House of Suns

Jun 01, 2012 Robert Delikat rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: religion, scifi

I am always on the lookout for new SF authors. I have read most if not all of Hamilton, Clarke, Vonnegut, Wells, Simmons, Asimov, and Herbert among other greats. This was my first Alastair Reynolds book. I cannot say I was overwhelmed by it in any way. When I read by a reviewer that I follow that Reynolds pushes the boundaries of the genre in new directions, I was ready for something special. I feel disappointed.

That a progenitor fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones seemed in...more

like 3 likes · see review

Dec 01, 2011 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've read almost all of Alastair Reynolds's books. "House of Suns" is the most recent I've read, and it just took me away. I don't necessarily recommend it be the first of his works that you read (visit his website to see his recommendations), but for anyone who loves space opera which spans millions of years and millions of light-years, his works, especially this one, are second to none. He is an astrophysicist, and having some knowledge of Einstein's Special and General Relativity allows one t...more

like 14 likes · see review

Dec 01, 2010 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: scifi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Reynolds now has a sufficient body of published works for certain themes, narrative techniques and favourite tricks to be discernable; most of them are present in this novel, which has a setting independent of all his previous books.

Here we have humanity as a star-faring species for more than 6 million years from the point of view of Earth's rest frame - and if you don't know what a "rest frame" is you may have a little trouble with this book, because Special Relativity plays a crucial role in t...more Reynolds now has a sufficient body of published works for certain themes, narrative techniques and favourite tricks to be discernable; most of them are present in this novel, which has a setting independent of all his previous books.

Here we have humanity as a star-faring species for more than 6 million years from the point of view of Earth's rest frame - and if you don't know what a "rest frame" is you may have a little trouble with this book, because Special Relativity plays a crucial role in the story and Reynolds takes no time out to explain it. I can remember enough of the theory to take it in my stride, but I don't know whether it would cause a problem for a reader completely unfamiliar with the concept of time dilation. This is the first of Reynolds' themes to become obvious; no faster than light spaceships. He uses this restriction to force creativity the same way e.e. cummings used the restrictions of the sonnet form, and to great effect. I can think of no more convincing "hard SF" writer working today and it is because when it comes to current physics, he never gets it wrong. This fundamental idea forces Reynolds to find answers to questions about how galactic scale exploration could work and come up with solutions that are more or less original - even "suspended animation" gets a new look, possibly influenced by ideas from Iain M. Banks' The Algebraist.

So what has humanity been up to for 6.5 million years? Well, some of them have cloned themselves a thousand times over and started observing the life of the galaxy in near light-speed spaceships - effectively time-travelling into the future as they do so - and holding re-unions every 200,000 years or so, to share their experiences. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the species are doing what they've always done but on a bigger scale - interstellar empires come and go, evolution takes a grip in some places, science progresses.

The story is written from the perspectives of two clones of the same individual who also, against Family tradition, are lovers. They are also late for their Family re-union when they get into some trouble with an unscrupulous space-ship trader....

From there the story slowly accelerates to a break-neck pace - much like the ships in the story - in time for the conclusion. This is a technique also seen in Century Rain and Pushing Ice. It can make the reader feel somewhat underwhelmed in the first third, but the final third makes up for it every time.

There is a trick Reynolds has used repeatedly before and again here, that I feel he needs to be wary of: induced amnesia. The restoration of "erased" memory is perhaps now too obvious a trick for hiding then revealing mysterious circumstances and events. On this occassion, at least the victim is aware of the fact that he is suffering, but really I don't think Reynolds can use the idea as a significant plot device again without it being irritating.

Really that is about the most negative element of the book. The author's penchant for Gothic horrors and really unpleasant, grotesque characters is present, though dialed down a very long way from the freak-show that was Revelation Space and I could quibble that perhaps Reynolds' unique voice is made a little too generic because it has been pushed too low in the mix, this time around. Readers need characters they can like, especially in long novels, but there is a balance to be struck; perhaps Pushing Ice saw that balance being hit almost perfectly because the leading characters were so realistic yet flawed. Of course, Reynolds turned it up to 11 in Diamond Dogs - but you can do that if you're only expecting to hold the reader for 100 pages or so - more of that, please!

Overall, this is recognisable Reynolds writing a story that grips like a slowly tightening vise and drags you to some unexpected places, well worth the read and as good as any of his other longer novels.(less)

like 7 likes · see review

Jul 22, 2009 Loothi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The pacing of Alastair Reynolds' novels feel a bit predicatable when you've read a few. A bit like Nirvana songs from the Nevermind album. Despite that, I'm always completely absorbed by his characters and their worlds so it's not such a bad thing.

House of Suns is another epic space opera. Our narrators are from a society of future humans struggling with emerging machine intelligences, other more exotic human iterations, family betrayals and old fashioned love affairs across the aeons.

