can't. Maybe there's a limit to the size of a conscious entity, maybe not. I think someone needs to make some guesses here and then see how it plays out in a story. I'd love to write a sci-fi story. The problem is that it would never be as good as Reynolds...