May 6, 2013
In this loosely connected follow-up to 2008’s Saturn’s Children, Stross injects the trappings of space opera with his own wildly imaginative concepts, weaving a tale of economic intrigue against a backdrop of eons and light years. In the year 7000, Krina Alizond-114, one of the robot-descended metahumans who succeeded humankind, is on a quest to find her missing sister Ana. As Krina travels across the galaxy one step ahead of a deadly assassin, she encounters eccentric monks in a spacefaring chapel, feral insurance underwriters, and undersea civilizations. At stake is a financial document worth untold amounts, and a secret that could rock the very underpinnings of the galaxy-wide economy if revealed. As always, Stross feels like the smartest guy in the room, pushing the boundaries of identity and humanity while offering up what may be the first epic tale of futuristic macroeconomics. It’s a little convoluted at times but wholly entertaining as the big picture comes to light. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Associates.
May 15, 2013
In the same universe as Saturn's Children (2008) but thousands of years later, Stross invents an entire interstellar banking system, shows us how it works--and then how to defraud it. Interstellar spaceships take hundreds of years to crawl between systems, so the fastest means of communication is by laser beacon. Fast money is cash. Medium money is represented by interplanetary investments that take decades to mature. Slow money accumulates from the vast expenditures required to establish new interstellar colonies, and therefore, it's millions of times more valuable than cash. Metahuman Krina Alizond-114, a scholar of the historiography of accountancy practices, travels to the water world of Shin-Tethys to find her missing sister, Ana. The only way she can reach the planet is by signing on as crew aboard Deacon Dennet's Interstellar Church of the Fragile, a church on an interplanetary spaceship staffed by animated skeletons. Before long, however, pirate underwriters capture the ship. The pirate chief, (ac)Count(ant) Rudi, claims to know Ana via an insurance policy he sold her. Krina's real goal, though, is the investigation of a fraud of truly galactic proportions, perpetrated centuries ago under the guise of establishing a scientific colony whose purpose was to develop a faster-than-light drive. The colony collapsed spectacularly, but the debt, a mountain of slow money, still exists if anyone can prove ownership. Krina has one half of the key, Ana the other--maybe; she might equally well be dead. Rudi and Dennett clearly know more than they're telling; there's an assassin on Krina's trail; and these are just the beginning of the complications, including a petulant subaquatic monarch and a society of intelligent communist squid. If you begin by thinking that a narrative about banking, debt and accountancy might be dull, Stross will quickly disabuse you--there's always a mad glint in his eye, even when he's explaining some seriously weird and alluring concepts. Agreeable characters, a fascinating backdrop and brilliant plotting, with a further outlook of lengthy grins and occasional guffaws.
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July 1, 2013
In the year 7000 CE, metahumans, descended from robots, have replaced the extinct human race. Traveling to the water world of Shin-Tethys in search of her sister Ana, Krina Alizond-114 is captured by pirates. Believing that Krina and her sister each possess half of a lost financial artifact known as the Atlantis Carnet, Count Rudi, the pirates' leader, agrees to accompany her in the hopes of obtaining the item. Neither Krina nor the pirate captain realizes that an assassin is pursuing her for the same purpose. VERDICT The author of Singularity Sky continues to push the envelope of imagination with his bold plots and far-seeing vision. This follow-up to Saturn's Children should appeal to Stross's fans as well as to readers who appreciate cutting-edge sf.
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
May 15, 2013
Stross' novel Saturn's Children (2008) took place in a twenty-third century devoid of humans but replete with androids, including a professional sexual companion with no more biological customers left to service. This equally inventive follow-up occupies the same universe, albeit thousands of years later, featuring a new metahuman protagonist named Krina Alizond-114, whose consciousness can be beamed across light-years of space into newly fabricated bodies. When her sister, Ana, unaccountably goes missing, Krina sets out for Ana's last known home basethe water world of Shin-Tethysbut she doesn't get far before her ship is seized by pirates. While their captain, Count Rudi, chivalrously offers to ferry Krina to Shin-Tethys in order to meet Ana, his real motive is shadier: capturing a fabled and powerful monetary instrument called the Atlantis Carnet, of which Ana and Krina are part-owners. Readers new to Stross' densely packed prose and profusion of ideas may want to switch to lighter fare. His many fans, however, will find the author's usual wealth of futuristic scenarios and technological extrapolation enthralling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)