House of Suns (Gollancz)

After 2 brilliant novels at the beginning of his career - Revelation Space and Chasm City, Mr. Reynolds' novels became either incomplete or just showing flashes of brilliance combined with lots of forget it run of the mill action. The short stories and novellas showed an extraordinary brilliance though and I've wondered if he would ever write a novel commensurate with them

House of Suns is that novel - epic space opera on a large scale but with characters you can identify with, hard sf based on the current understanding of the limits of science and a touch of fantasy and romance to complete it.

Based on the Thousandth Night novella published in the 1M AD anthology, with the same universe and characters, though different action, the story takes place in a mostly human dominated Galaxy 6M years in the future, with everything allowed except causality busting - so no ftl - moving planets out of danger, Dyson spheres, cloning, intelligent robots, immortality, matter replicators, damming stars - anything conceivable today that stays within the limits of our physical understanding of the Universe is there.

Civilizations rise and fall, but towering over them are the Lines, groupings of originally 1000 immortal shatterlings though in time some are lost to attrition - all clones of a single person to start with - that have the most advanced ships, tech, and go on Circuits around the Galaxy, meeting once every 200k years to mix their memories. Of course travel being sub-light they spend most time in stasis or slow-time - they can and do slow time at will with "syncromesh", so of those 6 Million years each shatterling lived several tens of thousands - bookworms tunneling through the pages of history as they are called by entities that actually lived through millions of years though at a slow pace

The shatterlings are almost as benevolent gods to the "turnover" civilizations of the Galaxy and they trade and do good works like preventing stars to go supernova, moving planets out of harm's way...

The story focuses on 3 main characters - 2 shatterlings of the Gentian line Campion and Purslane - Campion is brash and just on the right side of censure for various actions or inactions - Purslane has the best ship of the Gentian line and is patient and determined, making a good match with her illicit lover Campion - the shatterlings are supposed to go alone on their circuits and not form bonds...

Also in small restropect chunks we get to see the original Gentian, Abigail, millions of years ago in The Golden Hour - that's a literal name - when humanity lived in the Solar system only and the shatterling project originated and some of how the Lines formed.

Purslane and Campion meeting illicitly on their way to the next Gentian reunion and preparing to falsify their memories before dumping them in the common mix, stop by an obscure planet to fix a stardam put in place to prevent a supernova extinction of the local civilization.

Being late to the meeting, they detour to fix Campion's ship, and in the process rescue a strange robot of the machine people - Hesperus - with missing memories. Finally on their way to the reunion, they get a very disturbing message and the adventure begins...

The ending is fulfilling, leaving space for a sequel if the author desires but completing the story very nicely.

Publishing's a funny old business. Reynolds' magnum opus, "House of Suns" has only just come out in hardback in both the UK and the US, but I found a paperback copy at Singapore Airport last Saturday. I hesitated for a moment - this is a big book: did I really want to lug it around the world? - but only for a moment.

One of the age old problems in science fiction is that of the speed of light. How can one write a decent space opera, with exotic starships visiting improbable planets, without violating the speed limit? Reynolds decides to stick with relativistic limitations (well, mostly) by playing with the other side of the equation: time. The result is an extraordinary mystery story at galactic scale, in which (for a few travellers) time is measured in thousands, even millions of years.

"House of Suns" is an audacious work. I've enjoyed all of Reynolds' earlier books: even though the stories were more conventional than, say, those of Iain M. Banks, Reynolds confident mastery of his material has been undeniable. In the new book, he takes quite a few risks, and gets away with them. The conclusion... well, my first reaction was confusion, but I found myself realizing how utterly apposite it was.

Comparison between writers is invidious, but inevitable. Right now, two of the best science fiction writers are British: Banks and Reynolds. Before "House of Suns", I would have said that Banks was clearly the greater talent. Now, I'm not so sure. What fun!

There aren't too many authors that do epic science fiction well and Alastair Reynolds is certainly one of them. You can't get much more epic than this. Six million years in the future and spanning the whole galaxy. Quite a departure from the "Revelation Space" universe.

There is no warp drive in this universe though. You only stay youthful by means of relativistic time dilation and a type of stasis that slows the passage of time. There is still plenty of awe inspiring technology however.

The main characters are the "shatterlings" who started out as clones of various family lines at the start of the star faring age. We are mainly concerned with the "Gentian" Line whose originator was Abigail Gentian whose own story is told in a series of interludes. Each line started with 1000 clones and their mission has been to circle the galaxy doing various good works and trading with the sometimes highly modified human civilizations that have grown up along the way. After every galactic circuit the shatterlings of each line meet to share their experiences.

Campion and Purslane are two of the Gentian line who have become romantically involved which is not the done thing with shatterlings. At the start of the story they are on their way to the latest reunion where they expect to be censured for violating line protocol. They have also picked up a mysterious robot passenger called Hesperus. A distress call is received: most of the Gentian line has been wiped out by an attack on the reunion. The survivors, together with Campion and Purslane regroup on another planet where they try to understand what has happened. The resolution reveals some unpleasant truths that have previously been suppressed from everyone's collective memory.

Overall this is a fine far future science fiction story but it falls just short of five stars in my opinion. One issue was the ending which seemed slightly flat to me. Reynold's recent book "The Prefect" was better in my opinion but there is no doubt that Mr Reynolds is a fine talent in this world where hard science fiction seems to be becoming increasingly scarce.

Reynolds is a master of "BIG CONCEPT" Science Fiction. I have read everything available that this man has written. The idea of humans living for six million years is a bit hard to swallow, (I am not a big fan of Posthuman stories) but he pulls it off well. When I started to read this book I was skeptical, (Did anyone else notice a similarity to the Winchester house?) still,, it was a good start.

1000 clones (Shatterlings) and their adventures / misadventures over six million years: Ringworlds leftover from a vanished race thrown around stars to shield other star-systems from supernova energies: Six million years of human genetic drift and expansion in a galaxy devoid of other intelligent life, (with an exception or two!) The rise and fall of thousands of civilizations in the galaxy over that same period of time: Transfer or energy between stars via wormhole to prevent stellar death. Starships that are dozens of kilometers long. The Andromeda Galaxy disappearing!! All in one book!

"BIG CONCEPT"

Reynolds never violates the "LIGHTSPEED" barrier. Everything and everyone in all of his books has to do what Einstien says!! You cannot go faster than light! I like this! It makes for a few problems, but Reynolds manages to come up with solutions. Some of his solutions are a bit more hard to swallow than going faster than light,, but all in all I love his style.

This is a story that is centered on two of the (Shatterlings) and their adventures over six million years. If there are any romantics out there I would call this a love story. Call it Science Fiction. Call it Space Opera. Call it a love story. A "MUST" read!

I opened the book expecting more of the quality I have come to expect from reading his previous revelation space novels. Huge disappointment. It's almost as if the author decided to write a novel that would disappoint his most loyal fans. Ok, I only read the first 150 pages or so, but I have never put down one of his books in favor of a different book and I did with this one.