House of Suns

By: Alastair Reynolds

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 18 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings.

Not only are Campion and Purslane late for their 30-second reunion but they have also brought along an amnesiac golden robot for a guest. But the wayward shatterlings get more than the scolding they expect: they face the discovery that someone has a very serious grudge against the Gentian line, and there is a very real possibility of traitors in their midst. The surviving shatterlings have to dodge exotic weapons while they regroup to try to solve the mystery of who is persecuting them and why---before their ancient line is wiped out of existence forever.

©2008 Alastair Reynolds (P)2009 Tantor

One of the best

The closest I’ve read to as good as Ian m banks culture series, which is the very best. Reynolds writing is inventive, nuanced, and without limitation in concept for this epic space opera.

Stellar

This is a very compelling and eye opening story that is so mind boggling with all the time lines space exploration different life forms including robots. I highly recommend!!

Great read!

Lots of interesting adventure and thought provoking concepts. I guarantee you will not see all of the twists and turns coming.

Deep Time is so brain breaking good

Really excellent story and concept of Deep Time was intense and hard to wrap my head around in a good way. It all left me clinging to the story for more. It was hard at times to distinguish which character with the limited voice acting of the reader but that was fine as I picked it up in context. He was a good reader otherwise.

A rich & interesting story of hard sci-fi

To give you a sense of my tastes as a reader, here are some authors in this genre that I like and to whom I compare Reynolds and House of Suns: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Peter Watts, Kim Stanley Robinson, N.K. Jemisin, and Andy Weir. If you like these authors, you most likely will enjoy House of Suns.

About the narrator: John Lee does a fine job. He’s a competent voice actor who has a small range of voices (in this reading, at least). He doesn’t affect relatively high or low voices, but can shift well between various accents of the U.K. and uses them to distinguish certain characters. If you need an animated voice actor to get into a story, this is probably not the best audio for you. That said, he isn’t boring, monotonous, or inconsistent. I was satisfied with Lee.

Some reviews have commented about the story’s pace that it moves very slowly, at first, then speeds up to an appropriate rate, at the end. This is largely true but I didn’t find it to be any problem. I found the world building and character development interesting enough, particularly the two-tracks: the backstory of Abigail Gentian and the relationships between the protagonists Purselain, Campion, and Hesperus. I won’t give any story synopsis or spoilers, but will finish by saying I strongly hope that Reynolds returns to this story for a sequel or trilogy.

Absolute perfection

This book has everything. A true masterpiece in science fiction. If you’ve never read I highly highly recommend.

Some of the Greatest Si-Fi some start to finish

I'm a huge fan of Star Trek type of Si-Fi. by that I mean not a post apocalyptic future where humans are barely struggling to survive. I prefer an exploration of the idea of what it would mean to be successful at exploring the universe. House of Suns does that amazingly well and sets its story against a universe so various and unaccountable. Amazing through and through.

Excellent character development

Such an unusual storyline. I really enjoyed this novel. The depth of the story, and the amazing times! Just wow.

Great story

Really enjoyed this book. The author does a great job conveying the vastness of the universe and time.

great story,

why do I need to write 15 words to complete a teview? I liked the book.