Our huma...more

like 3 likes · see review

Jan 27, 2013 Rob rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: random-comments-review

...I do think that Reynolds packed perhaps a bit too much ideas into this volume though. The implications of most things we see are usually only glimpsed at. He simply doesn't have enough space in this book to properly explore them. The pace of the story simply won't allow it. I find myself torn between the sheer enjoyment on being dragged along with the story and the nagging voice telling me Reynolds is glossing over the details. It is a much smoother read than some of his earlier novels but in...more

like 2 likes · see review

Oct 07, 2012 Darciana rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of epic space opera and characters with depth

Shelves: owned, sci-fi, winners, reviewed, space-opera

If it was possible to give this novel 6 stars, I would. I finished it just half an hour ago, and I'm still floating out there in space, unwilling to return to the confinements of our small blue planet.

"House of Suns" is big in every sense of the word, and it would have been easy to bury the characters, their feelings and relationships under the vast scope of time the story covers, the gigantic spaceships, the huge mysteries and conflicts.
That doesn't happen. Amidst the rise and fall of entire c...more If it was possible to give this novel 6 stars, I would. I finished it just half an hour ago, and I'm still floating out there in space, unwilling to return to the confinements of our small blue planet.

"House of Suns" is big in every sense of the word, and it would have been easy to bury the characters, their feelings and relationships under the vast scope of time the story covers, the gigantic spaceships, the huge mysteries and conflicts.
That doesn't happen. Amidst the rise and fall of entire civilisations, the destiny of Purslane and Campion, essentially two clones of a young woman named Abigail Gentian, but also fully fledged individuals with their own histories and personalities, and the golden robot Hesperus rises to a grandeur of its own.

There are no aliens in this novel, but over the course of millions of years, humanity has evolved into many different forms of sentient life, many of which are barely recognisable as humans anymore.
Abigail's clones are - though augmented - human through and through, in every respect, and they have all their creator's memories of a time when humanity was still confined to our solar system. But what happens if you combine almost godlike powers and a life span bordering on immortality with human fallibility and instable character traits?

I'm sure even this book has its flaws, and if I take it apart, I might find them. But I don't want to. I enjoyed every single page, the tight and fast-paced storytelling, the characterisations, the mysteries piled up on top of other mysteries and the fact that, with few lesser important exceptions, the author resolves all of them. There are no significant loose threads left in the end.
The science aspects partly went straight over my head, but I don't have to understand how something works, but what it does, and Reynolds served my needs just fine.

"House of Suns" is definitely an all-time favourite, and for once I cherish the fact that I tend to forget things pretty quickly. When I pick it up again in a few years, it might just feel like the first time, and that's surely something to look forward to.(less)

like 4 likes · see review

Mar 16, 2012 Apatt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, sf-top-20

"I had already seen dozens of empires come and go, blossoming and fading like lilies on a pond, over and over, seasons without end. Many of those empires were benevolent and welcoming, but others were inimical to all outside influences. It made no difference to their longevity. The kind empires withered and waned as quickly as the hostile ones."

Epic!

The above passage from House of Suns serves to illustrate the author's grandiose scheme for this book. The story spans millions of years and hundr...more

"I had already seen dozens of empires come and go, blossoming and fading like lilies on a pond, over and over, seasons without end. Many of those empires were benevolent and welcoming, but others were inimical to all outside influences. It made no difference to their longevity. The kind empires withered and waned as quickly as the hostile ones."

Epic!

The above passage from House of Suns serves to illustrate the author's grandiose scheme for this book. The story spans millions of years and hundreds of them often pass in the blink of an eye. Talk about fast moving narrative, this book almost break the FTL barrier. That said the story is not hard to follow providing you give it time to unfold and settle you in its very far future settings. In spite of the grand scale there are not that many characters to keep track of. The first person narrative is split into that of three protagonists, actually only one protagonist in a way. It all starts with this one girl Abigail Gentian who grew up in a weird shape shifting house and later cloned herself a thousand (+/-1) times for space exploration purposes. These thousand clones meet up every thousand years or so to celebrate, compare notes and basically party like it's 1999 (+ many kilo centuries). On one such occasion they are attacked and almost wiped out...

My inadequate synopsis barely scratches the surface of the immense story. This is my second Alastair Reynolds book, the first being Revelation Space which is his debut novel published 8 years before House of Suns. I rather like Revelation Space but in a muted sort of way, I thought the characters were on the flat side and a lot of the science went over my head. Well, I am glad to report that in the intervening years (while I was in suspended animation) Mr. Reynolds has acquired the arcane skills of character development. The central characters are likable and believable and the robot characters are just wonderful. While some of the science still goes whoosh! right over my head this is to be expected as I have difficulty figuring out how dental floss works. That said, most of the science and inventions are explained quite clearly and still comes across as ingenious.

Interestingly some very odd beings appear in this book but none of them are aliens. Which brings me to another quote from the book:

"Yes, humanity fractured into a million daughter species, some of which were scarcely recognisable to each other. But scratch beneath the scales, the fur, the tin armour, they were still humans at the core, and no amount of primate babble could ever drown out that silence completely."

