House of Suns

I've just finished reading House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds. My mind is still reeling. I have read some of his other books, but I've forgotten the immense scale of his novels.

House of Suns is set millions of years in the future. It concerns the House of Flowers also known as the Gentian Line. Abigail Gentian created 999 clones of herself and so established the Gentian Line. These 1000 scatterlings (which one being the original no-one knows) had one mission - to explore the furthest reaches of space. The scatterlings went on circuits around the galaxy and met up after each circuit to share their memories and experiences. At the time of the story, the scatterlings had been around for almost 6 million years. And this is where my mind starts to boggle.

As the scatterlings travel through space visiting planets, they very often meet different civilizations when they travel the same route on the next circuit. Their time scale is in thousands and hundreds of thousands of years due to the huge distances in space that needs to be covered. Civilizations die out and races evolve. I immediately thought of us. Homo sapiens originated about 200 000 years ago. Recorded history is thought to have started 4000 years BC, only 6000 years ago. In House of Suns the scatterlings have been around longer than the Earth!

I then wondered if we shouldn't be more concerned about the longevity of our human existence. If we want to extend beyond mere thousands of years, we need to seriously reconsidering our way of life. This is the only planet in this solar system which can sustain us. Do all the wars and other inter-racial/religious/method of egg boiling issues really matter?

But, getting back to the book. Purslane and Campion are two Gentian scatterlings who picked up a guest along their journey. As they travel to their reunion with the rest of the Gentian Line, secrets are revealed which they didn't even know existed.

Gripping novel! Everything time I read Alastair Reynolds, I'm reminded why I love his science fiction so much.