House of Suns

I had been in a post Patrick O'Brian slump. Read all his books and was at a loss where to go to next; he's a hard act to follow. I couldn't get traction with any books I picked up. Somehow I ventured to the SciFi section at the bookstore; hadn't read the genre for years. So I picked up Revelation Space because it had decent reviews on the jacket but I think mostly because it had a cool cover illustration. Eight Reynolds books later, the reality is setting in that I've only got a few pages left with nowhere else to go until his next book. I couldn't wait for this one in the U.S. so ordered from the U.K. I accidentally discovered what I think is the best SciFi writer out there and House of Suns is an evolutionary step in his expansive ideas while still keeping the DNA thread of House of Reynolds. I love ideas with action and I think the writing genius of Reynolds is that most descriptive narratives are quickly and closely tied to relevant action which creates a force of momentum. Furthermore, his creations sound and feel so right they don't need much, if any, long winded back ground explanations that lead nowhere; the pitfall of many SciFi writers. House of Suns is not as tight in this regard as say, The Prefect, but it's not meant to be and it all works beautifully with very minor exceptions. (like an elephant who may just blow himself up? This character could have been edited out but I'm happy to give Reynolds some room to add some color and test the waters for future work.) Alternating first person narrative intrigued me and the ending leaves us with a new launching point to what will hopefully be an intergalactic epic. Many years ago I left a monastery in India and realized I'd never look at my life or the stars the same. After reading Alastair Reynolds, you'd be hard pressed to look at your life or the stars the same as well. Get this book, strap in, and read it.

The word that best captures reading Reynold's writing is, 'relief.' His writing is clear, but not cold; it's lyrical, but not flowery; it's as emotional as it is logical. Alastair Reynolds has the ability to describe complex action simply and to build alien scenery effortlessly. Reynolds' writing talent goes back to his university years--he has talked about having to take chemistry twice because he was doing so much writing. And, while Reynolds had a substantial career as an astrophysicist, his basic processing is as much verbal as it is numeric/scientific. Lucky for us, his efforts to understand hard science taught him to create film with words--his writing is like movies. The impression is of watching Industrial-Light-and-Magic-type special effects; descriptions of cities, gardens, three-dimensional action sequences involving multiply detailed spaceships, exobiological creatures, and large scale astronomical phenomena are so clear that it's as if we walk among them. (Or dodge them at extralight speeds, as the case may be.) Which isn't to say that this is an action-movie brought to life, with nothing else to offer: House of Suns works on an emotional level as well--it isn't boring or mean or technical, except in service of a very compelling story. This is good stuff, and well worth the wait.

First off, let my just say that any fan of Reynolds will love this book. This is what makes A.R. so special. Its vast scale and huge timespan combined with a clear and interesting vision about the evolution of human societies over time. And its all presented in a good pace and with a interesting story, with characters you will care about. In short, its never boring. Quite the contrary. As with all really good books, its over all too soon, and you are just sad you can never again read it for the first time. Buy it. You will not regret it.

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!

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