TL;DR: No aliens! All the weird blighters that show up in this book are post-humans, though a mysterious alien race is referred to they never actually drop by at any point. The post-humans weirdos more than make up for them though.

There are mercifully brief fantasy interludes (inside a virtual reality) which I don't really care for, it reminds of scenes from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer which did not appeal to me (the scenes, not the book). This book could also do with a bit more humour and levity, but the poignant finale tugs nicely at the heartstrings.

I really should stop rating books at five stars or I shall have no credibility left. I don't want to be the Paula Abdul of Goodreads or something, but really at the end of the day this is a great mind expanding read and to rate it less than five stars seems churlish. I think I will rate the next book I review at 4 stars max, regardless of how good it is!(less)

like 7 likes · see review

Feb 01, 2011 Felicia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

Words can't describe how much I love this book! The quality of the writing in the first chapter gripped me and wouldnt let me stop reading. It is a fabulous scifi space opera with fantastic characters you root for. The most impressive thing is the world building, and how the complex science becomes understandable and readable in a way that you don't normally find in these types of books.
Between discovering Reynolds and Banks, I feel like I'm in my own scifi novel Renaissance!

like 24 likes · see review

Jul 25, 2009 Lori (Hellian) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've been having alot of trouble rating 3 and 4 stars in the past 2 months. I started out as 3 is actually a very good rating, while 4 was reserved for books I loved and won't forget, and 5 being masterpieces of books I want to reread - which is rare, life being short and too many good books out there!

So with this book I toughened up again, but am doubtful because I really like it, and I've been feeling the ending all day.

This is a strong book from Reynolds. Different from Revelation Space, Cha...more

like 2 likes · see review

Sep 13, 2012 Paul Forbes rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Oh my. What a wonderful book. Beautifully written. Engaging characters. Brilliant story. Great ending. This is one of the best novels I've ever read, let alone one of the best sci-fi. Every single page has something to add to the story, there are no pages thrown in to pad it out it's 502 pages. It might be a bit heavy for non science fiction fans (some of it deals with faster than light travel and why it's impossible) but for fans of the genre it's very highly recommended. I think I've found my...more

like 3 likes · see review

Mar 17, 2013 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, science-fiction

This book was what I expected - an awesome space opera with action, intrigue, an interesting future, and reasonable science. It tells the story of two shatterlings (clones of one person with different bodies but the same memories) whose group was brutally attacked. The group goes from around one thousand to a little over fifty. As they try and piece together what is going on and who their enemy is, more mayhem and death occurs. By the end, the story has covered tens of thousands of in-galaxy yea...more

like · see review

Feb 28, 2013 Josiah Bancroft rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

House of Suns is wonderfully written: the prose is bold and lyrical, the descriptions are novel and often ecstatic, and the dialogue possesses an almost Victorian charm. Though a classic space opera, which is more concerned with histories and personalities, the story and devices still pass the sniff-test of physical feasibility: the science portion of the fiction is convincing enough. The characters are distinct and diversely purposed, and I found myself caring about them. This is a story of err...more

like · see review

Dec 24, 2012 Carl-Eric rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reynolds is one of today's masters of hard SF. There is no faster than light travel in his universes - instead you need to find ways to adapt to vast distances and incredibly long timespans.

In this book, not part of his better known Revelation Space universe, he provides yet another interesting idea of what kinds of societies might emerge under these circumstances. The various lines of shatterlings that swarm through the galaxy at a glacial pace in contrast to the rising and falling empires arou...more

like · see review

Oct 30, 2012 D. Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Interesting. Needless to say that while I did pretty much enjoy this book, I also found it rather lacking. The ideas were very interesting, the two lovers I found interesting, and the Machine Person was very interesting, the most interesting character in the book, but there was too much of the book that just seemed to be build-up, and then suddenly a revelation about what is actually happening that seems almost unrelated with the rest of the story. On top of this was a separate, distantly relate...more

like · see review

Jun 28, 2012 Tommy Carlson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just finished Alastair Reynold's House of Suns. Good book? Yeah, it was a fun read. Great book? No, not really. There are a few problems with it.

First, it doesn't feel packed with original ideas. While not set in the Revelation Space universe, it seems to borrow ideas from that universe, modifying them to be sure. But, if you voraciously read everything Reynold's writes, some of the ideas are going to feel recycled.

Second, the characters are pretty transparent. There aren't many times where char...more

like · see review

Feb 24, 2012 Neal Asher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I finally got round to reading this and enjoyed it immensely. Mr Reynolds also got double royalties from me due to my increasingly disfunctional memory – I bought one copy through either Amazon or The Book Depository, and then picked up another in Waterstones.

It has everything I want from him: huge concepts played out on a vast stage, enjoyable characters, gobsmacking technology (bollocks to nanotech, he goes straight for the jugular with femtotech) and a great story extending across aeons. I pa...more

like · see review

Feb 05, 2012 Erika rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first Alastair Reynolds book I read and my second favorite so far. The premise is awesome and one I'd love to do if I could ... "Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which she called shatterlings."

