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3.85 AVERAGE
3.85 AVERAGE
This one was about as much fun as its predecessor and jsut as reminiscent of Banks. I still like all the characters, although some were even LESS plausible than previously (Steffi Grace, I'm looking at you). I liked Wednesday and her shopping woes and eventual heroism, which all rang true. I hope she gets to run into Blow again! And, given that this is set up to be a series, no doubt she will.
First - if you are only going to read one Stross book, you must read [b:Accelerando|17863|Accelerando|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255812584s/17863.jpg|930555]. He was smart enough to release it for free - you can download it right here - http://www.goodreads.com/book/17863/ebook/download/epub .
If nothing else, at least read the first third of it. That should get your fingers twitching to get your hands on some of that near-future personal tech (I'd kill for the glasses alone - the "outboard brain" as he calls it).
That said, [b:Iron Sunrise|101864|Iron Sunrise|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171481833s/101864.jpg|1219293] is more of a space opera and a kids' adventure novel. It's a fun-enough romp - similar to some of Stross's other work in that the characters are a little thin on substance and development and the gadgetry, sexuality and violence feel a little gratuitous. But his talent is in weaving the whole thing together in a believable and mostly self-consistent manner - and it works here. The villains are kind of silly, and the one scene towards the end where he attempts to make them even remotely plausible fails completely. But you don't really read sci-fi for the characters, do you?
It features some of the same personal tech as in Accelerando, plus some quirky assumptions about FTL and STL travel and communication that combine to produce a mostly believable political and cultural entity. There is interesting political and military significance to the fact that FLT communication is possible but very expensive. And it basically coincides with current physics - we can produce quantum-entangled bits but they are expensive and bandwidth would be very limited. His main assumption that transporting one of the end points of the entanglement on an FTL ship ends the entanglement since it's carried outside of the original light-cone, so the system overall is expensive since expensive STL transport is needed to connect distant points. Some interesting social and political implications there.
There are a few things that irked me while I was reading the book. One of them being the implication that war news that is a few decades out of date is of no interest to anyone - a key assumption to make the plot possible. I felt that with interstellar distances there would be a more rational, interstellar appreciation of time. However, having finished the book and having had time to think about it, I think Stross may have gotten this right. Even now I find it hard to find real analysis of the pros and cons of political or economic events that are more than a year old. It seems to me people rarely think of the atrocities that are more than 20 years in the past and only a few thousand miles distant. With interstellar distances it is entirely plausible that an even more insular outlook could develop.
One really interesting idea that I have never thought about before is what would deterrent weapons on an interstellar scale look like. Stross's answer is intriguing - they're essentially STL mass projectiles, designed to be non-detectable while they're en-route and delivering a punch by accelerating to a high fraction of the speed of light. The only thing that sounded a little unreasonable is the fact that the attack craft is undetectable except by its exhaust. I thought that detection of approaching space objects would be much better in the future, and that we already can detect asteroids very far out in time. However, after some searching (only about 10 minutes worth) I couldn't find any information at all about how far away we can detect "black" (non-emitting) masses on an approach. All I found are a lot of alarmist articles about near-misses that were detected within days of near-hits with Earth. So perhaps this assumption is reasonable after all, and if so - the weapons system is pretty clever. M.A.D., in space!
Finally, the last thing you can look into is his view on the singularity. He side-steps it in this book (I won't ruin it for you, but it's a neat way to set up an interesting human universe and then never worry about any super-human meddling AIs again). If you're interested in that stuff, watch this amusing and thought-provoking panel with Stross and Vernor Vinge discussing the singularity and some of its implications - http://vimeo.com/9445223
If nothing else, at least read the first third of it. That should get your fingers twitching to get your hands on some of that near-future personal tech (I'd kill for the glasses alone - the "outboard brain" as he calls it).
That said, [b:Iron Sunrise|101864|Iron Sunrise|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171481833s/101864.jpg|1219293] is more of a space opera and a kids' adventure novel. It's a fun-enough romp - similar to some of Stross's other work in that the characters are a little thin on substance and development and the gadgetry, sexuality and violence feel a little gratuitous. But his talent is in weaving the whole thing together in a believable and mostly self-consistent manner - and it works here. The villains are kind of silly, and the one scene towards the end where he attempts to make them even remotely plausible fails completely. But you don't really read sci-fi for the characters, do you?
