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. The tension that finally developed a good third into the book dissipated quickly, and the more I read the more disappointed I was about the neatly resolved plot points. We could build cities like that… But we haven’t… and now they’ve left their mark on deep time, whereas we’ll be doing well to be remembered a circuit from now.

What sets House of Suns far apart from other space operas is the sheer scope and scale of the thing and the fact that the immensity of it all does not drown the beautiful humanity displayed by the main characters, Campion and Purslane, two clones of the Gentian line who have been illicitly involved in a forbidden relationship with one another.The characters are just as bland as their dialogue, with motivations and loyalties that are either cliched or bewildering. and then there just a few too many comparisons with things that are archaic even by todays wordage and would certainly be lost in a narrative in the first person set millions of years into the future. Aside from a machine civilization, humans are the only sapients in the galaxy, though there is evidence of a "Prior" civilization. Oh, if only you try the other series," "They get good after the fourth book in the series," "It's not until Book XX that it gets really good.

With stasis failing, Hesperus decides to protect Purslane by remodeling himself into a stasis equipped landing pod, sacrificing his personality and memories in the process. The scale of some of the conceptual elements was so broad that I initially had some difficulty finding a handhold to comprehend them.The progenitor of almost everything, is a woman (Abigail), as is her rival (Ludmilla Marcellan), and there are plenty of others.