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2006’s Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder is the first part of the ongoing Virga saga and follows the title character Hayden Griffin through a series of rollicking adventures throughout the artificial world of Virga. Virga’s inhabitants live on floating structures within a gravity-deficient, balloon-world lit by artificial suns. Within this world, an empire is building, but still faces threats from remote areas of the planet. Hayden Griffin finds himself in the middle of a war and a fantastic voyage that takes him to the far reaches of the planet and constant danger.

I stumbled upon Sun of Suns on Amazon.com and found the descriptions and user comments to be very positive and dropped by the library to pick up a copy. Traditionally, I tend to enjoy fantasy novels over science fiction novels, but I decided to give it a chance. It was a good decision, because I really enjoyed the time I spent reading this novel of high adventure set in a very imaginative, yet surprisingly realistic, environment.

As I began reading, I was immediately enthralled with the intricately detailed and grossly unique setting, but, even more so, I was pulled in by the fantastic story-telling ability of the author. The story was incredibly action-packed and the characters were well-written and intriguing. Hayden was easy to relate to and made a good protagonist, but it was the secondary characters that were really intriguing and helped to flesh out the story.

I would really recommend this novel for anyone that enjoys reading science fiction or fantasy. It kind of spans both genres in the way that Star Wars does. The novel contains a lot of technological aspects, but it is not bogged down by them. Suns of Suns is a tale of great characters and high adventure.