House of Suns

Posted at Heradas ReviewThis is my first Alastair Reynolds standalone novel. Having previously absorbed everything remotely related to his Revelation Space series over the last few years, I wanted to dip my toes into some of his one-off writing before digging into his newer series work. For some reason this book has been out of print in the US for a few years, making a physical copy a little tedious to come by, but I did eventually find one. Come on ACE, it’s time for a reprint!Coming from the [...]

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!

NEW Review, Written After ReadingComment #25 onwards was made after adding this section.Good old-fashioned futuristic adventure at its best. Intelligent, well-written escapism about encounters between advanced human intelligences and even more advanced machine intelligences.Reynolds often writes novels with three-strands, set in different worlds and eons, that gradually come together. This is a simpler, single, story, but it's epic in time and distance. There is adventure, love and loyalty, atta [...]

"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 hundred [...]

Others have covered the plotline and central conceits of the novel very well, so I will forbear. The plot is excellent, as are the ideas. What sets House of Suns far apart from other space operas is the sheer scope and scale of the thing and the fact that the immensity of it all does not drown the beautiful humanity displayed by the main characters, Campion and Purslane, two clones of the Gentian line who have been illicitly involved in a forbidden relationship with one another.When I was a kid, [...]

I loved the hopefulness of this grand conception of humanity in the far future. I was surprised it worked so well for me as there is so much uncertainty about human survival on the near term that I figured speculation on a timescale would feel fairly meaningless. For example, I just couldn’t relate to the spiritual beings of Well’s “Time Machine”, the Eloi, and I was weirded out by the remnant human society clinging to a distant future existence in Benford’s “Great Sky River.” Here [...]

After reading some really awesome reviews from Cecily and Apatt, and despite the fact that I've already read ten of his novels and short story collections, I've been feeling quite ashamed that I still hadn't read this well-regarded novel. So I sat my butt down and made it my eleventh. :)Could I possibly be disappointed at this point? Nope. At least, not for the sheer scale and scope of this post-humanity romp of over 6 million years, where a certain girl named Abigail clones herself and her mind [...]

House of Suns: Truly epic time scales, but characters also shineOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureThis is the first Alastair Reynolds’ book I’ve read not set in his REVELATION SPACE series, and many of his fans claim it’s his best book. I’d have to say it is pretty impressive, dealing with deep time scales rarely seen for any but the most epic hard SF books. What’s unique about House of Suns is not simply that the story spans hundreds of thousands of years, but that the characters [...]

When Barnes and Noble still only selled a hardcover version of this book a few years ago, I read the blurb on the inside cover and was like wtf? The story line seemed like too much even for me, and even after I was still giddy from plowing through the excellent Revelation Space series Reynolds is famous for. The idea of reading a bizarre story about cloned male and female "shatterlings" of a single person that travel in "circuits" around the galaxy (which last roughly, oh about 200,000 years or [...]

So one of the biggest constraints of the space opera genre is answering the question of faster than light (FTL) travel. Star Trek and the Star Carrier series gets around it using a modification of the Alcubierre Drive. The Old Man's War series mucks around with alternate universes. The Expanse does a fantastic job adapting the Space Opera genre to just the solar system, obviating the need for faster than light travel.The House of Suns says screw it, we don't need no stinking FTL, and we're doing [...]

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 [...]

I meant to take it easy, but ended up blowing through the second half of this book in just 3 days. The pages just kept on turning by themselves, and I didn't get much sleep.Woke up this morning and was like But seriously. What year is it?This is not a review because I don't have enough science in me to understand it or to begin diving in and deconstructing it, but I did enjoy it very much and it's easily one of the best books I've read this year, maybe even this millennium. Will have to return f [...]

Right after finishing, I declared this may be my favourite read, since I first came across Pride and Prejudice two decades ago, which means a lot, trust me. Don't worry though, this is NOTHING like Pride and Prejudice.House of Suns is something special. Filled with wonders and surprises. A story spanning millions of years and several galaxies. It took me a few chapters to wrap my head around the world; it's a lot to take in at first. Afterwards, I couldn't put it down. I just ploughed through, s [...]

Wonderful and delightful. Certainly his best full-length novel. Three primary characters - Purslane and Campion are lovers, and Hesperus is a rescued "Machine Person" - have enough depth and heart and intelligence to sparkle. The long-winded, page-filling, static dialogue as too-often seen in previous full novels, is blessedly absent here. Well done, Alastair!A comfortable start into a plot spanning 6 million years; but don't worry, we only see appropriate slices of this expanse of time. The boo [...]

La mejor ciencia ficción que se escribe actualmente corre por parte de los autores británicos, y eso es incuestionable. Talentos de la talla de Iain M. Banks, Peter F. Hamilton, Paul McAuley, Ian R. MacLeod, Charles Stross, Stephen Baxter o el mismo Alastair Reynolds, son buena prueba de ello. Todos poseen talento e imaginación, pero Alastair tiene algo que lo convierte en único, posee inventiva y ambición por superarse a sí mismo en cada libro, aunque no siempre lo consigue, pero al menos [...]

This book has all the hallmarks of Alastair Reynolds' writing: Grand scale space opera with a convoluted and fascinating plot that only fully unravels at the very end. If you like other of Alastair Reynolds' space opera, I am quite certain this one will not disappoint.I liked the way that there was a bit of fantasy intertwined in the story but all contained in a technologically feasible way. The main plot, however, concerns one of several groups of clones that travel the galaxy spending a lot of [...]

Solid storytelling from Reynolds and a solid performance by audio narrator John Lee combined to make this one of the stand out novels in the Reynolds library. This book was evenly paced in that I didn't feel that there was any lull in the plot or the slow start that is characteristic of many of Reynolds' books. I was engaged with the story from start to finish.Of the Reynolds books I've read so far that are set in different worlds than Revelation Space, this is the most like his original signatu [...]

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 [...]

I normally tend not to write reviews on fiction works, as I prefer to focus more on my non-fictional readings, but this time I felt compelled to write something about this masterpiece. It has been a long time since I had last experienced the pleasure of reading such a beautiful example of space opera. The width and scope of this ambitious work are simply breathtaking; we are dealing here with a visionary, outstanding work of hard science fiction that manages to address many traditional themes of [...]

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 [...]

Another exquisite novel of Al R - so intense, so full of meanings, so full of action, so dense, so vast, so beguiling, that I don’t know with what to begin my eulogy.- with the colorful universe? "Ateshga’s world […] was 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."- with the reflections about civilizations when measured on time scale? "People lived and died [...]

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 [...]

This book is a bit different than most of the others that inhabit the “Revelation Space” universe. While it is a common backdrop to several books, they are not the classic Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, ad nauseam type of series where a few key characters inhabit multiple stories. (Don’t shoot me just yet. I also like series such as that – even trilogies that have five or six volumes.) Even though each has its own separate plots and actors, much of the tales exist within a span off 200-300 years. [...]

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 [...]

This is the kind of novel Reynolds was meant to write. Full of big ideas and wow scenarios. An unusual and entertaining focal character. A charming robot who's just a little bit quirky. A love story that transcends millenia. And a trip to another galaxy. The author puts it all together in a compelling read full of sfnal surprise and sense of wonder.As always, there are the familiar Reynolds elements. Kilometers long space ships. No faster than light travel (except for one). Profound astronomical [...]

Pedazo Novelón. Puede que sea la mejor de novela de Space Opera Hard que he leído. Brutal

One of those books that picks you up and takes you on a journey. I was ambivalent about it at first, but I quickly became enthusiastic. Reynolds' style allows for an ease of exposition: in a couple of sentences, he can give you an idea of the nature of several different civilizations without going too in depth. This skill allows him to construct the epic scope required for a space opera of this nature.And epic it is indeed. Spanning millions of years, House of Suns deals with space travel in a r [...]

Rating: 2.8-3 starsSix million years from now humanity has spread throughout the galaxy using slower-than-light (STL) ships. (One of the nice things about Reynolds’ SF is that he’s scrupulous about obeying physical laws – at least as they’re understood today.) At the dawn of this era, Abigail Gentian was among a group of wealthy families that had themselves cloned so that they could wander across space observing the rise and fall of human & alien civilizations. Abigail created 1,000 [...]

House of Suns was my first introduction to Alastair Reynolds (by my good friend Apatt). At first I gave it 5 stars, but in this review changed it to 4 stars. I read this book in two mediums: roughly three quarters in Audible and one quarter on Kindle. I felt the story was better appreciated in printed words than in audio, but it could perhaps be that I have not yet come to like John Lee's narration.House of Suns is a fantastic, galactic adventure that toys with big ideas and offers philosophical [...]

A couple of years ago I made a conscious effort to advance my reading habits and actively seek out the best that Sci-Fi had to offer rather than casually browse the local bookshop.The path swiftly and inevitably led to Alistair Reynolds.I started at the obvious place, the Revelation Space trilogy and my mind was promptly blown to pieces. House of Suns was supposed to be a quick Reynolds side-track before returning to the other Revelation space novels only to find what is so far the single greate [...]