In the far future, during the time of the “Golden Hour” when most of humanity lives on planets and moons in a one light-hour torus around the Sun, the heads of two prominent families meet to discuss an interesting idea. Ludmilla Marcellin asks Abigail Gentian, daughter and heir of a respected cloning business, to create for her a thousand “Shatterling” clones. Each one will be an exact copy of Ludmilla, complete with all of her memories, and will be sent off to explore interstellar space. Having these clones meet at intervals to exchange stories and experiences is an innovative way for an individual to explore the galaxy. Inspired by this idea, the heads of all the other prominent families, including Abigail herself, decide to do the same.

This story follows two of Abigail’s Shatterlings, a male and a female clone, Campion and Purslane. They are running late for a family reunion of the “Gentian Line”, so they postpone their undertaking to transport alien tank-bound scholar, Dr Meninx, on his trip to visit “the Vigilance” and make a stop off at a shipyard to obtain a faster ship or engine upgrades.

Here they end up rescuing an enigmatic “Machine Person” - a sophisticated golden robot called Hesperus. He is one of the most intriguing characters in the story and when we meet him his background is uncertain as he is suffering from amnesia caused by his incarceration. His presence concerns Dr Meninx and after the mysterious death of the scholar, the reader is made suspicious of the machine person’s motives. Another mystery is that Hesperus has a human arm! Always extremely polite, as the story progresses, Hesperus proves resourceful and heroic but there is always that little doubt at the back of your mind about his true intentions.

When they reach the reunion system, Campion and Purslane find that their fellow Gentian Shatterlings have been attacked by the mysterious “House of Suns” and only a few survivors are remaining. They manage to rescue these, together with some captives from their attackers, but Hesperus is badly injured in the process. They head to the nearest designated safe system to meet with other Gentian Line survivors at a place called Ymir on the planet Neume. This planet is home to a race of tall, elfin and furry inhabitants and an ancient entity called “The Spirit of the Air”. Hesperus wanted to meet this entity and it is hoped that it will know how to fix him.

So the scene is set for the surviving members of the Gentian Line to plan their future, work out who the “House of Suns” are and why they wanted to wipe out the Gentian Shatterlings. To spice things up, also staying at Ymir is another couple of machine people (that will prove to be very problematic) and there is a traitor amongst the Gentian survivors! If that was not enough, there is also a big secret to uncover. One of the phenomena that “the Vigilance” have been obsessing about, and no doubt of interest to Dr Meninx (and Hesperus), is the disappearance of the Andromeda Galaxy. Where the galaxy once appeared in the night sky is just a dark void called “The Absence”. How can an entire galaxy just disappear? How is that disappearance connected to the House of Suns and the Gentian Line?

This is an amazing work of imaginative science fiction that deserves its place in many readers’ top-ten lists. It is mind-blowing "soft" sci-fi introducing grand concepts of immense scale and unfeasible technology. For example, the Shatterling protagonists are practically immortal. They are millions of years old and have already completed thirty-two circuits of the galaxy, each taking hundreds of thousands of years. To travel these huge distances they enter an “abeyance” pod where time can be set to pass at a vastly different rate, perhaps many thousands of times slower. When they physically wear out their memories and personalities can be transplanted intact into new receptacle bodies. What is the profession of the Gentian Line? Installing Dyson sphere-like “Stardams” that protect systems from nearby supergiant stars going supernova. When the star explodes, its energies are contained within the dam, trapped forever inside a screen of perfect mirrors. As you can see, it’s all very fantastical stuff!

The storytelling is skilful, complex and told from multiple points of view. The book starts from the viewpoint of Abigail and then adopts an alternating first-person narrative, flip-flopping back and forth between Campion and Purslane before reverting back to Abigail for a flashback sequence at the start of each new part. Abigail’s flashbacks tell the story of her experiences as a youngster in a virtual reality machine called “Palatial”. This machine presents her with a fantasy fairytale world where she can play at being the princess of the realm. Through this, the reader is always looking for parallels between Abigail’s virtual experiences and Campion/Purslane’s main story arc.

One of the things that make this book such an enjoyable read is the charisma of the two main protagonists. Campion and Purslane are really likeable characters that you can’t help rooting for. Although the same can’t be said for some others of the Gentian Line, particularly the self-appointed interrogator, Mezereon, who sets about questioning the House of Sons captives with such innovative and disturbing high-tech torture techniques I’m afraid I would have confessed everything immediately!

House of Suns is captivating and intriguing as secrets are uncovered piece by piece. On a deeper level, it represents the troubles caused by fear and intolerance between the living, biological races and the machine people although to dwell on that here would take us into spoiler territory. Finally, this story succeeds in keeping the reader guessing right until the very end before leaving us with a satisfying conclusion. In all respects, a classic must-read.