Every 100,000 years or so the shatterlings gather together at a grand reunion to share observations … but now someone is eliminating them one by one. Two of the shatterlings have defied conventio...more

like · see review

May 27, 2011 Forrest rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cbriii

It’s hard to not have a little bit of admiration for Alastair Reynolds’ books, whether you like them or not. He skillfully crafts stories of almost incomprehensible depth and scope. Stories that span millions of years and entire galaxies. House of Suns is no exception, and while it isn’t the strongest entry into his bibliography, it does justice to Reynolds’ unique take on the space opera and science fiction.

If Revelation Space is the pinnacle of the postmodern space opera, House of Suns is a st...more It’s hard to not have a little bit of admiration for Alastair Reynolds’ books, whether you like them or not. He skillfully crafts stories of almost incomprehensible depth and scope. Stories that span millions of years and entire galaxies. House of Suns is no exception, and while it isn’t the strongest entry into his bibliography, it does justice to Reynolds’ unique take on the space opera and science fiction.

If Revelation Space is the pinnacle of the postmodern space opera, House of Suns is a step back and two steps to the side. (House of Suns in an entirely different cannon than the rest of Reynolds’ works) The elements of great hard SF are all here, and Reynolds uses them effectively to weave the story of Campion and Purslane as they try to unravel the mystery that killed off almost 90% of their family. But the whole book has a somewhat whimsical feel to it, and it feels very out of place in this hard SF epic. The hard SF elements clash strongly with the attitude of the Gentian shatterlings, who seem to take most of their super-technology for granted. And while the way Reynolds depicts the turn-over of the human empires within the meta-civilization is accurate, it weakens the generally pro-humanity outlook of the rest of his cannon.

The interactions between Hesperus, an amnesiac member of a race of sentient machines, and the mechano-phobic Doctor Meninx are almost hilarious in the first section of the book, but when things take a turn for the serious Meninx is excised from the plot and never mentioned or heard from again. And he’s not the only element from Part One that vanishes entirely in part two. It’s almost as if the first 93 pages were part of a different short story that featured the same characters.

The book is also threaded with single chapter peeks into the life of the original Abigail Gentian, some 6 million years earlier. While they are a somewhat interesting look into the collective history of the rest of the protagonists, ultimately these vignettes don’t support, or even apply to, any other elements of the main story.

When it comes down to it, House of Suns is a pessimistic look at the far flung future of humanity. It characterizes us as xenophobic to the point of paranoid psychosis and ultimately unwilling to let our mistakes inform our future culture. Only the strong leading characters salvage an otherwise depressing scenario from its abysmal conclusion, but even the conclusion left me with more questions asked than answered. The quality of the overall book is strong, but there are a lot of things to pick at here. I would recommend almost any of Reynolds’ other books over this one. (less)

like · see review

Dec 06, 2010 Tim Hicks rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I think Reynolds reached a little too far with this, but he sure reached a long way and I applaud that.
It's a great read, but you need a bit of basic sci-fi astrophysics and a very well-developed ability to suspend disbelief.

Many of the advanced concepts are well thought out, as you'd expect from an astrophysicist. Maybe some of the blips I noticed are in fact explained, but let's try some.

22-kilometre-long ships with one person on them? And we complain about 6-seater vehicles commuting with...more I think Reynolds reached a little too far with this, but he sure reached a long way and I applaud that.
It's a great read, but you need a bit of basic sci-fi astrophysics and a very well-developed ability to suspend disbelief.

Many of the advanced concepts are well thought out, as you'd expect from an astrophysicist. Maybe some of the blips I noticed are in fact explained, but let's try some.

22-kilometre-long ships with one person on them? And we complain about 6-seater vehicles commuting with only the driver.

In the long chase, the ships accelerated at 1000 Gs for a long time; for all we know, they just kept doing it as they got closer and closer to lightspeed. 22-km-long ship, 1000Gs - what the hell are they using for fuel? Compressed stars?

Approaching the stardam at what must have been 0.99999c, we are told that the ship decelerated several times to 1/3c. How? A sea anchor? Brembo space-grabbing brakes? Does the author dismiss centuries of braking in a few words because we need to get on with the plot?

I'm still struggling with friends saying, "OK, bye, see you in 200,000 years." Then friend A heads off galactic east at .8c, B goes G-south at 04c, and C stays home. But despite relativistic time dilation, they all have no trouble making the reunion within a year or two of the date. Their calendar app must really be something.

These 6-million-year-old people go offline for millennia relative to where they started. But when they get back nothing seems to have changed. Nothing's obsolete, there haven't been any breakthroughs in physics etc.

Near the end of the chase, they talk about how they have been travelling for 23,000 years relative to where they left. Then they decide to send one of their number back for trial. 23,000 more years, assuming they accelerate as hard as they did before. And when that ship arrives, 46,000 years later, the trial will be conducted by the same inquisitor who did a trial just before they left. So I guess the inquisitor must have gone into abeyance with a note saying. "Wake me when they come back." In 46,000 years the justice system won't have changed at all, the same people will be in charge ... hell, it's a leap to assume the planet will still be there and have intelligent life on it.

