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House of Suns

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House of Suns

By: Alastair Reynolds
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

 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 Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Scary
All stars
Most relevant
The begging and the end of the book where great, some parts in the middle could've been omitted.

Galactic civilizations, robots and mistery

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I enjoyed the book overall and I'd recommended it.
The good:
The story is somehow different from the other sci fi I've read and I love space opera. The story is simply huge in its scale and Reynolds does a great job of writing across time and civilisations. I loves this element. The story wasn't too focused on protracted warfare or world explanation yet it beautifully crafted an expansive universe and managed to deal with a story spanning hundreds of thousands of years.
I love John Lee as a voice actor, I can listen to him all day long. This book was no exception, very well done.
I liked the interweaving elements of the story too, past and present, that added a cool element of explaining the present progressively as the story went.

The less good:
I just found the ending a let down. I'm increasingly sick of sci fi authors who can cast these amazing worlds and build intrigue across a story and then you get to the end and... seems like very few authors know how to end books well.
While I found the story really unique in many ways the story of Abigail's mother is a blatant rip off of the Winchester Mystery House which annoyed me a bit.

Overall I enjoyed it though, well worth a listen and we'll written!

Well written and expansive in its scale

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I love to read science-fiction because it opens up new worlds and possibilities and dreams of a technological future that give me hope for humanity. This novel has all of that and so much more… Reynolds is fantastic with characters and painting vivid and believable scenes from the future that we can only hope might exist one day. The first book I reas of his was Pushing Ice; this is the second. I’m gonna keep going until I read every book he has written. It’s always nice to discover an author that you feel that way about so I feel quite fortunate to have that journey ahead of me. I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

Characters, Twists, and a vast universe full of mysteries

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I like this type of sci-fi - complex and intellectually challenging. Seemingly well-researched in the theoretical technology it presents. Epic in the time scale it tackles - perhaps more so than any book I've read. Wonderfully narrated. My only criticism is that it began to lose me a bit in the end... I think due to a lack of personal development by the main characters over the course of quite a long book and the sheer sprawl of the tale. Some new characters were introduced towards the latter half that I just didn't care that much about. Overall very good though, I'd recommend to other sci-fi enthusiasts.

Interesting themes

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Just fantastic! I went on not knowing what to expect and left delighted and inspired.

Pretty Darn Epic

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highly enjoyable book, its scary to imagine the world like this but its so possible at the same time you cant help but let your imagination run wild.

mind melting at times with the scope

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excellent great character development. Damming space and time hard to distinguish gender but that’s fine

Classic & very entertaining

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The time scale is mind bendingly huge. My most favourite part about it I think. Please write more of these.

Mind opening - Absolute fave

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Expansive swashbuckling ride spanning 100 millennia - had me finished in a week of listening!!
- Now, back to the real world 😊, let my brain cool down a bit...
WoW

Pan Galactic

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Very captivating, makes you think about traveling through space and time. and time in cosmic scale.

Mind opening

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