It features some of the same personal tech as in Accelerando, plus some quirky assumptions about FTL and STL travel and communication that combine to produce a mostly believable political and cultural entity. There is interesting political and military significance to the fact that FLT communication is possible but very expensive. And it basically coincides with current physics - we can produce quantum-entangled bits but they are expensive and bandwidth would be very limited. His main assumption that transporting one of the end points of the entanglement on an FTL ship ends the entanglement since it's carried outside of the original light-cone, so the system overall is expensive since expensive STL transport is needed to connect distant points. Some interesting social and political implications there.
There are a few things that irked me while I was reading the book. One of them being the implication that war news that is a few decades out of date is of no interest to anyone - a key assumption to make the plot possible. I felt that with interstellar distances there would be a more rational, interstellar appreciation of time. However, having finished the book and having had time to think about it, I think Stross may have gotten this right. Even now I find it hard to find real analysis of the pros and cons of political or economic events that are more than a year old. It seems to me people rarely think of the atrocities that are more than 20 years in the past and only a few thousand miles distant. With interstellar distances it is entirely plausible that an even more insular outlook could develop.
One really interesting idea that I have never thought about before is what would deterrent weapons on an interstellar scale look like. Stross's answer is intriguing - they're essentially STL mass projectiles, designed to be non-detectable while they're en-route and delivering a punch by accelerating to a high fraction of the speed of light. The only thing that sounded a little unreasonable is the fact that the attack craft is undetectable except by its exhaust. I thought that detection of approaching space objects would be much better in the future, and that we already can detect asteroids very far out in time. However, after some searching (only about 10 minutes worth) I couldn't find any information at all about how far away we can detect "black" (non-emitting) masses on an approach. All I found are a lot of alarmist articles about near-misses that were detected within days of near-hits with Earth. So perhaps this assumption is reasonable after all, and if so - the weapons system is pretty clever. M.A.D., in space!
Finally, the last thing you can look into is his view on the singularity. He side-steps it in this book (I won't ruin it for you, but it's a neat way to set up an interesting human universe and then never worry about any super-human meddling AIs again). If you're interested in that stuff, watch this amusing and thought-provoking panel with Stross and Vernor Vinge discussing the singularity and some of its implications - http://vimeo.com/9445223
I struggled with maintaining my focus with this book. While I didn't hate this book and enjoyed some of the ideas. I could not stay interested with it. It was definitely a slog for me through the first 250 pages. It might have suffered from the fact that it has been a good number of years since I've read the first book and have practically no recollection of it.
This is the sequel to Singularity Sky and, like its predecessor, has some fun ideas but gets bogged down in mundane spy activities and becomes a bit messy by the end.
The image of an artist living as Idi Amin and being largely ignored until he buys a nuclear bomb, isn't quite up with the rain of telephones from SS but is certainly striking (although the way the standoff with him is solved is eye-rolling) and the idea of the Eschaton itself could have gone so many places.
The characters are fine, if a bit one-note for the most part. The relationship between Rachel and her husband is nicely drawn though and Wednesday is fairly inoffensive for a stroppy teenager.
The main antagonists being Space Nazis is hammy and doesn't feel played for laughs to make it a bit more bearable. Towards the end, one does the "If this was a movie I would now explain my plan in detail while you wait for someone to save you but I'm much smarter than that" schtick, then explains their plan in detail because they love an audience apparently and gets killed and I have no idea if it's meant to be funny or not. The tone is never more comical than little quips between characters so this just didn't land for me.
The action and espionage is all fine and kept things ticking along: people are being killed (by space nazis), a world was destroyed (by space nazis), there's a race against time (and space nazis) to prevent another planet being destroyed but, by the end, motivations have become muddled and there's some late "no-one is the villain in their own mind" (from a space nazi).
I think I wanted more from this in the end, but most of the really interesting stuff is only there in small parts and the bulk is just a fine space opera spy story and the idea that eugenics, forcibly expanding an empire into other territories, mass slaughter and other nazi-related activities are bad. Well, they are.
The image of an artist living as Idi Amin and being largely ignored until he buys a nuclear bomb, isn't quite up with the rain of telephones from SS but is certainly striking (although the way the standoff with him is solved is eye-rolling) and the idea of the Eschaton itself could have gone so many places.