But for all that, I've even enjoyed criticizing the book! It's a huge romp, good fun and a huge achievement. Just don't look too closely. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. (less)

like 3 likes · see review

Oct 10, 2010 Moster rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed this book very much. The story was interesting and compelling, and the ways Reynolds has evolved humanity into different types of creatures are innovative and thorough. The story kept me speculating, and while I figured out some of the high level points of the end before the characters, I did not expect the finale at all. The writing works well to bring the reader into the minds of the characters. I do have a small gripe with the structure of the book, but I think this is more of an ed...more I enjoyed this book very much. The story was interesting and compelling, and the ways Reynolds has evolved humanity into different types of creatures are innovative and thorough. The story kept me speculating, and while I figured out some of the high level points of the end before the characters, I did not expect the finale at all. The writing works well to bring the reader into the minds of the characters. I do have a small gripe with the structure of the book, but I think this is more of an editorial error than an authorial one. The way the story flows in the prequels which act as prologues for each of eight sections doesn't quite match the way it flows in the "present."

"House of Suns" differs from Reynolds's past works in that it's a smaller scope of characters operating in a much larger area both time and space. The approach allows for a self-contained novel rather than a four volume undertaking, and while he has only two main characters / narrators (who could be considered three... or one) rather than a dozen, each of the host of secondary players is given a distinct voice and personality. While it helps to filter through the eyes of another character, this is more difficult in written fiction than filmed fiction; and I appreciate that attention to detail.

I've read Reynolds's work in the past, and was quite excited to see that he brought a new story from a new universe (though the way his things work it could just be the same universe at a different point in history). Where he exceled in the past was in conveying the isolation and tedium of interstellar travel; and he does so to equal but different effect in this outing. The underlying elements of the universe have matured in that he has pushed to the background the deus ex machina crutch of immensely powerful found objects.

Taking into account that there are unexplainable items, this work blurs the line between true science fiction and "hard SF." The most important aspect here is in the rigid limit of the speed of light. Reyonlds discusses using magnetic fields, stasis devices, and similar theoretical technologies--it's important that they are all based in scientific *theories* of our age--to allow for (e.g.) acceleration in excess of a thousand G, but at the end of the day the ships just keep tacking 9s onto the end of .9c, allowing him to leverage relativity in interesting ways rather than just having people travel hundreds of billions of miles in a day and a half.

Reynolds has expanded the main volumes of the "Revelation Space" series into substories and prequels. I didn't read many of those because 1,500 pages of one universe is generally enough for me these days. But I'd love it if he took a similar approach to this universe. I would gladly pay another $9 to learn more about this newest world of his creation.

From my blog, http://mosterandthewoman.blogspot.com (less)

like · see review

Jun 14, 2010 Rick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I rarely click the 5 star rating but I started this at 11pm last night thinking I'd read a few chapters. At 5:30am I finished the book.

How you like this book will really be dependent on whether the characters of Purslane & Campion grab you and whether you need exotic levels of technology in your space opera.

Characters first... I liked that Purslane, Campion and the other clones here were very much individuals and not the copies that the term implies. All of the shatterlings (as they're kno...more I rarely click the 5 star rating but I started this at 11pm last night thinking I'd read a few chapters. At 5:30am I finished the book.

How you like this book will really be dependent on whether the characters of Purslane & Campion grab you and whether you need exotic levels of technology in your space opera.

Characters first... I liked that Purslane, Campion and the other clones here were very much individuals and not the copies that the term implies. All of the shatterlings (as they're known here) are people first and clones second. We get enough interior viewpoint that we get a good feel for both, though interestingly you aren't told by the chapter heads which character is talking as a chapter starts. It's quickly obvious, but an interesting omission.

Technology - though humans have a variable stasis technology that slows the subjective passage of time, there's no FTL. Shatterlings count time in circuits of the galaxy, roughtly 200k years... but they don't spend all of this time awake. Still, though they're in stasis for much of the time, the shatterlings have lived 6 million years and must have tens of thousands of years awake. This isn't explored - how do they cope with spans of time like that? If the book has a weakness, that's it - the technology in many ways doesn't seem far enough out for being the product of several million years and I have to assume that if we progressed for that long our technology would be a lot more advanced. In a way, this is addressed by positing that civilizations don't last that long - a few hundred thousand years or so. Still... look what we've done in about 5,000 years. A hundred times that long would see some amazing advances and those are largely missing here.

HOWEVER... it doesn't hamper to story or seem artificial in anyway and so I only really noticed it when I thought about the book after finishing it.

