House of Suns

The author had never disappointed me until I started reading this book, and for a while I thought this trend would end. It's one thing to tell a story that's in the "near" future, it's quite another to tell one that's set six million years into the future, stretching the life of a galactic meta-civilization across time. So many things seemed arbitrarily guessed about what we'd be like after so long and many plot elements looked to be unrelated at first. But everything eventually comes together near the middle of the book. From then on, it's a smooth and satisfying cruise to the end. Reynolds knows how to tell an epic story in a universe where the speed of light is the speed limit. If you liked his previous books, you will appreciate this one as well.

Very inventive and interesting hard-sf, and hard to put down despite the fact that I found the characters a bit two dimensional. They were so damn polite to each other all the time! There is a lot about the implications of extreme long life. It deserves an almost full-"house of suns" :-)

Absolutely loved this story, the switching between the two main characters threw me at times but otherwise it is a fantastic concept, well executed and I really want a sequel to continue the journey of Campion and Purslane.