Talk:House of Suns

References to the Winchester Mystery House
In the book, Abigail's home is described as being constantly under construction, as a way of assuaging her mother's guilt about being involved in the production of clone soldiers. Abigail's insane mother believes that only constant changes to the layout of the home asteroid will prevent these ghosts from finding her. As described, this setting has clear parallels with the real-life "Winchester Mystery House", which underwent constant, aimless construction and was owned by the descendents of the eponymous gun entrepeneur. Perhaps someone with more writing savvy could include this in the plot summary? It's an interesting reference, I think.--86.131.34.165 (talk) 01:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Doctor Who reference
When they are looking to buy a spacecraft from Ateshga, there is a refernce to the Sycorax from "The Christmas Invasion" episode of Doctor Who. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.3.217 (talk) 09:37, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Plot Summary
I wrote the plot summary for this novel for this page; it was recently edited and divided in a different manner; I'd just like to say that I am happy with the editor's alterations to my work. Good job. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.66.65.112 (talk) 21:48, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That was me who did the editing. No problem mate!211.30.66.138 (talk) 07:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by VJDocherty (talk • contribs)

Release Date?
I have found so far a grand total of three different release dates: This article says 1 April 2007. Gollancz (the publishers) say April 17, as which you can read here: http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/search-results.aspx?SW=Y&strSVal=house%20of%20suns, in hardback, while Amazon says it will be released in paperback on the 8th (search for it). Where did the 1 April date on the article come from? And which of the two sources should we trust more?
 * The book is now published and the correct date is in the article. (Note: I reinstated this topic as per WP:TPG) VJDocherty (talk) 12:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Summary text
The first part of the summary text now contains two very similar statements, should these be combined?:
 * Most of the galaxy-wide human societies inevitably fall because any kind of faster-than-light travel or communication is strictly impossible, despite incredibly advanced technology; the limits of sub-lightspeed travel make it simply too hard to hold a civilization together over the distances of the galaxy.
 * Human civilisations almost invariably seem to fall within a few millenia (referred to as "turnover" in the novel), apparently due to the limits of sub-lightspeed travel making it too difficult to hold interstellar empires together. Civilisations and organisations that inhabit only one planet, or live entirely in space, tend to last considerably longer.

Also, the whole plot section is very long now - does someone have time to shorten it, while retaining the key plot elements? VJDocherty (talk) 12:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the plot section is fine. Many wiki entries on books or films have significantly longer plot descriptions; for a novel of this size I'm happy with the pot summary. It is relatively consise, true to the story, and cuts out the non-essential elements such as Dr Meninx and the troves etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.71.234.74 (talk) 13:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * As the guy who actually put in the second of the two statements, it was actually my mistake- I thought the first one had been removed (the paragraph had been changed, and i didn't read it too closely), I will remove the first statement now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.66.138 (talk) 04:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I still think the plot summary is too long - at 2266 words is it way over the guideline of 300-500 words. I'm not obsessive about guidelines and I know that there are many examples around with long summaries, but I think the article would be better if it was more concise. VJDocherty (talk) 11:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * To put that into perspective, if we followed the guideline we'd have a ratio of roughly 1 word for every page in the book. More to the point, this is a space opera with a long, overarching plot containing two timelines, one of which spans thousands of years and no less than five star systems. Even in its current form, whole sections of the novel are surmised in a single sentence. Cutting it down much more would seriously impinge on its accuracy.

What might be an idea would be to remove the Abigail section of the plot and simply mention that there is a sub-plot outlining the events that lead Abigal to create the Shatterlings. Unless anyone voices any objections, I'll do that soon.211.30.66.138 (talk) 02:40, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I have now had a crack at cutting down on the plot summary's length. It is now slightly more concise, although still in need of shortening. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.66.138 (talk) 13:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

After several shortenings, the plot summary is now down to just 884 words, and is concise, easy to read, and still conveys the really essential information to understand what is going on in the story122.106.160.244 (talk) 06:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Plot Gaps
I have just finished reading the book. I enjoyed it a lot. However, I do think there were some plot gaps.

For example, who creates the Absences and what determines their size?

What was all that whole section about slicing and dicing of the rogue shatterling all about? It went nowhere.

I suppose that would be my complaint about the book. There were lots of loose ends that were not resolved. There were also lots of climaxes which were really anti-climaxes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simonckenyon (talk • contribs) 14:40, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on House of Suns. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090806170921/http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/06/review-house-of-suns-by-alastair-reynolds/ to http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/06/review-house-of-suns-by-alastair-reynolds/
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,23841208-5003900,00.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 07:59, 7 November 2017 (UTC)