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mattbnz 's review for:
The Revolution Trade
by Charles Stross
Having given the first two books in this series 5-stars each (my first 5-stars in a long time), it was very disappointing to conclude that this book was only worth two.
Basically, while the first two books were great Fantasy/Science Fiction novels with interesting world and character development, the final book comes across as more of a satirical political commentary of the US (or at least the previous Republican US administration) at the expense of devoting time to exploring the vibrant worlds and stories developed in the previous two books. I was hoping for much more to end the series.
I don't have an issue with satirising Bush/Cheney and how their administration might have deal with the issue of potentially hostile parallel universes. Maybe some don't even consider it satire (I'm not that cynical). Whatever you call it, my issue is that doing that doesn't need to take up the majority of the book at the expense of the story-lines in the other worlds and explorations of what is happening to the other characters. For example, the political upheavals in New Britain and the resolution of Miriam's pregnancy are both only explored in superficial detail, despite being major story-lines. Much of the other "non-present-day" story-line is reactive to the Cheney/Us story-line rather than being new and interesting as in the previous novels.
To top it off, the ending came rather suddenly and left many of the (already lightly covered) plot-lines unresolved (e.g. Miram & Burgeson, New Britian revolution, Brilianna & Huy, Huy's exploration of other worlds, and so on). If this was intentional and trying to leave room for further expansion of the series, then those future books had better return to the more comfortable, less political commentary, territory that the first two novels occupied or I won't be in a hurry to spend time on them.
Reading Time: 9 hours, 5 mins
Basically, while the first two books were great Fantasy/Science Fiction novels with interesting world and character development, the final book comes across as more of a satirical political commentary of the US (or at least the previous Republican US administration) at the expense of devoting time to exploring the vibrant worlds and stories developed in the previous two books. I was hoping for much more to end the series.
I don't have an issue with satirising Bush/Cheney and how their administration might have deal with the issue of potentially hostile parallel universes. Maybe some don't even consider it satire (I'm not that cynical). Whatever you call it, my issue is that doing that doesn't need to take up the majority of the book at the expense of the story-lines in the other worlds and explorations of what is happening to the other characters. For example, the political upheavals in New Britain and the resolution of Miriam's pregnancy are both only explored in superficial detail, despite being major story-lines. Much of the other "non-present-day" story-line is reactive to the Cheney/Us story-line rather than being new and interesting as in the previous novels.
To top it off, the ending came rather suddenly and left many of the (already lightly covered) plot-lines unresolved (e.g. Miram & Burgeson, New Britian revolution, Brilianna & Huy, Huy's exploration of other worlds, and so on). If this was intentional and trying to leave room for further expansion of the series, then those future books had better return to the more comfortable, less political commentary, territory that the first two novels occupied or I won't be in a hurry to spend time on them.
Reading Time: 9 hours, 5 mins