A-, inventive and well-done. Re-read in progress, 4/15/20Draft review, in progress:The opening sequence, wherein Rachel Mansour takes on a would-be nuclear terrorist in Geneva, reminded me of John Varley's classic "Bagatelle" http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg..., which also features a talkative A-bomb. Varley's bomb is wittier, as I recall -- and Stross's gross "King of Uganda" character forces Rachel into a humiliating sex-act, which she uses to divert the terrorist. Spoiler: (view spoiler)...

After my reaction to the first book in the series, I am not surprised (but am disappointed) that I gave up on this one.One of our favorite mantras at work used to be "You never get a second chance to make a good first impression". He didn't. The opening scene was downright boring, full of technobabble that even my physicist husband found to be too much. It got worse, though, with a disgusting rape scene (not a good book for immature YAers). There was substantial worldbuilding, but the presentati...

Okay, so maybe the second time was the charm.Stross' first novel, "Singularity Sky" was one of those "A for effort" but a fairly solid B for overall execution, suffering from a lack of focus on which plot exactly I was supposed to be caring about and redeemed mostly by an interesting future scenario and two main characters that seemed like fun to be around. They even fell in love too, which is always nice to see.Rereading the novel, Stross must have also realized those two aspects were the keepe...

Sequel to last year's nominee, Singularity Sky, a 24th century space opera combined with spy story; perhaps a bit reminiscent of the more successful of Bujold's early work. The "Iron Sunrise" of the title is an artificially (though possibly accidentally) triggered supernova that wipes out an entire solar system. Features nassty neo-Nazis in space, tough teenage girl protagonist, explosively brilliant prose, plot twisting up and down (though I did think the final twist was a bit too similar to th...

What starts off as some excellent, mind-bending weirdness diffuses into an uninteresting thriller. There were too many character threads, and too many of the characters began to talk like one another as the book progressed. Not to mention Stross's linguistic tics and frequent cliches which litter the novel's second half. The book became a political thriller thinly disguised as SF.Which is all way too bad, because the first chapters are some of the best, most original, fun, off-beat SF I have rea...

I actually liked this one better than Singularity Sky -- maybe because it was a bit more linear, and spent more time on a smaller cast of characters, so it was easier to be sympathetic to them. The story revolves around Wednesday (also known as Victoria Strowger), a goth teen who happens to be an associate of Herman (agent of the Eschaton). She and her family are evacuated from their space station home, and on the way out, her incessant Herman-prompted snooping causes her to run across a secret

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...

Storyline: 4/5Characters: 2/5Writing Style: 2/5World: 3/5A far-future, techno-heavy, violent, galaxy-spanning plot executed with verve, Stross does it again. The author doesn't get everything right though. Technobabble is a great way to move these kind of stories forward, to imagine a future beyond imagining. It hides a lot while giving you a picture of a technological tomorrow to be in awe of. It can also be overdone. Lay it on too heavily and it instead starts to look like you're hiding someth...

What could possibly kill a god? How could humanity threaten a vast, distributed AI so intelligent that its scale is incomprehensible, its goals opaque, and its power practically limitless? What weaponry could injure a being that can break the laws of causality at will, simultaneously communicating with both its past and future selves?That’s one of the underlying threads in Iron Sunrise, a rollicking SF ride that goes big on both the action and the stakes. The universe Stross set up in Singularit...

6.0 stars. One of my ALL tiem favorite novels (along with the first book in the series, Singularity Sky). These two books together are as good as it gets when it comes to grand, epic space opera. The ideas discussed are mind-blowing and the author's skill in discussing them in the context of the story is fantastic. Te story never slowed down from beginning to end. I loved the introduciton of the genetically enhanced "ReMastered" as an enemy out to defeat the seemingly all powerful advanced AI "E...

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)Regular visitors will know that I'm currently in the process of reading every novel sci-fi author Charles Stross has ever written; I started last time with his very first, 2003's Singularity Sky, which told a surprisingly funny and absurdist tale set in the far future, centuries after the human race was sp...

Iron Sunrise is a sequel of sorts to Singularity Sky. Rachel and Martin are back, but they don't play a part until late in the story. The introductory character is Wednesday, a goth chick who goes from seventeen to twenty through the course of the book and who suffers a lot of hardships in between.My main emotion upon ending the book is disappointment. Charlie has two problems, and they're becoming more apparent the more often I read his work. This book sets the stage for an ongoing battle betwe...

I used to have a religious no-quitting policy when it came to finishing books. Even if the thing was terrible, I would slog through it till the last page, worried I was doing the author a disservice by not giving it a fair shake. Now, however, I'm a busy adult with a full-time job and a to-read list the length of my arm. I've gotten a lot more lax about finishing books I don't particularly care for.Iron Sunrise is not a terrible book. From what I read, it's okay. The first section is actually ve...

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

This was not the best work I've read from Stross, but he is very readable and this was that. It is an early work from this author and was entertaining enough featuring a disaffected 'angsty grrrl' teenager who calls herself, "Wednesday Shadowmist".

Another spy space romp, starring a goth girl who joins up with Rachel and Martin to take on the Borg.

This is the sequel to Stross's Singularity Sky. While it does suffer from sequelitis, it does tell a thriller next adventure involving UN Disarmament Inspector Rachel Mansour and her husband Martin Springfield in the same sphere of worlds populated by humans as a result of the singularity. I especially appreciated the depth with which Stross portrays the disaffected teenager Wednesday.

Having only read Stross's SF/horror/satire Laundry books— which I think are a lot of fun, but also very annoying whenever the humor takes the form of actual jokes— I figured maybe I would dig him better writing straight-faced space opera. Well... kind of. The two stars above are an average: half the time I liked it pretty well, and half the time I wanted to throw it across the room.I haven't read the previous one in this series, but the background was pretty clear— too clear, because Stross expl...

Charles Stross is a relatively recent find for me, but after reading his truly awesome Laundry series I made it a point to go back and explore some of his other works. Iron Sunrise is actually a sequel (though the author has said that there will be no more books in this universe) to Singularity Sky. It brings back the two main characters from that story, Rachel and her now husband, and introduces a who new spread of characters (slowly weaving the seemingly unrelated plots together). The world of...

The Singularity happens, immanentizes as a sapient Eschaton, and is more or less beneficent. Deals with overpopulation more mercifully than it might have, thought with a huge disregard for people who were separated by a city from their friends and family on that fateful day. But it more or less set up communities to succeed and it still takes an interest. A little quirky in how it expresses that interest, and a little blind to the potential danger of planets of self engineered ubermenches, but c...