Review | House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz)

Purslane and Campion are two Gentian shatterlings from the House of Flowers, two of a thousand clones of Abigail Gentian who left the solar system around the year 3000 to travel and explore the galaxy. All shatterlings meet up for their thousand nights reunion during which they share memories of what they have experienced.

Six million years have passed since the first ships left the solar system and due to the technology available the shatterlings are effectively immortal. They can pass the hundreds of years travelling between star systems in stasis and experience anything the galaxy has to offer.

On their belated way to the next reunion, Campion and Purslane receive a message warning them not to enter the chosen system and to flee to a designated safe system. The Gentian line were ambushed, almost their entire number wiped out and only a few dozen managing to escape and make their way to Neume where they await any stragglers.

Why does someone want the Gentian Shatterlings dead? Is there a traitor in their midst that helped this atrocity? And what exactly is the House of Suns?

This is the story we follow in House of Suns. Travelling with Campion and Purslane while they visit some systems on their way to the reunion, the aftermath of the attack and the events that follow. The first thing that you need to get used to is the timeframe of the novel. As all travel is done at sub-light speeds, with ftl not possible, the events of travelling between systems is done in tens and hundreds of years of subjective time. Once you get the hang of this it's easy enough to focus on the story without thinking of anything outside of it, unless it's mentioned within the narrative.

The story flows along quite well and is well written, probably one of Reynolds' best to date. Parts of the story feel like self contained short stories, particularly the early sections, although everything in the book has a reason for being there. I was impressed with the scope of the story and the timeframes involved, although I didn't enjoy the novel as much as I was hoping for. I love Reynolds' short stories and have enjoyed a couple of his novels more than this one and really hoped it would deliver more than it did.

I can't really fault the novel, it's just my tastes that meant I enjoyed it less than I hoped. There was no real feeling of having to read on, no urgency at all. Perhaps that is the result of having the narrative and background over hundreds, thousands and millions of years. A slow burner more than a page turner.

Review | Old Man's War by John Scalzi (Tor)

John Perry turns 75 and leaves Earth to join the army. The Colonial Defense Force doesn't take young recruits, only 75 year olds. With his wife dead, John heads away from Earth knowing he will never return to his home planet. With old bodies, and the rumours of what the CDF can do to make you young again, it is a choice favoured by thousands.

The CDF have a monopoly on space travel and the only ones that leave Earth are those that join up to fight for them or people from over crowded countries. The colonists are shipped to various worlds and the recruits protect the colonies against the many alien species fighting for the same resources.

We follow John's story, told through his eyes, as he leaves Earth behind and embarks on a new life, one where he'll be lucky to stay alive to see the end of his CDF service.

This was another book that I really became aware of through the Tor.com newsletter (they've been giving away free ebooks for a few months now) and I'm extremely glad I did. The only way I can stress how much I enjoyed this book is to tell you how I came to read it. On my lunch break on Thursday I was stuck for something to do - I hadn't bought anything in with me to read and had no interest in browsing the internet. So, I went to my email inbox and choose this one to read for the short time I had before having to get back to work. To say I was hooked would be an understatement. I dropped by the library to get this one the way home (I was going to get the sequel too, but someone had loaned it between me leaving work and getting there...). By the time I was struggling to stay awake that night I was over halfway through. I finished it last night and can't remember the last time a book hooked me so much. So why was that? Well, read on...

To start off with, although this isn't too complicated on the surface it has quite a lot going on. The universe that John Scalzi has created here is both intriguing and vast. We get little snippets here and there about the other alien races that really add depth to the story. It's clear that there has been a good deal of thought put into all of this, and boy does it show. The story flows very well and we aren't subjected to the mundane stuff that you get from many other authors. This builds up the characters (which are truly excellent) and then it hits the ground running, from scene to scene it just doesn't give in at all. At times I had to struggle to put it down, if only for two minutes, simply because the story urges you to go on, it doesn't want you to stop until you've heard it all.

The characters, as I said above, are amazing. Each having a full life of experiences adds a nice depth to them, it's like the moment you start reading you just know they're fully formed and are going to be so entertaining to read. And the dialogue... wow. I think I can honestly say I haven't read any dialogue better than this to date. There is always a great humour to each of the characters, little jokes between friends and a genuine warmth to them. Even the ones that you may not like (and there won't be many of those, trust me) you can quite happily read and enjoy, because they bring something to the story.

Bad points? To be honest, very few. There are a couple of times when it's glaringly obvious what's going to happen, but it doesn't detract at all from the events. Old Man's War is straight to the point, follows events that are entertaining and is a genuinely enjoyable read. If you haven't read this I suggest you make it one of your priorities. I'll be buying this one and all sequels as soon as I see them and eagerly await reading and enjoying them.