Sun of Suns, Karl Schroeder
Sun of Suns, Karl Schroeder
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Sun of Suns
Book One of Virga

Author: Karl Schroeder

Series: Virga

Narrator: Joyce Irvine

Unabridged: 10 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/10/2008

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction

Synopsis

It is the distant future. The world known as Virga is a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and aimlessly floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and "towns" that are in the shape of enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for gravity.

Young, fit, bitter, and friendless, Hayden Griffin is a very dangerous man. He's come to the city of Rush in the nation of Slipstream with one thing in mind: to take murderous revenge for the deaths of his parents six years ago. His target is Admiral Chaison Fanning, head of the fleet of Slipstream, which conquered Hayden's nation of Aerie years ago. And the fact that Hayden's spent his adolescence living with pirates doesn't bode well for Fanning's chances.

About Karl Schroeder

KARL SCHROEDER is a professional futurist as well as one of Canada's most popular science fiction and fantasy authors. He divides his time between writing and conducting workshops and speaking on the potential impacts of science and technology on society. He is the author of The Million, as well as a half-dozen previous SF novels.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lee on July 25, 2014

I stayed firmly on the fence with this book. I can't decide what I would rate it, somewhere between 2.5 -3.0 stars would be about right. I don't know what genre I would stick it in, scif/steampunk perhaps. Probably not. Imagine if you will, Honor Harrington meeting up with the Integral Trees, then t......more

Goodreads review by Fabiano on January 04, 2024

Romanzo che si legge d'un fiato. È un misto tra Sci-Fi e Steampunk, ricorda il cartone animato della Disney "Il pianeta del tesoro" con tanta avventura e azione. Il worldbuilding è veramente pazzesco, super originale ed evocativo, tuttavia non è supportato da uno stile di scrittura di pari livello.......more

Goodreads review by Belarius on May 25, 2008

Schroeder's Sun of Suns bears the trappings of hard science fiction, but in reality it belongs to a much older genre: "Adventure." Like great popular works of yestercentury (such as Treasure Island or Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea), Sun of Suns takes a compelling premise and applies contin......more

Goodreads review by Peter on June 30, 2016

Sun of Suns is the first book in a series set in the distant world of Virga, an Earth-sized sphere filled with air, and inhabited on the vast interior, where gravity is a luxury you can't always count on and light and heat comes from artificial suns... and some have to do without. It follows Hayden......more

Goodreads review by Kat on June 26, 2012

Originally posted at Fantasy Literature. Hayden Griffin is out for revenge. When he was a boy, the nation of Slipstream attacked his little home world of Aerie. Hayden’s parents had just managed to build a sun for Aerie so their world could be independent of Slipstream, but the more powerful nation a......more

Quotes

“The swashbuckling space settlers of Schroeder's fantastical novel inhabit warring nation-states inside a planet-sized balloon called Virga. This adventure-filled tale of sword fights and naval battles stars young Hayden Griffin of the nation of Aerie, orphaned by an attack on the artificial sun that his parents tried to build. Schroeder layers in scientific rationales for his air-filled, gravity-poor world-with its spinning cylinder towns and miles-long icebergs-but the real fun of this coming-of-age tale includes a pirate treasure hunt and grand scale naval invasions set in the cold, far reaches of space.” —Publishers Weekly

“Outrageously brilliant and absolutely not to be missed.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“We already knew that Karl Schroeder could do Kubrick. Now it turns out he can do Dumas as well. And more: not since Middle Earth have I encountered such an intense and palpable evocation of an alien world. Sun of Suns puts the world-building exercises of classic Niven to shame.” —Peter Watts

“Mix in one part thrilling action, one part screaming-cool steampunk tech, and one part worldbuilding and you've got Sun of Suns. And oh, what worldbuilding! Schroeder is a master.” —Cory Doctorow

“Karl Schroeder's Sun of Suns not only creates an even more unusual and evocative setting than his previous work, but is replete with adventures and turns, and characters that are anything but one-dimensional.” —L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

“I loved it. It never slowed down. The background is fascinating and the characters held my attention. It reminded me a little of The Integral Trees, with technology a little more advanced.” —Larry Niven on Sun of Suns

“Over the years, science-fiction has provided us with awesome environments, the best ones based on careful logic. There was Hal Clement's Mission of Gravity and Robert Forward's Dragon's Egg. Karl Schroeder's new novel is in a class with these masterpieces. The longer one ponders Sun of Suns, the less paradoxical--and the more intricately sensible--it comes to be.” —Vernor Vinge

“Sun of Suns is a rip-roaring story full of marvelous images and cutting-edge ideas. Schroeder has the rare and invaluable ability to develop wholly new concepts and turn them into compelling narratives.” —Stephen Baxter

“Karl has managed to have his cake and eat it [too]. . . .It's a satisfying story in itself, but raises enough questions for me to want to buy the next in the series.” —Neal Asher

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