House of Suns: Alastair Reynolds (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

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That's No Moon: The protagonists stop at a ringed gas giant because they heard about a spaceship salesman who lives there. The plot of the book is primarily driven by the assumption that the First Machines would want revenge for what was done to them. The novel may be filled with rich ideas, but neither of the two leads compels interest and the relationship between them is underdeveloped. Campion and Purslane are shatterlings, two of the thousand clones making up an ancient house, their lifespans stretching millions of years from the dawn of the human starfaring era. Das Buch ist nicht perfekt: Die "Origin-Story" rund um Abigail Gentian passt nicht so recht und die Entwicklung rund um die Maschinenwesen geht etwas zu schnell und glatt von statten.

As the story begins, they are traveling together on their way to the next big Gentian family reunion. I’d say this would be a terrific jumping in point if you were interested in checking out Reynolds’ work. Full of intrigue and plots and sub plots, every time I thought I knew what was coming next there was another twist.It's not often that I feel indifferent to a book for as long as I did with this one but then end up absolutely loving it, but that's exactly what happened. Part of the challenge of reviewing (or even talking about) Alastair's work lies in the fact that if you talk about it, you run the risk of rather spoiling the book. So I made the decision that House of Suns would take its cue from the events and characters in the shorter piece, but it wouldn’t be afraid to contradict them if that made for a better story. The tension that finally developed a good third into the book dissipated quickly, and the more I read the more disappointed I was about the neatly resolved plot points. Next Reynolds is most likely Terminal World, as a friend recommended it to me, although it might end up being Inhibitor Phase depending on when I pick up the paperback!

Actually, it would be kind of fun to pick up those characters again – there was so much more I could say about their society and customs and universe. All the weird blighters that show up in this book are post-humans, though a mysterious alien race is referred to they never actually drop by at any point. This book is filled with inaccurate memories: “strands to edit, memories to delete, others to falsify”.Along with cool depictions of transhumanism, Reynolds raises some interesting questions about consciousness and identity. They went from 1000 members to only fifty after the initial attack on them, and with someone actively gunning for them, they are in real danger of being wiped out forever.