Sublime indeed!
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Mr. Reynolds was already the best sci-fi writer on the planet (I would say by a wide margin). His stories are complex, multi-level with fascinating large-scale subplots, i.e., why do all galactic civilizations vanish. On every page - of 700 page novels, mind you - he introduces fascinating ideas. Also, I love his books since he lives within the Einstein speed-of-light limits yet still produces believable means for humans to propagate through the galaxy. In House of Suns, Reynolds has outdone himself. I thought it would be hard to top the Revelation Space trilogy, but I thought he did it with Prefect. Now he has topped that with House of Suns. I believe it is the perfect sci-fi novel.
Horace Heck
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Makes the Asimov/Foundation series look short term ..
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..and a love story to boot ..
The timescale for this story is 'circuits' - galactic circuits and its a tough one to try and imagine the length of time involved and the perspective it might give (Richard Morgan gives it a name - Methusalah syndrome..)
The action in the story takes a little while to get going while we get the background but after that there is murder, some very nasty interrogation methods and a race across thousands of years to avoid the effects of a very effective piece of genocide.
The concept of 'turnover civilisations' is very well done and you get the full realisation that for all the fury and noise of our civilisation we are so very short term - in fact there is a lovely line where 'never got beyond chemical rockets and fusion bombs before they decided to spare the galaxy their continued existance' - I did wonder if that was a comment on us today ..
But as I say its a love story as well where Campion chases across thousand of years to try and save Purslane from dying and its this that made the book - it being about two people in a situation where it would have been dead easy to just do the human / robot conflict bit..
Good read - well up to expectations
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A fantastic revelation...
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This novel is set in a different universe to many of the other novels by Alastair Reynolds making it a refreshing change & possibly preventing the 'Revelation Space' universe from getting stale - not that I thought it was having just finished reading 'The Prefect' which is also fantastic.
In a way it is controversial for the novel to deviate from his other writings although I believe he touched on a similar style towards the end of 'Galactic North'.
Expanding on some of the more complex ideas could have doubled this novel in size unnecessarily, the dots can be joined by an open minded reader which helps to keep up the tempo.
Imaginative & intriguing. The characters are powerful. I am looking forward to further books by Alastair Reynolds!
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great book - more fantasy than hard science based speculative fiction
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I for one welcome "house of suns". Reynolds has wisely decided to develop as an author and try new genre's with different structure.
Whilst I have loved the first 4 revelation space novels, it can easily lull an author in reproducing the same novel repeatedly with name and place changes only.
In the prefect (essentially a detective story) and in house of suns (essentially a fantasy novel wrapped up in a SF shell) reynolds has been brave enough to try something new. With several years of experience in writing and with such obvious talent it is refreshing to see a change in his approach.
i particularly liked the symmetry created in changing the viewpoint of the novel every chapter. In some ways it reminds me of Iain Banks best works such as "use of weapons" (only not as good i'm afraid! - but then again what is!)
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More rip roaring invention from Reynolds
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Campion and Purslane are clones who have been travelling the galaxy for millenia. En route to a periodic reunion of their clone family they learn of an ambush which has devastated their numbers. This is the basis of a wildly twisting plot which culminates in a breakneck centuries long intergalactic chase.
This book is both familiar and a new development. It takes familiar elements in Reynolds work of huge near light speed starships, weapons of unimaginable power, suspended animation, intergalactic chases (a la Galactic North), adds in a twist of something that feels like Iain Banks, but then sets this in a different universe to that of Revelation Space, and builds the story around something as tiny as a love affair.
The most impressive thing about this novel is that Reynolds has created another self consistent yet wildly imaginative universe and based a well constructed story within it.
The book isn't perfect, it drags a little in the middle and maybe Reynolds overreaches himself in one or two inconvincing elements (the curators of the Vigilance ?), but those are minor quibbles, and I have to say highly recommended.
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