House of Suns: Alastair Reynolds (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

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Reynolds also does a decent job of simplifying cool science concepts, such as faster-than-light travel and the violation of causality.

All remember the upbringing of Abigail, their progenitor, in the mysterious, constantly-under-construction house of her childhood, as well as her time spent within the simulated world of Palatial (snippets of which we see in between parts of the main story). Also used for inertial dampening, as a ship's shields can be projected internally around its inhabitants, allowing extremely high-g maneuvers that would normally render everybody inside to jelly.One major selling point is the feeling of deep time: the lifetime of a shatterling stretches into millions of years, and a typical journey through space can take thousands of years.

Lurk on any sci-fi book forum and you're bound to come across Alastair Reynolds sooner rather than later. House of Suns is space opera on a grand scale: the Gentian line, "shatterlings" cloned from Abigail Gentian six million years ago, makes circuits of the entire galaxy in kilometers-long sub-light ships, collecting information, watching civilizations rise and fall, building Dyson sphere-like constructs to contain supernovas, making deals and occasionally feuding with other clone lines, and meeting up for a big family reunion every two hundred millennia. It’s almost like he’s acknowledging his critics, but saying “See, it’s not necessarily bad, it’s just how you look at it”. On the one hand, I appreciated his attention to detail, especially his careful use of medical and anatomical terms.That said the story is not hard to follow providing you give it time to unfold and settle you in its very far future settings. Hesperus is a member of the "Machine People", an advanced civilization of robots, and supposedly the only non-human sentient society in existence. I rather like Revelation Space but in a muted sort of way, I thought the characters were on the flat side and a lot of the science went over my head.

Childhood memories have already played an essential role in Chasm City, where it was part of showing the special attitude and shock frosted living cargo weight minimization attempts of Sky Hausmann.

Normally that'd be enough to kill anyone, but the aggressors just keep on going, continuing to bombard the planet until the crust melts completely. Campion and Purslane's relationship is realistic, but it's just a plot point, and they never stood out as individuals.

Families, Lines in this work, and old money that are specializing in future industries in one sector and becoming galactic or universal market leaders can be one option, but I would subjectively think that conglomerates and especially single, market listed megacorporations that are the first ones and have extremely rigid and deadly anti industrial espionage systems will be king.

Purslane's ship, Silver Wings of Morning, is so large that its main cargo bay has its own weather system. Intelligent, well-written escapism about encounters between advanced human intelligences and even more advanced machine intelligences. Es el primer libro que leo de este autor y solo puedo decir que ha sido una gran experiencia, pocas veces un libro de Ciencia Ficción me ha hecho desvelarme para seguir leyendo, su historia es muy buena, con giros inesperados muy bien planteados y te mantiene absorto en los misterios que ofrece este futuro tan lejano que Reynolds nos ofrece, los personajes son muy entrañables, destacando a los protagonistas y al buen Hesperus. Campion and Purslane are two shatterlings who are running late to the most recent Line reunion, having been delayed for a variety of reasons.