Sun of Suns (2007)

by Karl Schroeder

Series: Virga (book 1)

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803	29	27,651	(3.54)	24
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: 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. .… (more)

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The Integral Trees by Larry Niven (KingRat)
KingRat: Sun and Suns (and the two other Virga books), like The Integral Trees (and The Smoke Ring) explores a weightless world made of air.

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Showing 1-5 of 29 (next | show all)

Schroeder is one of those writers I always want to get into a bit more. Sun of Suns was good fun, not earth-shattering, but scratched an itch. Really seems like a vastly more competent and expanded retelling of Niven's The Integral Trees—a human civilization in a massive zero-gee gaseous sphere, with lots of biological and technological developments. Fun romp with fun science. (

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jakecasella | Sep 21, 2020 |

Feels like treasure island in space. A young protagonist on a quest for vengeance with a vast array of characters each with his/her own motives. The result is spectacular. (

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sami7 | Aug 3, 2020 |

It's rare that you get hard sci-fi written in such an entertaining style. Schroeder slowly drips in detail about the megastructure that comprises the world the story takes place in, leaving you entertained and full of wonder the whole time (

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fredstark | May 26, 2020 |

A friend in my science fiction book group recommended this as a super space opera romp, and so it is - remarkably inventive hard science fiction (the world of Virga is ... let's just say it will stretch your brain in terms of gravity and light) with fun, fascinating characters as well. The characters reminded me of those in Scott Lynch's Locke Lamora series and Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and - as in both of those series - the action is fairly non-stop. I bought the second book immediately upon finishing the first book (and now I'm on book 4). (

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SuziSteffen | Feb 20, 2018 |

Schroeder's vividly imagined fullerene balloon-world of floating rocks and mechanical suns is waaaaay too cool for the pock-marked plot and 2d characters which populate it. A savage ending saves it from being one-star. (

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apomonis | Jun 2, 2016 |

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Virga (book 1)

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Virga: Cities of the Air by Karl Schroeder

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (Finalist – 2007)

Prix Aurora Award (Finalist – Long-Form Work in English – 2007)

Seiun Award (Nominee – Foreign Novel – 2009)

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Sun of Suns

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Hayden Griffin was plucking a fish when the gravity bell rang.

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Sun of Suns

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Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML:

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.

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