House of Suns

HOUSE OF SUNS features a race of humans that have lived in space for millions of years. But now someone has murdered most of them, and the survivors must find those responsible if the race is to survive. Narrator John Lee generally gives a strong narration, except when he encounters a recurring structural problem in the book: The story features an omniscient narrator, but, from time to time, without warning, the narration is taken over by the main female character. At these points, Lee's voice doesn't change, making it difficult to follow the shift in point of view. However, when Lee performs the female character's dialogue, his voice goes up an octave, making those moments easy to follow. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

April 20, 2009
Reynolds (The Prefect
) returns to the universe of his 2005 novella “Thousandth Night†in this sprawling novel of intergalactic intrigue. It is 6.4 million years in the future and humanity has spread throughout the Milky Way. Some cultures have established transient empires across space; others, the Lines, have used relativistic travel to colonize deep time. Clone-siblings Campion and Purslane are delayed on their way to a Gentian Line reunion, a coincidence that saves them from a massacre. Allied with potentially hostile Machine People and an enigmatic post-human god called the Spirit, armed only with fragmentary records and hints that Campion's research provoked the mysterious House of Suns, the Gentian survivors struggle to find and stop their enemies before the genocide can be completed. Intriguing ideas and competent characterization make this a fine example of grand-scale relativistic space opera.