The characters are fine, if a bit one-note for the most part. The relationship between Rachel and her husband is nicely drawn though and Wednesday is fairly inoffensive for a stroppy teenager.
The main antagonists being Space Nazis is hammy and doesn't feel played for laughs to make it a bit more bearable. Towards the end, one does the "If this was a movie I would now explain my plan in detail while you wait for someone to save you but I'm much smarter than that" schtick, then explains their plan in detail because they love an audience apparently and gets killed and I have no idea if it's meant to be funny or not. The tone is never more comical than little quips between characters so this just didn't land for me.
The action and espionage is all fine and kept things ticking along: people are being killed (by space nazis), a world was destroyed (by space nazis), there's a race against time (and space nazis) to prevent another planet being destroyed but, by the end, motivations have become muddled and there's some late "no-one is the villain in their own mind" (from a space nazi).
I think I wanted more from this in the end, but most of the really interesting stuff is only there in small parts and the bulk is just a fine space opera spy story and the idea that eugenics, forcibly expanding an empire into other territories, mass slaughter and other nazi-related activities are bad. Well, they are.
Charles Stross knows how to twist a plot until it screams and has a gift for snarky dialogue. Setting and background a fairly unique, it's always nice to read something a bit different. Read [b: Singularity Sky|81992|Singularity Sky (Eschaton, #1)|Charles Stross|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924988s/81992.jpg|1192005] first though, otherwise you will feel more lost than usual.
Reading Iron Sunrise has been a long time in coming, ever since I read Singularity Sky. I finally got around to ordering a copy and dug into it when I realized I needed a good science fiction read. As usual, Charles Stross delivers on all sorts of quixotic ideas that I love in my science fiction. I like the posthuman parts of Iron Sunrise even better than its predecessor, and its action scenes are definitely superior. My criticisms of it are similar to the ones I levelled at Singularity Sky too.
Though technically a sequel to Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise can be read standalone. They share two main characters, so the only real spoiler is that these characters survive the first book. Otherwise, no knowledge of the original book is required to understand or enjoy this adventure. Stross explains once again the premise of this universe: a human-created AI from the future, the Eschaton, relocates 90% of Earth’s population some time in the twenty-first century. Fast forward three hundred years, and Earth and these relocated worlds have recovered (but diverged) and humanity is now flourishing on any number of worlds connected by superluminal travel. However, the Eschaton rigorously polices any attempts to turn that superluminal capability into time travel—causality violations are harshly dealt with.
The title of the book refers to exactly such a violation. Someone uses a weapon to destroy the sun orbited by a human world called Moscow. The sun explodes, creating the “Iron Sunrise” that releases a deadly radiation shockwave. This precipitates any number of events that eventually become relevant to the story, from the evacuation of Wednesday from Old Newfie to the fleet of slower-than-light vessels that threaten New Dresden. But the bottom line is that a causality violation weapon happened … and the Eschaton didn’t stop it. That’s bad news (for someone).
This book features a shifting and large cast of characters. Wednesday is the first main character we meet and, in my opinion, probably the coolest. She is young and inexperienced, and this shows. But I like her grit; I like that she questions whether Herman has her best interests at heart even as she uses the information and training he provides her. I like that she makes mistakes and isn’t a whiz-kid who is always one step ahead of the bad guys. Finally, I like that when Stross kills off certain people close to her, she does not just shrug and get on with her life; instead, her grief becomes a major plot point towards the end of the book.
Rachel Mansour, also featured in Singularity Sky, is the other most prominent protagonist. I like Rachel too, though I find her voice in this narrative flatter than Wednesday’s. There is something about the combination of her practised indignation and her self-confidence that rings false to me—or at least, it feels too familiar, like Rachel is just another one of those hyper-capable science fiction heroes we see too often in these stories. That being said, I appreciate how Stross portrays her reluctance to get back into “the game”, so to speak. Rachel is a very capable person, but she also has desires beyond being a soldier or fixer for this UN body.
