Gardens Of The Sun by Paul McAuley

Gardens of the Sun by Paul McAuley is the sequel to The Quiet War, which I read last year. Gardens of the Sun follows on directly from the depressing aftermath of The Quiet War: Earth has asserted it's control over the outer system but some of The Outers has escaped into the darkness.

I found the style of Gardens of the Sun a lot easier to read than The Quiet War, despite it being exactly the same. For the first book I was constantly jolted by the infodumps and jumps of time, but I'd obviously settled into that style for the second book and could enjoy the actual story. And the story is pleasingly more optimistic, and in some ways more sweeping. The same characters are followed as in the first book, each plot unwinding amidst the rubble of the war and covering huge swathes of The Solar System.

There are more locations too: moons of far flung planets, journeys across Earth, depictions of the beauty and vastness of The Solar System; all rendered is wonderful and evocative detail. The sheer number of moons around the outer planets that are colonised is in itself a jolting idea of what could be possible. Suddenly it felt to me that we have plenty of room out there if we just applied our resourcefulness.

The story shows Earth trying to suppress The Outers, in increasingly desperate ways, but the pressure  just can't be sustained, and  in the end the invention and ambition of the human race triumphs. Just as I'd hoped. I suppose that the story is less climactic than the first installment but it is in no way less important, and the steady achievement of The Outers (mixed in with a quick, sharp Revolution) feels perfectly believable.

I'd recommend reading The Quiet War and Garden of the Suns in one go, as it's just one, large, sweeping story and a really interesting example of modern hard science fiction. One that, in the end, I really enjoyed.