Tom

A compelling premise that is let down by the character of Svetlana. Throughout the book I didn't know whether to be appalled or impressed that the author had created such a despicable, hypocritical and irredeemable character. By the end, the fact that I was actively rooting against her made the last act more frustrating than thrilling.

America-centric as expected and can't resist the urge to bring up Moore's Law at every opportunity but otherwise a good history of the micro-chip and it's profound effect on geopolitics. Some observations:

• The steady state that we have reached is one where foundries manufacture chips primarily for fab-less companies, it's easy to imagine an alternative reality in which chip design and manufacturing is done by a limited pool of massive companies
• None of this is possible without the funding, direct or otherwise, of nations
• Chips are becoming more and more specialised for a single use case rather than being 'general purpose'
• Catching up to the incumbents in the race for more advanced chips is basically impossible at this point

Alistair Reynolds takes relativistic space travel very seriously and it adds natural tension and scale to his work. House of Suns worked better for me than Pushing Ice mainly due to the strength of the characters, there is emotional depth and empathy here that I couldn't find in the other book.

At this point in the series Banks has fully realised his vision for the Culture and it is glorious.