Finally, I liked the detail in this book. Too many authors refer to something in their universe but leave it very fuzzy for the reader - Reynolds doesn't do that here. For example, he introduces a society known as the Vigilance early in the book and initially doesn't explain what it is... but in a flashback chapter later we learn about them so that they - and Campion's trip there - take detailed shape in our minds. There aren't any dropped threads - no 'this civilization is immensely important' followed by them never appearing again in the book. There ARE references to other factions and advanced human societies... but they're simply mentioned, not put forth as important players and then set aside.

(less)

like 2 likes · see review

Jul 27, 2009 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Gosh-wow sensawunda addicts

Recommended to Alan by: Prior experience with the author's work

Once I'd had a chance to crack the covers, I burned through this book in a couple of days, finding it right up my alley. Reynolds has been called the "master of Modern British Space Opera," and with good reason - he undeniably thinks big, writes big, and is capable of conveying that vertiginous sense of scale to the reader. House of Suns effortlessly spans millions of years (and millions of light-years)... but it does so in a clever and humanistic way, by following the viewpoints of several diff...more Once I'd had a chance to crack the covers, I burned through this book in a couple of days, finding it right up my alley. Reynolds has been called the "master of Modern British Space Opera," and with good reason - he undeniably thinks big, writes big, and is capable of conveying that vertiginous sense of scale to the reader. House of Suns effortlessly spans millions of years (and millions of light-years)... but it does so in a clever and humanistic way, by following the viewpoints of several different clones of one person, Abigail Gentian.

The clones are called "shatterlings." It's a telling name - though they are all members of a single clone Line, they're very different people - intentionally so, as Abigail was planning a family structure that would need to last through more than just a few millennia, a task that would be impossible to mere copies of one individual, however competent and self-reliant that individual might be. Abigail really does shatter herself into separate fragments, in the hope that some of those fragments might prove crucial in the long run.

The Gentian Line, like the other human clone families, takes a long view, in which the rise and fall of entire species and interstellar civilizations is considered nothing but "turnover." Such stability is a necessity to the Lines. In Reynolds' universe, the speed of light is still an insurmountable barrier to human space flight and communication. Abigail Gentian was born into a Solar system that humanity has filled to the limits of easy communication, into a "Golden Hour" of nearly universal plenty and ease... but some people still yearn for expansion.

Those people, Abigail among them, get their wish. Though the speed of light remains an absolute, it turns out to be possible to skip much of the boring parts of travel between the stars using several different varieties of hibernation ("abeyance"), artificial time dilation ("Synchromesh") or simple cold storage (in a "cryophagus," my favorite among Reynolds' portmanteau coinings).

This is typical of the sense of richness Reynolds conveys. Most sf authors content themselves with a single invention at a time, but in the real world things are rarely that simple... competing formats, each with their own advantages and proponents, are a fact of life, and there's no real reason to think that future civilizations won't also have to make choices.

And even though Reynolds refuses himself the easy to-and-fro of hyperspace, there are yet plenty of exciting and exotic encounters - bizarre species, world-sized space ships with whole fleets in their holds, even larger structures (such as the "stardams" in which Gentian Line specializes, capable of absorbing a supernova's output), space battles using planet-busting weapons and stretching across thousands of years.

Reynolds writes the sort of sprawling, inventive, fascinating sf that attracts people to the field and keeps them hooked, and all I hope is that he keeps it up.
(less)

like 3 likes · see review

Jul 16, 2009 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

When the setting is interstellar travel, the majority of science fiction authors postulate some sort of FTL (Faster Than Light) drive. It's the only way that humans as-we-know-them can traverse the tremendous distances between stars in the duration of a single lifetime. Alastair Reynolds, in contrast, posits that relativity can never be overcome, and his stories always depict how humans and other sophonts must change and evolve to adapt to the time spans involved.

House of Suns does not seem to...more

like 1 like · see review

May 21, 2009 David Hebblethwaite rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My first encounter with the novels of Alastair Reynolds and… well, for a start, he certainly doesn’t lack vision.

House of Suns is set not just in the far future, but in the far future of a far future (as it were) where humans have colonised the galaxy. In addition to myriad planet-dwelling sub-species (some of whom are barely recognisable as human), there are the star-faring Lines, each comprising a thousand clones (or ’shatterlings’) of individuals who, six million years previously, set out to...more My first encounter with the novels of Alastair Reynolds and… well, for a start, he certainly doesn’t lack vision.

House of Suns is set not just in the far future, but in the far future of a far future (as it were) where humans have colonised the galaxy. In addition to myriad planet-dwelling sub-species (some of whom are barely recognisable as human), there are the star-faring Lines, each comprising a thousand clones (or ’shatterlings’) of individuals who, six million years previously, set out to explore the further reaches of space (they have remained alive so long thanks to various forms of hibernation).

We follow the shatterlings of Abigail Gentian, and two in particular: Campion and Purslane, who broke one of the taboos of Gentian Line by falling in love. They’re late for the Line’s current reunion (at which individuals’ recorded memory ’strands’ will be shared) when they receive a distress call telling them to turn and flee, for the reunion world has been ambushed, and most of Gentian Line destroyed. Accompanied by Hesperus, one of the sentient Machine People as their companion, Purslane and Campion meet up with the survivors; but they’ll discover that a dark secret lies behind the ambush; and their understanding of the universe — and themselves — is about to change.

