House of Suns

I had put House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds on my list of readings based on a recommendation I encountered on Youtube. Why it had been recommended and what the book was even about I had already forgotten by the time I finally got to it. Thus I got to dive pretty much blind into this science fiction novel.

House of Suns takes place millions of years into the future. Humankind has spread across the Milky Way only to discover they're the only sentient species in the galaxy. But since we're talking about such a long period of time, humans have taken various posthuman forms themselves. Countless civilizations have risen and fallen. Millions of years really is a concept impossible for human comprehension to grasp.

One constant that has persisted through all the eons are the Lines (I'm having to look up the English terms used since I read the book in Finnish), familial organizations of clones -- or shatterlings -- from all the way back from Golden Hour era when humanity was still in early steps of inhabiting the galaxy.

I didn't understand why they had to be clones (besides the conceit of the original person). Maybe the clones are more long-lived? Even if they have spent the vast majority of their years in stasis or frozen, surely they would have accumulated a considerable amount of waking hours over the millions of years. A normal human lifespan maybe wouldn't be enough to last an eternity. Then again, one of the shatterlings of the Line mostly featured in the book, the Gentian Line, the House of Flowers, is secretly the original Abigail Gentian.

I'm also not sure if all the Lines were created from the same motivation but at least the House of Flowers is driven by a thirst for knowledge. Knowledge also brings power and the Lines are capable of enormous undertakings such as encasing a star in a Dyson swarm. The shatterlings circle the galaxy in their highly advanced, more or less the speed of light reaching spaceships. Every 200k years they gather to synchronize their databases. In the novel, the 32nd Gentian reunion is coming right up.

The book follows Campion and Purslane of the said Line. Viewpoint switches between the two characters and early on I was often confused which one was which, largely due to the gender-neutral third person pronoun of the Finnish language. (Campion is male while Purslane is female.) The two shatterlings are in a relationship which is heavily frowned upon by the Line.

Maybe because of other books I had read recently, I was expecting more focused central theme: House of Suns instead has all kinds of stuff, that is maybe not all that tightly connected. The novel is very much a space opera. It's definitely not the worst book to pick up though -- very entertaining.

My favorite thing were probably the Lines. I've come to realize I'm a fan of family sagas, especially if they're about nobles. I love the interactions they have with people and beings outside the family. And the responsibilities they have towards their House. I wouldn't mind reading another novel of this setting.