House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds
House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

The novel “House of Suns” by Alastair Reynolds was published for the first time in 2008.

Campion and Purslane are several years late to the regular reunion of the Gentian Line they’re part of. Their situation is made more complicated by the fact that they are in a relationship and that’s punishable under the laws of their Line. Part of their delay is due to a detour to find another starship to replace Campion’s one.

Negotiating with a ruthless used starship reseller, Campion and Purslane find Hesperus, a robot member of the so-called Machine People and rescue him. That may give them something positive to show the rest of their Line but as they approach the system in which the reunion was started they receive a distress signal. Another member of the Line broadcast a message that warns of a terrible attack against the Gentian Line. Campion and Purslane can only look for the survivors to find the perpetrators.

Alastair Reynolds is one of the most famous writers of the third millennium’s space opera, especially for the series that began with the novel “Revelation Space“, set a few centuries in the future. In “House of Suns” the author goes far beyond expanding an idea developed for the first time some years before in the novella “Thousandth Night”.

The main plot of “House of Suns” is set about six million years in the future. Humanity has spread throughout the galaxy creating various human and posthuman civilizations. The only other form of sentient life is made by the Machine People, a civilization of robots.

Among the human civilizations there are Lines, families composed by clones of a progenitor with some variations since their members, called shatterlings, are both males and females. They travel in space rather than living on planets and once every 200,000 years hold a reunion.

“House of Suns” has as its protagonist the Gentian Line, composed of clones of Abigail Gentian. A Characteristic of the relationship between the Line members is that they exchange memories, making their bonds even tighter. The various clones are individuals and their personalities can be very different, yet there’s a very strong sense of belonging to the Line.

This Characteristic is crucial in the novel and is stressed by the way Alastair Reynolds tells the story. It’s narrated in the first person but the main plot alternates Campion and Purslane’s points of view while the flashbacks are told from Abigail’s point of view. At the beginning this choice can be a bit confusing for the reader but it makes sense if you think that the Gentian Line’s shatterlings can exchange their memories so any of them could tell the story from the point of view of different persons.

This huge galactic scenery contains a series of mysteries and secrets that form the basis of the story. In the background there’s the Absence, the mysterious disappearance of the Andromeda galaxy, of which no one knows the cause. The main mystery is represented by the attack against the Gentian Line. Who could ever want the destruction of the Line and why?

The shatterlings who survived the attack must first try to find a shelter where regroup, try to figure out who wants to kill them and establish a plan to fight back. Hesperus, the robot rescued by Campion and Purslane is one of the few allies they have.

Alastair Reynolds develops the story in a truly sophisticated way with interstellar trips, meetings with other robots and posthumans and complex investigations. The main plot involves a relatively limited period of years but the flashbacks that tell Abigail’s story are set in the 31st century and together with other elements of the novel span millions of years in a variety of ways.

The solutions of many mysteries are in secrets that are very ancient from the point of view of those who live six million years into the future. This, combined with the story of the origin of the Gentian Line, gives “House of Suns” a really huge spatial and temporal scale. In this vast environment, certain choices may have unforeseen consequences even millions of years later.

To achieve this complexity, Alastair Reynolds put a lot of information in the course of the novel and especially in the first part, which forms the basis of the story, the pace tends to be slow. Character development is good, especially of the protagonists but also of some supporting ones.

If for you the universe of the Revelation series wasn’t enough, “House of Suns” is what you want! Despite some heaviness in the story’s development, I think it’s an overall excellent novel that is a must-have for space opera fans.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *