Tag Archives: Alastair Reynolds

Book Review of “House of Suns” (2008)

house of suns

Cover art for the Alastair Reynolds novel “House of Suns.”

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I just finished Alastair Reynolds’ 2008 science fiction novel House of Suns. The book’s scope in time and space is vast, so it’s difficult to summarize let alone absorb.

Warning: Spoiler Alert!

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, a few individuals including one Abigail, decide the only practical way to explore the galaxy is to replicate themselves (almost) into a vast number of copies or “shatterlings.” Eventually, these shatterlings organize into Houses (such as the House of Moths and the House of Flowers) and inside the Houses family lines, such as the Gentian Line. This Line has emanated from Abigail, a person who was kept in childhood medically for decades before being allowed to become an adult and lead her family.

We get glimpses into Abigail’s early life up to her decision to create the shatterlings and to become one herself. These events parallel what occurs much, much later involving the shatterlings Campion and Purslane.

These two travel with each other albeit in their own spacecraft. Shatterlings, through a combination of relativistic speeds and stasis chambers, travel throughout the Milky Way and only have reunions with the other members of their Line once every “circuit” of the galaxy.

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Book Review of “Pushing Ice” (2005)

pushing ice

Photo Credit: James Pyles

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It’s been over five years since I read and reviewed one of Alastair Reynolds’ books so I guess reviewing Pushing Ice is long overdue.

I actually keep a list of books I want to read. Which books I read and when depends somewhat on whether or not I can find them in my local public library system. I mean chances are, I’ll only read the book once (so many books, so little time), so I can hardly afford to buy them all (one wonders how people afford to buy all of the brand new SciFi books being put out just to be able to vote on them for the Hugos, Nebulas, or other much vaunted awards?).

This book started off slowly. I didn’t expect that. After all, in the beginning of the tale, humanity has moved out into the solar system, so much so, that they’re mining comets for ice (water). Then, to everyone’s shock, one of Saturn’s moons Janus breaks orbit and starts accelerating toward interstellar space. Turns out it wasn’t a moon at all but some sort of alien scout or observation post.

The people with all the money, the United Economic Entities (UEE) offers the closest ice mining ship, the Rockhopper, commanded by Bella Lind, a lot of money if it will chase, catch up to, and study Janus for the few days they can before the moon outruns them. After much angst and voting, they agree to. But that’s not the beginning of the story.

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Galactic North: A Brief Book Review

galactic north

Cover art for Alastair Reynolds’ book ‘Galactic North.”

A friend of mine loaned me his copy of this book because we share similar tastes in reading and I must say I found it well-written and compelling. Galactic North is a collection of eight short stories all set in the same “universe” and spanning centuries.

They involve different variations of the human race, and how they cooperate and compete with each other across the ages and light years. It’s space opera at its finest including plausible “space pirates.”

Author Alastair Reynolds has a Ph.D in Astronomy and was previously employed as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, so he definitely possesses the qualifications for writing “hard science fiction.”

Interestingly enough, in addition to realistically portrayed interstellar travel, suspended animation, and human cybernetic hive minds, he focuses quite a bit on the medical adaptations to human beings, from the hyper-cerebral Conjoiners, to the terrifying Denizens.

The only thing that put me off a bit were the instances of what I call “medical atrocities,” that is, how some of the people in the stories end up horribly altered and mutilated, but that’s more a problem with my squeamishness than Reynolds’ writing.

As I understand it, Reynolds has written a number of other short stories and novels in the “Revelation Space” series, comparable to Larry Niven’s “Known Space” series. I have no problem giving “Galactic North” a solid five stars on Amazon, which I will be doing in just a bit.