House of Suns

Alastair Reynolds

Sep 2009 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by John Lee

About this audiobook

Six million years ago, at the very dawn of the starfaring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones: the shatterlings. Sent out into the galaxy, these shatterlings have stood aloof as they document the rise and fall of countless human empires. They meet every 200,000 years to exchange news and memories of their travels with their siblings. Not only are Campion and Purslane late for their thirty-second reunion but they have also brought along an amnesiac golden robot for a guest. But the wayward shatterlings get more than the scolding they expect: they face the discovery that someone has a very serious grudge against the Gentian line, and there is a very real possibility of traitors in their midst. 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.

Ratings and reviews

Truly a magnificent, timely yet deceptivly swift listen or read. It's a book which deeply and meticulously examines a transhumanist future and what near immortality paired with the beautifully heartening, very human perpetual curiosity and awe as drivers for the why of the we in the context of WHEN - in a civilization that has an inexhaustible reservoir of curiosity and time both. Without sacrificing emotional depth of its characters (an issue which often keeps good science fiction stories from becoming GREAT science fiction stories!), that curiosity and awe shine through with an almost unbearable joy of a book that simply must be listened to or read.

One of my favorite Alastair Reynolds books read by one of my favorite narrators. Reynolds is working with big ideas and big chunks of time in this book, yet he manages to make it approachable and exciting

AAA BOSS NETWORK

About the author

Born in Barry, South Wales, Alastair Reynolds studied at Newcastle University and the University of St. Andrews. A former astrophysicist for the European Space Agency, he now writes full-time. He is the author of many short stories and twelve novels, including Chasm City, winner of the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel, and House of Suns.

John Lee has read audiobooks in almost every conceivable genre, from Charles Dickens to Patrick O'Brian, and from the very real life of Napoleon to the entirely imagined lives of sorcerers and swashbucklers. An AudioFile Golden Voice narrator, he is the winner of numerous Audie Awards and AudioFile Earphones Awards.