Gwen’s review of Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (not a traditional author’s site)
Science fiction adventure hardcover released by Ace 1 Jul 08

The author calls this book, “A space opera and late-period Heinlein tribute…” I think Robert A. Heinlein is my favorite author of all time, with my favorite book of all time being his The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress.  This makes me picky when it comes to Heinlein – if someone is going to reference him, or be compared to him, I get the microscope out because that is one VERY high bar to meet, in my opinion.  Tom Clancy has said of Heinlein, “We proceed down the path marked by his ideas. He shows us where the future is.”  So, let’s see how well Stross does, shall we? 

This book alternates between brilliant and muddled.  The plot unravels very slowly and it’s not until the very last 50 or so pages that the reason we’re there becomes clear.  I don’t normally mind complex plotting, but I do like to have a signpost now and again telling me where I’m going.  I feel like Stross’s plotting was unnecessarily abstruse for much of the book and what could have been elegantly simple was often made overly complex.  We’re given indications here and there but left in the dark for much of the book.  I would have liked to have seen more “revelatory” moments earlier in the book.

In addition to the extraordinary plotting, I think the author used overly complex terms – I (me, Gwen, Queen of Vocabulary) had to drag the unabridged dictionary out TWICE while reading it.  Stross used scientific terms for simple things (e.g. at one point “otoreceptors” instead of “ears”), then he used his own terms (“pink goo” for animals and “green goo” for plants) for many things.  Add in we’re talking about a universe populated by humanoid and non-humanoid androids – some autonomous, some not – and you have a very complex, very foreign world to navigate. It’s all enough to make a casual sci-fi reader’s head hurt.

And it doesn’t get much easier the more time spent in Stross’s world.  The plotting and terminology are twisted to the end.

Despite the flaws, the heroine, Freya, is very compelling.  She’s just trying to get by with her “soul chip” in tact.  She’s an “ogress” – a humanoid sex robot in a world of androids built for volume-conscious space travel.  Her creators (mankind) died out, leaving her with no purpose and an unfashionable, obsolete body.  Her bouts of depression are completely understandable and her desire to find a place in the world is very “human” (for lack of a better word).

The secondary characters were less compelling, but that may be because the book is narrated by Freya (you know how I feel about first person in fiction – not a good thing in most cases).  In this tech-heavy book, the first person narration wasn’t horrible, and as it turns out at the very end of the book, we find there’s a reason it’s being told that way.

I understand that Stross has quite a bit of sci-fi published – I’ve probably read him at least once in my travels thru that genre, but it’s been years since I delved deeply.  I’ve read everything Heinlein ever published and, while I can say Stross has moments of brilliance, he doesn’t quite meet the RAH bar.

I can recommend this book fans of Stross, but wouldn’t recommend it to casual sci-fi readers.  At least, not without your trusty unabridged dictionary close at hand.

Grade: C+

Summary:

From the author’s site: Freya Nakamachi-47 has some major existential issues. She’s the perfect concubine, designed to please her human masters; there’s just one problem: she came off the production line a year after the human species went extinct. Whatever else she may be, she’s gloriously obsolete. But the rigid social hierarchy that has risen in the 200 years since the last human died, places beings such as Freya very near the bottom. So when she has a run-in on Venus with a murderous aristocrat, she needs passage off-world in a hurry — and can’t be too fussy about how she pays her way. If Venus was a frying pan, Mercury is the fire — and soon she’s going to be running for her life. Because the job she’s taken as a courier has drawn her to the attention of powerful and dangerous people, and they don’t just want the package she’s carrying. They want her soul …

From amazon.com:  Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct-leaving only androids behind. Freya Nakamichi 47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars. Unfortunately for Freya, she has just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids who will stop at nothing to possess the contents of the package.

Read an excerpt.