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House of Suns Alastair Reynolds 9780441017171 Books

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House of Suns Alastair Reynolds 9780441017171 Books

Hard Sci-Fi novels sometimes gets a bit caught up in its own trappings - this is not one of them. What is exceptional about this book is the amazing depth of character and plot that evolve in step with the unique environment. Some really original sci-fi stuff and a story that had me reading non-stop. An excellent offering - 'Shatterlings' cloned from a single source millions of years distant must fight to survive a genocide that can only be attributed to a veiled sub-culture known only as the 'House of Suns'. Their tense struggle will reveal new depths to their past and new opportunities for their future.


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House of Suns Alastair Reynolds 9780441017171 Books Reviews

I originally gave this book five stars, but while writing this review I realized it had some deep flaws I couldn’t look past. Even so, I greatly enjoyed reading this exhilarating tour de force. I feel the author is beginning to find his voice here. The book is just as exciting as his previous ones, but slightly less meandering.

Alastair Reynolds is a man of great ideas. A former astrophysicist, his best books are sweeping space operas with true alien concepts and technologies, presented in a believable manner. In this one, we follow a branch of humanity that has survived unchanged while travelling through the Milky Way for the last 6 million years. Truly epic stuff.

As in his other books, the dialogue is very formal and stiff, and the characters have shallow and similar personalities (although in this book I guess that can be hand-waved away by the fact that most of the characters are clones of the same person). The dialogue also contains a fair bit of repetition. As an example, if a character is privy to some piece of information that we as the reader also already know, but a second character does not, it is is explained to the other character on paper in great detail.

The pacing is fairly good, better than most of Reynolds’s other books, but there are still some odd cliffhangers and mysteries that are resolved far too quickly (and often, the main characters’ first theory is proven to be correct) to leave much impression.

The transition from a developing mystery in relatively (on a galactic scale) close quarters to the famous near-lightspeed chase that lasts thousands of years is a bit jarring, but it’s all grounded in a warming relationship between the two main characters.

Parallel to the main story, a fictional side story unfolds through flashbacks. Not unlike Watchmen, it functions as a metaphor or foil to the main story, although it’s hard to really grasp its deeper significance and the reason for its inclusion. The same goes for some of the earlier parts of the plot, which feel a bit like red herrings.

Just a final thought There are no aliens in this book, but a conflict between organics and sentient machines that reminded me of a central plotline in Mass Effect (which, in turn, reminds me of the Inhibitors in Reynolds’s Revelation Space).
Good stuff. Reynold's futures are depicted as being constrained by flying slower than light. Even with this, a good tale is told. The descendants of present day humans, have spanned the galaxy, some maintaining human form, others breaking of into genetically altered species, based on philosophy and culture. Suns is set 6 million years ahead into this future, where the offspring of many Lines compete for materials, and information in the galaxy. Nobody bats an eye if one set of traders, or representatives, take trips that last tens of thousands of years, traveling just below light speed. Civilizations arise and fade, some leaving legacies, others, disappearing beyond remembrance. The people who trace their Lines as heritage, were all descended from a single individual, who have cloned themselves off into 1000 copies, and each sent to a different region of the galaxy. Each making a slowly expanding circuit, through the galaxy. Every so many millennia, there are family reunions to better propagate the wealth and the knowledge of each Line. There are the descendants of the robots that the human ancestors of six million years ago made here as well, making their presence in the novel, something central. For the actual plot, that would be telling.
This is the book to start off with Alastair Reynolds. It has the breadth of his style and the kind of frame of mind you will need for most of his works. Especially his Revelation Space series and books in that universe, and the one steam punk book he has written. And it is a very good read to boot.

To set the tone, the book is intelligent, well paced, has good characters, is believable in a scifi perspective and nicely (as far as I am concerned) almost approaches a Phillip K Dick twistedness at times, but is definitely more cogent than say a 'Valis'. It combines good current knowledge of science and some good extrapolations and ideas of what the future might bring. I like that ships do not travel faster than light and how it examines the concept of "deep time" in galactic travels. The characters are interesting, sympathetic, and human. And the are well developed and three dimensional.

The book only dipped once into a place that I had trouble with. Without giving too much away, there was a need to question a bad guy, and the technique they were using seemed to be introduced as a device that was there because it might sound cool or interesting. Aside from not being useful even as portrayed, it just looks like something Reynolds came up with for added coolness, and tried too hard. I don't know, maybe the publisher's editors said he had to add some cool factor (which never works which is why it is a possibility). At that one point, and only that point was the story a little rough getting through. However the strength of the rest of the book easily allows me to rate it 5 stars.
Hard Sci-Fi novels sometimes gets a bit caught up in its own trappings - this is not one of them. What is exceptional about this book is the amazing depth of character and plot that evolve in step with the unique environment. Some really original sci-fi stuff and a story that had me reading non-stop. An excellent offering - 'Shatterlings' cloned from a single source millions of years distant must fight to survive a genocide that can only be attributed to a veiled sub-culture known only as the 'House of Suns'. Their tense struggle will reveal new depths to their past and new opportunities for their future.