Book Log 9/2009 - Singularity Sky

[jacey]

Charles Stross: Singularity Sky

The cover blurb tells me this is ‘One of the most significant works of SF published this decade,’ according to The Guardian. That may well be the case, I don’t pretend to be able to judge that, all I can say is that now I’ve finished it, my head hurts. (Time travel and causality will always do that to me.) It’s not a quick read, it’s densely packed with surreal ideas and seemingly incongruous side-trips. It contains ideas so big that it took me most of the book to get my head round them, but that’s good. Being of a generally unscientific mind I’m not in a position to know where the real science ends and Mr Stross’ imagination kicks in, so I just had to trust him on that. Besides, I was really looking for the human story within.

In a universe where The Eschaton – a godlike presence – has descended upon Earth and spread 90% of its population to suitable new planets in outlying star systems, there is no central government, but there is the UN, a talking shop for the various new worlds populated by humans. Different colonies have evolved different social systems, most moving forward, but a few, like The New Republic, a spacefaring society closely based on pre-revolution Russia, sticking firmly with tradition.

The human story is that of Martin and Rachel – both agents, he for the Eschaton and she for the UN, completely independent of each other – trying to intervene in different ways in the potential disaster that the New Republic is racing towards when it reacts in warlike manner to what seems to be an invasion of one of its colonies by the inhuman ‘Festival’ – a datavore in search of entertainment and information. The datavore’s material gifts so upset the economic and social balance of Novy Petrograd that the New Republic responds by declaring war.

There are rather too many strands to this story to make me entirely comfortable with it. We spend a lot of time in the company of the (space) Navy of the New Republic, the senile admiral and crew of the Lord Vanek who have confusing names like Sauer and Bauer (and I’m easily open to confusion when these are just walk-on characters) and it’s within these sections that my head starts to ache with an over-exposure to techno-talk. (I’m sure it’s good techno-talk, but it leaves me skimming.)

However, in the end the side-trips are all worthwhile because as we learn more anout this universe, the human strands come together – though not until the very last section. The payoff eventually works well and Martin and Rachel live to love and fight again another day.

I look forward to reading Iron Sunrise, which follows on from this – though I’ll not rush to grab it immediately. Maybe I’ll have a little lie down in a dark room first.

Comments

[julesjones]

Now imagine reading that book on a flight from California to Australia... I still hadn't read any of Charlie's fiction at that point, and spotted it while browsing in the airport bookshop, so thought "I'll have *that*." The next time I read it was while I was still recovering from an intercontinental flight. This is why I still haven't managed to write a coherent review of it.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I was a bit doubtful that I could do it justice. I have a feeling that it might actually be better on the second time around. Writers like Charlie make me feel woefully inadequate as a reader. I feel as though if I don't get it it's because I'm too dumb to grok the brilliance. In some ways I enjoy having read it rather than the actual process of reading it.

I would hesitate to review something like this for a serious journal, however the purpose of my book log is to spout forth personal comments that will help me to recall the book (and my emotional response to it) in years to come. I'm trying to write something for each book I finish (and oh how I wish I'd been doing that for the last forty or fifty years).

[hairmonger.livejournal.com]

My booklist is just a list of dates and author/title. It's scary to scroll down and remember absolutely nothing about a book I read only a few months ago. Sometimes I manage to mention more than the title in my journal (or whether I liked it) but not often. Thinking of putting a summary into real word is Just Too Hard.

Mary Anne in Kentucky