One of the best books I've ever read, if not THE best! - Rated 
I'd sneaked a look at some reviews as I was reading this, but being mindful of spoilers. I did find it a little slow to begin with but looking back it didn't spoil the book even slightly.
I finished reading it today and hand-on-heart this is one of the best books I've ever read, if not THE best! The story is immense, in more than one sense of the word. Set over massive distances and time, I loved getting my head around the scale of the book.
After half way through I had the feeling it was building into a crescendo and I wasn't disappointed. I actually laughed out loud at the very last pages not because they were funny but because it was a brilliant ending to the book.
If you're a fan of Reynolds or sci-fi in general - or even if you love a good story - you HAVE to buy this, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Easily Alastair's best work yet, highly imaginive and completely plausible if you let your mind wander.
Superb space opera!!!!!! - Rated
Let me start by saying that any fan of Reynolds will love this book. It is a true space opera just like the inhibiter series. Vast scale and vast ideas combined with a new interesting vision about the future developent of human societies over huge time spans. This is all delivered in the best Reynolds style, so it is never boring and always keep up the pace. It is brilliant!
The review by Dr. T. Fallone here on amazon had me a little worried. His critisism about god like technology had me worried that the book plot would be :"omg, how do we solve god like problem no 1?!" ..."well, of cause we use god like solution no 1!"
I am happy to say that is not the case. In fact, I dont agree at all with his statements. The book is not about god like technology.
To sum up: BUY THIS BOOK - you will not regret it!! Good plot, good characters and good pace.
Im just sad it will likely be another year before his next book is out
Couldn't put it down - Rated
If the definition of a good book is that you can't put it down, this qualifies with spades.
The book combines classic SF ideas (clone families, robots, worm holes) with some new and genuinely brilliant twists.
Although the nature of the book is very different from the RS books, the huge scope and scale of the plot is typical AR - don't miss it.
Sublime indeed! - Rated
Mr. Reynolds was already the best sci-fi writer on the planet (I would say by a wide margin). His stories are complex, multi-level with fascinating large-scale subplots, i.e., why do all galactic civilizations vanish. On every page - of 700 page novels, mind you - he introduces fascinating ideas. Also, I love his books since he lives within the Einstein speed-of-light limits yet still produces believable means for humans to propagate through the galaxy. In House of Suns, Reynolds has outdone himself. I thought it would be hard to top the Revelation Space trilogy, but I thought he did it with Prefect. Now he has topped that with House of Suns. I believe it is the perfect sci-fi novel.
Horace Heck
Makes the Asimov/Foundation series look short term .. - Rated
..and a love story to boot ..
The timescale for this story is 'circuits' - galactic circuits and its a tough one to try and imagine the length of time involved and the perspective it might give (Richard Morgan gives it a name - Methusalah syndrome..)
The action in the story takes a little while to get going while we get the background but after that there is murder, some very nasty interrogation methods and a race across thousands of years to avoid the effects of a very effective piece of genocide.
The concept of 'turnover civilisations' is very well done and you get the full realisation that for all the fury and noise of our civilisation we are so very short term - in fact there is a lovely line where 'never got beyond chemical rockets and fusion bombs before they decided to spare the galaxy their continued existance' - I did wonder if that was a comment on us today ..
But as I say its a love story as well where Campion chases across thousand of years to try and save Purslane from dying and its this that made the book - it being about two people in a situation where it would have been dead easy to just do the human / robot conflict bit..
Good read - well up to expectations
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