Sun of Suns

Hi,

So I just finished up Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder. It's fantastic.

Imagine a giant bubble 5000 miles in diameter floating in space. Inside the bubble it's mostly air, but there's some rocks, water, and fusion powered "stars" that light and heat nearby areas. In the center is a much larger "star" that lights up the core.

That's the world of Virga. Everything and everyone is in open-air free-fall. People build giant wooden wheels set them spinning with crude jet engines to provide gravity. A shot fired in anger may kill someone weeks later on the other side of the world. In the areas not lit by stars, the water vapor forms cold, dense clouds and eventually freeze into titanic icebergs that cling to the ceiling of the world. Geopolitical issues are complicated by the drift of nations. Zeppelin-like ships ply the airwaves and everyone is wary of air pirates.

In short -- I'm totally going to run a game in this setting. The ideas he tosses out and their ramifications are just too cool to ignore.

The plot? Definitely overshadowed by the setting, but not bad by any stretch. We've got the vengeful Luke Skywalker type (who gets past his one-note "poor me" phase pretty well), we've got the Horatio Hornblower sky admiral and his utterly ruthless "Amerbites aren't paranoid enough" wife, and the mysterious outsider from beyond the world. Oh, and pirates. Lots of sky pirates and their buried treasure.

It's a fabulous book. It's also the start of a series (a trilogy? Most likely) so there are some loose ends at the end. But I'm satisfied with where the author stopped and I'm certainly interested in seeing where the next book goes.

Oh, and here you can see some of the author's renderings of a town in Virga.

later
Tom

Sun of Suns

Hi,

So I just finished up Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder. It's fantastic.

Imagine a giant bubble 5000 miles in diameter floating in space. Inside the bubble it's mostly air, but there's some rocks, water, and fusion powered "stars" that light and heat nearby areas. In the center is a much larger "star" that lights up the core.

That's the world of Virga. Everything and everyone is in open-air free-fall. People build giant wooden wheels set them spinning with crude jet engines to provide gravity. A shot fired in anger may kill someone weeks later on the other side of the world. In the areas not lit by stars, the water vapor forms cold, dense clouds and eventually freeze into titanic icebergs that cling to the ceiling of the world. Geopolitical issues are complicated by the drift of nations. Zeppelin-like ships ply the airwaves and everyone is wary of air pirates.

In short -- I'm totally going to run a game in this setting. The ideas he tosses out and their ramifications are just too cool to ignore.

The plot? Definitely overshadowed by the setting, but not bad by any stretch. We've got the vengeful Luke Skywalker type (who gets past his one-note "poor me" phase pretty well), we've got the Horatio Hornblower sky admiral and his utterly ruthless "Amerbites aren't paranoid enough" wife, and the mysterious outsider from beyond the world. Oh, and pirates. Lots of sky pirates and their buried treasure.

It's a fabulous book. It's also the start of a series (a trilogy? Most likely) so there are some loose ends at the end. But I'm satisfied with where the author stopped and I'm certainly interested in seeing where the next book goes.

Oh, and here you can see some of the author's renderings of a town in Virga.

later
Tom