(I was also not down with the scene near the beginning of Rachel’s appearance where she has to use sexual, seductive-type techniques to help defuse a bomb. It’s dumb and sexist, and worse, it’s dumb and sexist in a book that is otherwise full of smart and diverse female characters, protagonists and antagonists. And I suppose Stross is trying to play it as a commentary on the weaknesses of the patriarchy and the way smart women can exploit those, but I still don’t like it.)
I could continue talking about the half-dozen other named characters who get narrative time, but I don’t think I will. Iron Sunrise introduces almost too many characters, in my opinion—at least, I feel like parts of it are very extraneous indeed. In the end, I guess it kind of all comes together; I certainly like how the minor problem Rachel is facing at the very beginning turns into something linked to the larger ReMastered threat, suggesting a much richer story at work in the background. However, this 400 page book took much longer to read than I anticipated, and I blame some of that on how the number of main characters dilutes the intensity of the storytelling.
There are two complementary aspects of this book that make it good for me. First, there are the obvious science-fictional, posthuman elements. I’m labelling this book a “space opera” even though, technically, I don’t think it really falls under that genre—though it could if it wanted to. It has the setting of a space opera if not the story elements. It isn’t just the “big idea” stuff, like blowing up suns or time-travelling AIs. It’s the small things: the communication rings that people use, the smart-fabric that allows them to change fashion so quickly, etc. Stross is really good at imagining not just the technology that will take us to other stars but the ways in which faster and more miniature computing is changing our daily lives. Despite being written over ten years ago now and the fast pace of technological development, Iron Sunrise doesn’t yet feel outdated or obsolete, nor will it likely be in the foreseeable future.
Coupled to the technology, though, is the thriller plot. Because that’s basically what this novel becomes in the third act: the good guys are all aboard a FTL liner with the bad guys, who pre-emptively hijack it, and shit goes down. It’s tense and exciting; there is a lot of disguising and doubletalk and backstabbing and double-crossing! The best thing is, most of what happens could easily have been written as a thriller set in the present day. But I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much then. Stross takes the plot, dresses it in the trappings and tropes of science fiction, and makes it more interesting. I’m reminded a little bit here of The Expanse, which does something similar with political intrigue. Science fiction is useful as a tool for social commentary (of which Iron Sunrise has some, albeit in fairly non-subtle ways), but it is also a fantastic vehicle for breathing new life into old or often-used plots.
Having read a lot of Stross’ work now, I can safely say this is neither among his best nor his worst efforts. I like it, and I think people who have never read one of his novels before will like it. At the same time, I’d also caution that this isn’t representative of all his novels. If anything, Iron Sunrise reminds me how versatile Stross is. While it shares a certain fascination with economics and the wider picture of stochastic changes to complex systems, it is markedly different from his Laundry Files series, for example, or his near-future Scottish crime novels. It will go on my Stross shelf, but it’s probably not the first Stross I’ll re-read.
Though technically a sequel to Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise can be read standalone. They share two main characters, so the only real spoiler is that these characters survive the first book. Otherwise, no knowledge of the original book is required to understand or enjoy this adventure. Stross explains once again the premise of this universe: a human-created AI from the future, the Eschaton, relocates 90% of Earth’s population some time in the twenty-first century. Fast forward three hundred years, and Earth and these relocated worlds have recovered (but diverged) and humanity is now flourishing on any number of worlds connected by superluminal travel. However, the Eschaton rigorously polices any attempts to turn that superluminal capability into time travel—causality violations are harshly dealt with.
The title of the book refers to exactly such a violation. Someone uses a weapon to destroy the sun orbited by a human world called Moscow. The sun explodes, creating the “Iron Sunrise” that releases a deadly radiation shockwave. This precipitates any number of events that eventually become relevant to the story, from the evacuation of Wednesday from Old Newfie to the fleet of slower-than-light vessels that threaten New Dresden. But the bottom line is that a causality violation weapon happened … and the Eschaton didn’t stop it. That’s bad news (for someone).
This book features a shifting and large cast of characters. Wednesday is the first main character we meet and, in my opinion, probably the coolest. She is young and inexperienced, and this shows. But I like her grit; I like that she questions whether Herman has her best interests at heart even as she uses the information and training he provides her. I like that she makes mistakes and isn’t a whiz-kid who is always one step ahead of the bad guys. Finally, I like that when Stross kills off certain people close to her, she does not just shrug and get on with her life; instead, her grief becomes a major plot point towards the end of the book.
