House of Suns

Alastair Reynolds

Dec 2009 · Hachette UK

About this ebook

A spectacular, large-scale space opera - the ultimate galaxy-spanning adventure

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 two hundred thousand years, to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.

Campion and Purslane are not only late for their thirty-second reunion, but they have 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.

Ratings and reviews

The author had never disappointed me until I started reading this book, and for a while I thought this trend would end. It's one thing to tell a story that's in the "near" future, it's quite another to tell one that's set six million years into the future, stretching the life of a galactic meta-civilization across time. So many things seemed arbitrarily guessed about what we'd be like after so long and many plot elements looked to be unrelated at first. But everything eventually comes together near the middle of the book. From then on, it's a smooth and satisfying cruise to the end. Reynolds knows how to tell an epic story in a universe where the speed of light is the speed limit. If you liked his previous books, you will appreciate this one as well.

Very inventive and interesting hard-sf, and hard to put down despite the fact that I found the characters a bit two dimensional. They were so damn polite to each other all the time! There is a lot about the implications of extreme long life. It deserves an almost full-"house of suns" :-)

Absolutely loved this story, the switching between the two main characters threw me at times but otherwise it is a fantastic concept, well executed and I really want a sequel to continue the journey of Campion and Purslane.

About the author

Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. He stopped working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency to become a full-time writer. REVELATION SPACE and PUSHING ICE were shortlisted for the ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD; REVELATION SPACE, ABSOLUTION GAP, DIAMOND DOGS and CENTURY RAIN were shortlisted for the BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD and CHASM CITY won the BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD. You can learn more by visiting www.alastairreynolds.com.