The novel is told in the first person, with Campion and Purslane narrating alternate chapters; there is also a recurring plot strand dealing with the early life of Abigail Gentian (which could be narrated by either clone, as all Abigail’s shatterlings have memories of her life). The latter does not seem to add much to the story, beyond setting the scene and introducing some apparatus that will reappear at the end; but, since these sections are quite short, it didn’t really bother me. More problematic is that Purslane’s and Campion’s narrative voices can’t be told apart, which weakens the characterisation and makes it hard to keep track of whose chapter is whose (I suppose this could be explained by the two characters’ being versions of the same person, but it doesn’t excuse the difficulty).

Although it’s disappointing that, in effect, the novel has one narrative voice, that voice is not unengaging. I particularly liked some of Reynolds’ imagery, such as this example from near the beginning: ‘…an outrageous confection of a planet: a striped marshmallow giant with a necklace of sugary rings, combed and braided by the resonant forces of a dozen glazed and candied moons’.

But it’s not the prose that’s the star attraction of House of Suns — it’s the constant flood of imagination. Reynolds’ remarkably busy universe includes not only the exotic humans and the machine intelligences, but also such phenomena as the Vigilance, a vast living library, and the Spirit of the Air, a cloud-shaped higher intelligence who was once a man (both of these latter are beautifully described). Ideas and revelations come thick and fast, the pace builds as the end approaches — and, despite the occasional sense of things being pulled out of a hat (as if to say, ‘ta-dah!’), the author controls it all very well.

However, this approach is not without its problems. In particular, Reynolds’ story raises serious questions about issues like torture and guilt; but I’m not sure that these are explored in all the depth they should have been — indeed, I’m not sure there’s time for Reynolds to do so, given the structure he uses: the plot gets in the way to an extent. But, all in all, House of Suns is a very enjoyable piece of space opera, and surely not the last Alastair Reynolds novel I’ll be reading.(less)

like 2 likes · see review

Apr 22, 2012 Stas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first Reynolds I've read, picked out randomly. I am happy to say that I will be reading more of him very soon: I haven't been as excited by a space opera since Iain Banks' Culture books. Space opera is right: I don't mind so much that a lot of the mind-boggling techno-utopia of this book has to be taken for granted - various advances have been made, and it makes it possible to free the imagination to follow to its conclusions, no, that's not right, not conclusions, more like flowers,...more

like · see review

Mar 24, 2013 Diana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: heard-on-audible

The life time of these spacefaring sentients span over millions of years. Like the metaphor used by the author, their experience and observation through such long span of time is achieved by spending massive amount of their travel time through space in stasis. They're like pebbles skipping over the surface of water, touching, interacting with the life forms they visit in a particular system or a planet only during the time of their stay at each destination. However it's not to say the story is a...more

like · see review

Feb 25, 2012 Emanuel Landeholm rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nowreading: House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds. Possibly the best of his works! At this point I just don't think he has enough pages left to screw things up badly, so it should be quite safe to proclaim this a master piece (with some statistical authority).

World: Way of the milk. Andromeida is implied but not very active.
Personae: Good guys, bad/silly guys. Not a lot in between. I'm not yet in love with any of the female characters, which is usually not a good sign. The love story between Campia...more

like 1 like · see review

Aug 06, 2009 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Bill P! Simon, Brad, Ceridwen

I popped on this morning to review this book, to let flower my deep thoughts, to nurture the blossoming wonder that is my wisdom about this novel and science fiction, but I got distracted.

I am probably a 3.5 stars on this, having enjoyed the outsized imagination and the generally vigorous plotting, even if it felt at times a bit long, a bit beholden to Banks (right down to a series of interspersed chapters set in a virtual fantasy game). Reynolds follows a Line of clones who have traveled the ga...more I popped on this morning to review this book, to let flower my deep thoughts, to nurture the blossoming wonder that is my wisdom about this novel and science fiction, but I got distracted.

I am probably a 3.5 stars on this, having enjoyed the outsized imagination and the generally vigorous plotting, even if it felt at times a bit long, a bit beholden to Banks (right down to a series of interspersed chapters set in a virtual fantasy game). Reynolds follows a Line of clones who have traveled the galaxy for millenia, who meet intermittently to share troves of their memories--a neat idea for how "one" person could explore the galaxy. (The novel takes the problem of relativity and the hard law of lightspeed very seriously, with remarkable imagination.) And then suddenly someone attacks the reunion, leaving a few stray survivors. And the plot kicks in: conspiracies, space battles, political intrigue, cultural collisions, technological mumbo-jumbo, the hint of an Artifact and the unknowable. Sci-fi (not syfy, you bastards), Space Opera, in a sort of classic vein. Good stuff.

