Six million years ago, at the dawn of the human starfaring era, Abigail Gentian split herself into a thousand clones and launched them into the galaxy. Their objective: to gather more memories and wisdom than one single human being could ever accumulate in a universe bound by Einstein's laws. Periodically, the shatterlings of Gentian Line meet for a grand bacchanalian reunion, where, over the course of a thousand heady nights, they exchange memories.
But all is not well: two wayward shatterlings, Campion and Purslane, are about to be late - decades late - for Gentian Line's thirty-second reunion. Their crime is compounded by the fact that they have consorted - shared experiences together - during the course of one of their galaxy-looping circuits. And even worse than that: they are in love. The only thing standing between them and possible excommunication from the Line is a golden robot called Hesperus, one of the Machine People, the other great meta-civilization occupying the Milky Way. But Hesperus is an amnesiac, and all he can recall is a vague sense that he was on a mission of desperate importance before his memory was wiped.
The lovers are hoping their prestigious guest will mitigate their punishment, but when they intercept an unexpected distress signal telling them to avoid the reunion system at all costs, censure by their fellow clones becomes the least of their worries.
After six million years of stability, someone has decided it's time to end Gentian Line.
Industry Reviews
'Reynolds injects a good old fashioned sense of wonder into his science fiction by combining a story of epic scale with a series of awe-inspiring revelations, each more breathtaking than the last. The finale is thrilling, moving and humane. This is Reynolds' best novel to date." -- Eric Brown THE GUARDIAN "Reynolds retains a highly readable style which allows him to dip into solid technology without losing the pace and he fleshes out a convincing background to his world." -- Anthony Brown STARBURST "A crisper style that recalls hard SF from the '60s and '70s. This nod to the past seems fresh and new." -- Dave Golder BBC FOCUS "A splendid example of SF as the literature of ideas, and depsite its longueurs is another triumph for Reynolds." -- Jes Bickham DEATHRAY "The book's final revelations are near perfectly judged. Ultimately it's this that gives his novel real heart and soul - an infinitely rarer commodity than any amount of self-consciously insouciant cool." -- Jonathan Wright SFX "His writing is solid, his characterisation intriguing; a fine entry for Reynolds." SCi FI NOW "Reynolds has written a hugely entertaining extrapolation of contemporary mores: a far-flung comedy of manners, with fascinating precedents. This is warm hearted science fiction with big ideas that are easy to follow. House of Suns might well be the author's most human novel to date." -- INTERZONE "Reynolds understands and uses hard science, giving an aura of plausibility to his wildest flights of fancy. As well as visionary brilliance, Reynolds also supplies a knock-your-socks-off ending. A thrilling, mind-boggling adventure." -- Lisa Tuttle THE TIMES "He remains as devoted as ever to innovative, hard sf, gigantic, family-sized space opera. What ensues is a chase story across vast tracts of both time and space, veering closer to Iain M Banks's territory than Reynolds's earlier books ventured. Like its technology, when it starts moving, it moves at one hell of a clip." -- Andrew McKie THE TELEGRAPH "As well as being an intelligent writer, he shows that he has an awful lot of heart." -- Roz Kaveney TIME OUT
