House of Suns by A. Reynolds (spoilers)

[Ender]

Anyone else read this yet? It is Alistar Reynolds latest. He departs from his usual hardish space opera noir to go more straight space opera. This time around the tech includes reactionless inertia drives, shields, forcefields, teleporters, wormholes, ringworlds, dyson spheres etc. But it is much more character driven then his past works, so on the whole I think it works out. I really liked some of the concepts, like the shatterlings as a future kind of human life. Much better then the typical transhumanist fare I've seen where all the proposed sects are the same in nearly every story. Frankly evil hive minds have hit "cat-alien" overused level in my mind.

Anyways, different, but I still liked it. As far as stand alones go, Pushing Ice was a bit better. BUt I think this will be a more developed universe shortly, so I await the next one with baited breath.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I have the book on my to read pile, but I have not even found the time to read "The Prefect"...