Rachel Mansour, also featured in Singularity Sky, is the other most prominent protagonist. I like Rachel too, though I find her voice in this narrative flatter than Wednesday’s. There is something about the combination of her practised indignation and her self-confidence that rings false to me—or at least, it feels too familiar, like Rachel is just another one of those hyper-capable science fiction heroes we see too often in these stories. That being said, I appreciate how Stross portrays her reluctance to get back into “the game”, so to speak. Rachel is a very capable person, but she also has desires beyond being a soldier or fixer for this UN body.
(I was also not down with the scene near the beginning of Rachel’s appearance where she has to use sexual, seductive-type techniques to help defuse a bomb. It’s dumb and sexist, and worse, it’s dumb and sexist in a book that is otherwise full of smart and diverse female characters, protagonists and antagonists. And I suppose Stross is trying to play it as a commentary on the weaknesses of the patriarchy and the way smart women can exploit those, but I still don’t like it.)
I could continue talking about the half-dozen other named characters who get narrative time, but I don’t think I will. Iron Sunrise introduces almost too many characters, in my opinion—at least, I feel like parts of it are very extraneous indeed. In the end, I guess it kind of all comes together; I certainly like how the minor problem Rachel is facing at the very beginning turns into something linked to the larger ReMastered threat, suggesting a much richer story at work in the background. However, this 400 page book took much longer to read than I anticipated, and I blame some of that on how the number of main characters dilutes the intensity of the storytelling.
There are two complementary aspects of this book that make it good for me. First, there are the obvious science-fictional, posthuman elements. I’m labelling this book a “space opera” even though, technically, I don’t think it really falls under that genre—though it could if it wanted to. It has the setting of a space opera if not the story elements. It isn’t just the “big idea” stuff, like blowing up suns or time-travelling AIs. It’s the small things: the communication rings that people use, the smart-fabric that allows them to change fashion so quickly, etc. Stross is really good at imagining not just the technology that will take us to other stars but the ways in which faster and more miniature computing is changing our daily lives. Despite being written over ten years ago now and the fast pace of technological development, Iron Sunrise doesn’t yet feel outdated or obsolete, nor will it likely be in the foreseeable future.
Coupled to the technology, though, is the thriller plot. Because that’s basically what this novel becomes in the third act: the good guys are all aboard a FTL liner with the bad guys, who pre-emptively hijack it, and shit goes down. It’s tense and exciting; there is a lot of disguising and doubletalk and backstabbing and double-crossing! The best thing is, most of what happens could easily have been written as a thriller set in the present day. But I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much then. Stross takes the plot, dresses it in the trappings and tropes of science fiction, and makes it more interesting. I’m reminded a little bit here of The Expanse, which does something similar with political intrigue. Science fiction is useful as a tool for social commentary (of which Iron Sunrise has some, albeit in fairly non-subtle ways), but it is also a fantastic vehicle for breathing new life into old or often-used plots.
Having read a lot of Stross’ work now, I can safely say this is neither among his best nor his worst efforts. I like it, and I think people who have never read one of his novels before will like it. At the same time, I’d also caution that this isn’t representative of all his novels. If anything, Iron Sunrise reminds me how versatile Stross is. While it shares a certain fascination with economics and the wider picture of stochastic changes to complex systems, it is markedly different from his Laundry Files series, for example, or his near-future Scottish crime novels. It will go on my Stross shelf, but it’s probably not the first Stross I’ll re-read.
I still have nightmares about this book. This is a compliment.
The first Charles Stross book I ever read was Singularity Sky, the first book in this series. I was in a different city, and I'm not quite sure what made it jump off the shelf of the used bookstore as something to read while I went to one of my first academic conferences. I was, however, baffled by the book itself. I thought I liked it, but I wasn't positive, because I finished the book and still didn't understand the underlying principles underneath that particular science fiction universe.
Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
The follow-up to [b:Singularity Sky|81992|Singularity Sky|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171011071s/81992.jpg|1192005], this has some of the same characters and is set in the same universe, although reading the first one isn't necessary to enjoy this one. And it is an enjoyable book, a good space opera with some nice ideas and an ending that tied up the plot in this book but set up new threads for future books in the same universe. Well worth reading.