Customer Reviews
Pretty amazing, but is it classic Reynolds? - By: D. Frydman, 25 Jul 2008 
This is a great book by any standards, though I do wonder whether it's classic Reynolds. It takes place over eons of objective time, but it's really just a chase / revenge / redemption story arc - with far too much time setting the scene.
The narrative isin the first person between the two main characters & that runs as a bit of a love story. This is interspersed with the narrative of another character (no spoilers), which is intriguing at the start, then an interruptionin the middle that made me stop & put the book down, until at the end it really did come together with the main story.
Thatin itself is telling. I felt I could easily put the book down at those points. They were coffee breaksin what is usually a full on juggernaut-type experience. The only benefit they served was that I felt I'd not sped through it & left hanging until the next novel (yes, I'm really that much of a Reynolds fan).
However I didn't get the feeling of awe that I usually do with Reynolds. Something that left me feel a little cheated or short changed. The awe creepsin with the scale of the story, though it doesn't come crashing down on you - more like one big idea & a few smaller ones that interplay than a mass of ideas that blow your mind.
It would be interesting to see whether his next work builds on this or branches out for pastures new.
Having said that, it is a finely crafted work & a smashing read. Great book, read it, enjoy it, but not the bestin the Reynolds stable. For that, Amazon would need a sixth star.
A slow burning, millenia spanning novel - By: Mark Chitty, 22 Jul 2008 
Purslane & Campion are two Gentian shatterlings from the House of Flowers, two of a thousand clones of Abigail Gentian who left the solar system around the year 3000 to travel & explore the galaxy. All shatterlings meet up for their thousand nights reunion during which they share memories of what they have experienced.
Six million years have passed since the first ships left the solar system & due to the technology available the shatterlings are effectively immortal. They can pass the hundreds of years travelling between star systemsin stasis & experience anything the galaxy has to offer.
On their belated way to the next reunion, Campion & Purslane receive a message warning them not to enter the chosen system & to flee to a designated safe system. The Gentian line were ambushed, almost their entire number wiped out & only a few dozen managing to escape & make their way to Neume where they await any stragglers.
Why does someone want the Gentian Shatterlings dead? Is there a traitorin their midst that helped this atrocity? And what exactly is the House of Suns?
This is the story we followin House of Suns. Travelling with Campion & Purslane while they visit some systems on their way to the reunion, the aftermath of the attack & the events that follow. The first thing that you need to get used to is the timeframe of the novel. As all travel is done at sub-light speeds, with ftl not possible, the events of travelling between systems is donein tens & hundreds of years of subjective time. Once you get the hang of this it's easy enough to focus on the story without thinking of anything outside of it, unless it's mentioned within the narrative.
The story flows along quite well & is well written, probably one of Reynolds' best to date. Parts of the story feel like self contained short stories, particularly the early sections, although everythingin the book has a reason for being there. I was impressed with the scope of the story & the timeframes involved, although I didn't enjoy the novel as much as I was hoping for. I love Reynolds' short stories & have enjoyed a couple of his novels more than this one & really hoped it would deliver more than it did.
I can't really fault the novel, it's just my tastes that meant I enjoyed it less than I hoped. There was no real feeling of having to read on, no urgency at all. Perhaps that is the result of having the narrative & background over hundreds, thousands & millions of years. A slow burner more than a page turner.
Losing his way ? - By: Christopher Burns, 17 Jul 2008 Reynolds has created another little macrocosm of characters for his readers - a family of parthenogenic clones exploring the galaxy for its own sake, & as you can probably guess, it's not quite fluffy kittens & ice-cream - Reynolds does like his maybe-dangerous-maybe-not characters.
As usual, Reynolds' writing is top-notch, but I felt the final ending was a little inconclusive this time. It's also hard to say whether or not this series is going anywhere (probably not; look at Pushing Ice). Ultimately, I quite enjoyed this book; Reynolds doesn't disappoint - until you read the very the last page. I also wasn't too fond of the "Palatial" interludes -in fact, I started skipping them, only to find that as I feared, they contained an important plot element. I didn't like this at all, since I have fairly strong feelings that sci-fi is sci-fi, fantasy is fantasy, & the two are very different animals which absolutely should not interbreed.
Worth a look, but maybe you should wait for the paperback - which will only be a couple of quid cheaper, mind.
Cracking - By: Gareth Wilson, 07 Jul 2008 Cracking characters within the tale by perhaps one of the best known Space Opera writers of the day. Whilst this is book 8 by Alastair its with a fascination that I eagerly await each new novels release date as Im never sure whats going to happen. This is what keeps it a great as well as ideal read as it does everything & reveals plots within plotsin ever increasing circles so the reader can at times think that they are chasing their tale along with the characters. A cracking read & something that demonstrates that Alastair is growing as a writerin both confidence as well as writing wise with each subsequent story.
One of the best books I've ever read, if not THE best! - By: D. Wilson, 10 Jun 2008 
I'd sneaked a look at some reviews as I was reading this, but being mindful of spoilers. I did find it a little slow to begin with but looking back it didn't spoil the book even slightly.
I finished reading it today & hand-on-heart this is one of the best books I've ever read, if not THE best! The story is immense,in more than one sense of the word. Set over massive distances & time, I loved getting my head around the scale of the book.
After half way through I had the feeling it was building into a crescendo & I wasn't disappointed. I actually laughed out loud at the very last pages not because they were funny but because it was a brilliant ending to the book.
If you're a fan of Reynolds or sci-fiin general - or even if you love a good story - you HAVE to buy this, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Easily Alastair's best work yet, highly imaginive & completely plausible if you let your mind wander.
