I am the Eschaton. I am not your god.
Book review!
Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
I've been engrossed in this book for a few weeks and finally finished it last night! It was a very hard book to put down, I kept wanting to read it more and more. Love that sort of thing.
Iron Sunrise is the sequel to Singularity Sky which I read last year.... SS was OK but kind of confusing - the antagonists of the story (The Festival) didn't make much sense to me, and their motivations were truly alien. (The Festival weren't human but some sort of galactic travelling collective consciousness that wanted to hear stories... yeah, it was that confusing).
Iron Sunrise features the same central character in UN spy and diplomat Rachel Mansour, but the story this time around is much easier to follow, and certainly much more action-packed.
A plot summary wouldn't do it justice, but if you like hard sci-fi, then understanding the basics of the SS/IS universe isn't too hard. Advanced physics knowledge isn't necessary to enjoy this book (whereas it seems to be with some of Charles Stross's works).
Although there's quite a big mystery built up, the big denouement does seem to be a little bit of a letdown - it can be rather annoying when an event built up throughout to be pivotal and very significant turns out to be nothing what you expected, and although the explanation is perfectly logical, it's not at all satisfying.
That said, the action and tension in this book great - and you can certainly feel empathy towards the main characters of Wednesday and Frank, but our supposed central character of Rachel isn't quite as deep as the former two, which is a pity.
Still, I enjoyed it :)
Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross
I've been engrossed in this book for a few weeks and finally finished it last night! It was a very hard book to put down, I kept wanting to read it more and more. Love that sort of thing.
Iron Sunrise is the sequel to Singularity Sky which I read last year.... SS was OK but kind of confusing - the antagonists of the story (The Festival) didn't make much sense to me, and their motivations were truly alien. (The Festival weren't human but some sort of galactic travelling collective consciousness that wanted to hear stories... yeah, it was that confusing).
Iron Sunrise features the same central character in UN spy and diplomat Rachel Mansour, but the story this time around is much easier to follow, and certainly much more action-packed.
A plot summary wouldn't do it justice, but if you like hard sci-fi, then understanding the basics of the SS/IS universe isn't too hard. Advanced physics knowledge isn't necessary to enjoy this book (whereas it seems to be with some of Charles Stross's works).
Although there's quite a big mystery built up, the big denouement does seem to be a little bit of a letdown - it can be rather annoying when an event built up throughout to be pivotal and very significant turns out to be nothing what you expected, and although the explanation is perfectly logical, it's not at all satisfying.
That said, the action and tension in this book great - and you can certainly feel empathy towards the main characters of Wednesday and Frank, but our supposed central character of Rachel isn't quite as deep as the former two, which is a pity.
Still, I enjoyed it :)