The novel crosses enormous spans of time and space, yet in a nutshell it's a mystery. But nutshell ain't really the point: the point is those enormous spans of time and space. Reynolds has his eye on--and seeks to open up our engagement with--Cosmology. I read science fiction for lots of reasons (see above re space battles, political intrigue, etc.), but I'm persistently and consistently driven by the best of these books and writers toward contemplations that are particularly possible in this genre.

For instance, Alienness is so literal, in science fiction, that the opportunities to estrange us readers from our own limited cultural paradigms can open us up to the complexities of perspective and difference in the world. I think the 12-year-old me, swallowing Bradbury and Le Guin (and later O. Butler), had his politics and his worldview disrupted in ways that almost directly pushed me to study abroad, to interrogate the ways difference gets defined (and often distrusted) in my hometown, my school, my family. I could say the same for the ways science fiction got me to think about the way technology is not just a set of cool tools but fundamentally world-changing. Science fiction gave me an historical consciousness, an itch to understand what social and economic and political and geographic factors lead to Culture X or Event Y. (And marxist literary scholar Freddie Jameson, with far more syllables and a much bigger salary, makes this argument much more broadly and effectively than me.) The genre--however prone to boys' own adventures or various kinds of silliness--has the potential to do things that NO other kind of writing can really do.

And this is where Reynolds does something special, something quite his own: reading House of Suns I grappled with the vastness, the almost ineffable HUGENESS of space and time in ways that are almost impossible to conceive. (Even the characters in this novel, the clones who've lived and journeyed so many millions of years, find themselves aghast at what is untouched and unexamined.) I closed the novel having enjoyed it, definitely, but also having been provoked yet again by this genre into new problems of how I think and conceive my existence, the world. Gotta give some props for that, eh?(less)

like 12 likes · see review

Feb 03, 2013 Jan Bednarczuk rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

It's hard to find far-future epic sci-fi with characters that don't completely suck, but Alastair Reynolds has managed to pull it off in this book.

House of Suns concerns the trials and tribulations of a group of humans who are more or less immortal; they don't age, and at the time the story takes place, they have already been alive for millions of years. They are a family of "shatterlings," clones of a single individual who split herself into a thousand parts; they travel the galaxy for 200,000...more It's hard to find far-future epic sci-fi with characters that don't completely suck, but Alastair Reynolds has managed to pull it off in this book.

House of Suns concerns the trials and tribulations of a group of humans who are more or less immortal; they don't age, and at the time the story takes place, they have already been alive for millions of years. They are a family of "shatterlings," clones of a single individual who split herself into a thousand parts; they travel the galaxy for 200,000 years, collecting experiences and information and data, and then they come back home for a reunion, during which they share information with each other before embarking on the next cycle of 200,000 years.

They have seen civilizations rise and fall so many times that they have categories for the different ways that civilizations can fail. They have so many memories that they cannot contain them all inside one frail human mind, and so they offload a lot of them into their data "troves."

The story mostly focuses on two of these individuals, who have fallen in love with each other even though that is against the rules of their House. We don't see the beginning of this affair; by the time we come into the story they have already been a couple for hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe millions of years, and Reynolds does a very good job of portraying them as such, with a love that burns steady in the background through quarrels and disagreements and separations of distance and attractions to other people. I didn't expect to find writing like this in an epic space opera, and it was a lovely surprise.

There are twists and turns in the plot that kept me hungry for more; this was one of those books that kept me up until 2 in the morning so I could finish the last few chapters and find out what happens. As usual with Reynolds' books, this one is packed full of interesting ideas about machine races and interstellar travel and the impact of longevity on human minds and culture; but happily he didn't skimp on the fiction in favor of the science. This was a great read. My only complaint, which is a small one, is that the ending felt somewhat rushed; but I've seen an interview with him in which he says he hopes to write a sequel to this book at some point, so perhaps that explains it.

Still, highly recommended to anyone who likes this genre.(less)

like · see review

Nov 10, 2010 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, science-fiction, space-opera, hard-sf

My first Alastair Reynolds novel, I found this to be a pretty good stand-alone space opera that avoids some of the usual tropes of the genre. Humans are alone in the galaxy -- the many civilizations populating the galaxy are far future posthumans evolved from the original human race. There is no FTL travel; humans spend literally hundreds of thousands of years touring the galaxy in sub-light ships of immense size.

House of Suns begins with an attempt to wipe out the Gentian line by mysterious att...more

like 2 likes · see review

topics	posts	views	last activity
Beyond Reality: 2012-01 HOUSE OF SUNS: finished reading (SPOILERS)	17	51	Aug 16, 2012 08:06am
Beyond Reality: 2012-01 HOUSE OF SUNS: roll call and first impressions (NO SPOILERS)	14	43	Jan 30, 2012 01:47pm

title link	preview: House of Suns
avg rating	preview: House of Suns Goodreads rating: 4.12 (5077 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2016634.House_of_Suns?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327871062l/2016634.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2016634.House_of_Suns?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds[/url]

House of Suns

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (21)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Alastair Reynolds

Books by Alastair Reynolds

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About House of Suns