House of Suns (2008)

House of Suns is a 2008 science fiction novel by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds. The novel was shortlisted for the 2009 Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Setting

Approximately six million years in the future, humanity has spread throughout the Milky Way galaxy, which appears devoid of any other organic sentient life. The galaxy is populated by numerous civilizations of humans and posthumans of widely varying levels of development. A civilization of sentient robots known as the Machine People coexists peacefully with humanity. Technologies of the era include anti-gravity, inertia damping, force fields, stellar engineering, and stasis fields. Also of note is the "Absence"—the mysterious disappearance of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Large-scale human civilizations almost invariably seem to collapse and disappear within a few millennia (a phenomenon referred to as "turnover"), the limits of sub-lightspeed travel making it too difficult to hold interstellar empires together. Consequently, the most powerful entities in the galaxy are the "Lines"—familial organizations made of cloned "shatterlings". The Lines do not inhabit planets, but instead travel through space, holding reunions after they have performed a "circuit" of the galaxy; something that takes about 200,000 years.

House of Suns concerns the Gentian Line, also known as the House of Flowers, composed of Abigail Gentian and her 999 clones (or "shatterlings"), male and female: exactly which of the 1,000 shatterlings is the original Abigail Gentian is unknown. The clones and Abigail travel the Milky Way Galaxy, helping young civilizations, collecting knowledge, and experiencing what the universe has to offer. Members of the Gentian Line are named after flowering plants.

Synopsis

The novel is divided into eight parts, with the first chapter of each part taking the form of a narrative flashback to Abigail Gentian's early life (six million years earlier, in the 31st century), before the cloning and the creation of the Gentian Line. Each subsequent chapter is narrated from the first-person perspective of two shatterlings named Campion and Purslane, alternating between them each chapter. Campion and Purslane are in a relationship, which is frowned upon, even punishable, by the Line.

The primary storyline begins as Campion and Purslane are roughly fifty years late to the 32nd Gentian reunion. They detour to procure a replacement for Campion's several million year old ship from the posthuman "Ateshga". The shatterlings are tricked by Ateshga but escape with Hesperus, a member of the Machine People held captive by Ateshga. The shatterlings hope that Hesperus's rescue will excuse their tardiness and improve relations between the Gentian Line and the Machine People.

The shatterlings and Hesperus travel to the reunion world; they are forewarned by an emergency signal that the reunion has been attacked by unknown parties using "Homunculus" weapons – ancient monstrous spacetime-bending weapons that were ordered destroyed by another Line. Several Gentian survivors and four prisoners are rescued; Hesperus is critically wounded. They travel to Neume, the backup reunion world, and rendezvous with around forty other Gentians - there were once hundreds before the attack - and two Machine people guests, Cadence and Cascade. Soon after another Gentian is murdered; the Gentians suspect a traitor is responsible. Purslane is forced to give Silver Wings of Morning, her ship and one of the Line's best, to Cadence and Cascade, ostensibly so that they can return to the Machine People and seek assistance for the Line; the transfer is actually to punish Campion for transgressions against the Line. Hesperus is taken to "Spirit of the Air", an ancient Neumean posthuman machine-intelligence, for repairs. Hesperus is still non-functional when returned; unknown to the Gentians he has become an amalgamation of Hesperus and "Spirit".

Purslane, Cadence and Cascade board Silver Wings to execute the control transfer procedure; Hesperus is brought aboard for transport back to the Machine People. Hesperus reactivates and warns Purslane that Cadence and Cascade plan to hijack the ship; the other robots hack the ship's computer and takeoff. Campion and some other shatterlings, including Galingale, immediately pursue. Purslane and Hesperus hide in a smaller ship carried by Silver Wings. Hesperus determines that Cadence and Cascade discovered that the Line participated in the accidental genocide of the "First Machines", an earlier but more advanced machine people. The Commonality, a confederation of Lines, expunged the evidence of the event in shame, and hunted down the remaining First Machines in fear of retribution. Evidence of the event was unwittingly recovered by Campion in a previous circuit. Hesperus believes that the attack on the reunion was an attempt to suppress the evidence by the "House of Suns", a shadow Line tasked with maintaining the conspiracy. Silver Wings travels toward a wormhole leading to the Andromeda Galaxy where some First Machines escaped to. Cadence and Cascade plan to form an alliance between the Machine People and the First Machines to exterminate humans. The wormhole is blocked by a Gentian "stardam" and Silver Wings carries the opener. During the pursuit, Galingale is exposed as the traitor working for the House of Suns and is captured by the other pursuers.