Sun of Suns

Great world building along with character growth and fast pacing delivery make a great story in Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns.

It's been a long time since science fiction has captivated me the way that Sun of Suns has done. Usually I go to the fantasy realm to get good world building, but this book pulled me in from the beginning. The entire book I kept wondering if the world that this was set in actually followed Newtonian physics or not. The way the natural sciences of the world were introduced was easy to follow and given out in digestible chunks. It was done in such a wonder way as to make the natural science's feel like another character that drove the plot, just like the protagonists.

The character's in the book were all well described and showed growth throughout the book. Obviously the main character has his motivations and struggles with them, but so do all the side characters. There really are very few totally bad guys in this book, just like there really isn't any absolutely good guys. Every character has their yin and yang moments in the book. Every character is sympathetic at one point or another just like every character is very callous at times.

Mixed in with everything that typically slows down a good story is an extremely fast pace of action. The story moves from scene to scene, fight to fight with enough detail that you actually visualize the fights and world around everyone. I'm reminded of the great space opera fight scenes in Star Wars with all the speeders zooming in and around the large ships using speed and mobility to their advantage, while the large ships fight it out, while boarding parties fight in inside the ships.

The ending, while not unpredictable, left me wanting more. Wanting to see how the world itself develops. Wanting to know who get's what they strove for. Wanting to know what the future holds.

This is as close to a call-back to the best works of Robert Heinlein and Larry Niven. We have a fantastic, novel setting inside of an air-filled “fullerene” balloon that has a 5,000 mile diameter. This balloon constitutes the “planet” of Virga. There is no gravity inside Virga and very little “ground.” The people of Virga live in a weightless environment where they can fly for thousands of miles. They live in settlements that produce gravity by centrifugal effects. All light in Virga is created by artificial “suns” that illuminate only scant territories of this enormous domain.

In the best tradition of Larry Niven, this is a lot to take in.

Clustered around individual “suns” are nations. Hayden Griffin belongs to the nation of Aerie which was conquered by the nomadic nation of Slipstream. His parents are part of the Aerie resistance with plans to light up a new sun and declare independence. Things go wrong and Hayden is left with a mission of vengeance.

Flash forward 15 years and Hayden is infiltrating into Slipstream society. Suddenly, he is called out to travel with his enemy to the outer darkness in search of a device that will allow Slipstream to fight its enemies.

We get the Cook's tour of Virga. We see the vast cloud banks, the pirates, and the outer darkness. We get a glimpse of Virga's history and society. Sword fights and battles between airships.

It's all good fun and quite exciting.