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

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Cadence and Cascade hack into the ship's computer, taking it over, and take off from Neume with Hesperus and Purslane still aboard. These aren´t rare too and Reynolds plays his astrophysics profession card more wisely and less hardcore than in the Revelation Space series, making it easier to follow, more focused on the great and heavily interwoven plot, so be focused while reading not to oversee the premises because Reynolds likes to puzzle with tiny pieces and each knows it´s place. They aren’t a massively divergent bunch, but millenia of wildly differing adventures and interactions have clearly left their impressions on every member of the Line.

It was important not to put them in when the paint was wet, though I’m not sure where they waited to dry. He dies during a voyage when the water tank he lives in malfunctions suspiciously, after previously acting afraid of Herperus and evasively implying that he had reason to want to kill him. We had shared memories… I could taste and feel her other lovers… each experience reaching away like a reflection in a hall of mirrors, diminishing into a kind of carnal background radiation, a sea of sensuous experience.

He's presented as a much more "organic" being -- and there's a lot of enjoyment to be had from the way machine intelligences are presented in this book. Using information gained from the other two robots and his own memories, Hesperus (who is now an amalgamation of both Hesperus and the Spirit of the Air) has pieced together what is going on: Cadence and Cascade have discovered that the Line was involved in the accidental extermination of a forgotten earlier race of machine people, dubbed the "First Machines". Sometimes it’s for nefarious purposes, sometimes for self-preservation, and sometimes to spare others from pain.

While I can understand why dear old Abigail (who is also a POV character in a minor way, as we see a number of flashbacks showing certain critical events of her childhood that led to the creation of the Gentian line and interstellar civilization) might have been squicked by two of her clones boinking (one wonders how incest laws will cover this when we perfect cloning), her shatterlings are going to be around for a long, long time, and they are still human. What’s more, they are due to be very, very tardy to the next Gentian Line reunion, at which memories and experiences will be shared among their fellows over the course of 1000 nights. Die beiden Protagonisten Campion und Purslane muss man einfach gern haben, die Geschichte rund um die Shatterlings ist gut gemacht.It all starts with this one girl Abigail Gentian who grew up in a weird shape shifting house and later cloned herself a thousand (+/-1) times for space exploration purposes. Seine wirklich guten Bücher füllen diese Welten aber auch mit Leben, interessanten Charakteren und einer glaubwürdigen Geschichte und Charakterentwicklung.

Reynolds has stated on his blog that the longer work "does not attempt slavish consistency" with "Thousandth Night". Approximately six million years in the future, humanity has spread throughout the Milky Way galaxy, which appears devoid of any other organic sentient life. They manage to find the remains of a ship with several Gentian members still alive, and rescue them and the four enemy prisoners they had captured. Also, Abigail Gentian, at the end of the creation process of the Gentian Line, deliberately wiped her identity from herself when she chose to become the 1000th member of the Line, so that no one in the Gentian Line, not even herself, would realize who's the original. 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.The above passage from House of Suns serves to illustrate the author's grandiose scheme for this book. I guess future aliens will have much fun playing around with the most important factor of human society just as nowadays secret reptilian overlords that are already there. Purslane's ship, Silver Wings of Morning, is so large that its main cargo bay has its own weather system. The Commonality (a confederation of the various Lines), horrified and ashamed of this pointless genocide, erased all knowledge of the event from historical records and their own memories. I’ve read and enjoyed quite a few of their Alastair Reynolds, but not this one, which they took to university, and which I’ve just borrowed.

Artificial Gravity: Used by the starships to propel themselves and to protect their occupants from the crushing force of their thrust. Campion and Purslane are two shatterlings who are running late to the most recent Line reunion, having been delayed for a variety of reasons. CLARKE AWARD; REVELATION SPACE, ABSOLUTION GAP, DIAMOND DOGS and CENTURY RAIN were shortlisted for the BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD and CHASM CITY won the BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION AWARD. Together Hesperus and Purslane find a hideout in a smaller ship in the hold of the Silver Wings of Morning. I'm also familiar with relativity and am fairly comfortable, as a historian, with the concept of "Longue Duree" history.Just my opinion, but…after 50 years of SF, I must say it’s great to see this kind of consistent creativity.