Customer Reviews

Singularity Sky

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Sometime in the mid 21st century an artificial intelligence arises out of Earth's computer networks. This intelligence scatters the land with strange structures, causes nine tenths of the population to disappear and issues three commandments. Flash forward a few centuries, the missing nine tenths of earth's population were transmitted via wormholes to star systems up to 3000 light years away, travelling one year back in the past for every light year travelled. Earth has recovered from the events of this singularity and is now a sort of central clearing house for trade and information under a reconstituted United Nations.

Martin Springfield is an engineer working for the Navy of the New Republic, one of the civilzations rising out of this diaspora and which despite it's name is more of an empire. The New Republic has banned most information technology and all nano-technology and keeps its citizens backwards in a highly stratified society where advanced technologies are only permitted for military or state security uses.

When a travelling interstellar civilization known as the Festival comes to the New Republic colony world New Rochard the whole social system is kicked over. The Festival wants stories and information, and is willing to trade high tech products that verge on the magical to the inhabitants of New Rochard, which destroys scarcity and the whole hierarchical system. Rather than allow this to happen the New Republic decides to launch a war fleet to take out the Festival. Using faster than light travel the war fleet will arrive at New Rochard before the Festival does, thus saving the day. The only problem with this is that the AI that caused all this, now known as "The Eschaton" explicity prohibits causality violations and has a messy way of dealing with those who risk its wrath, such as by causing their suns to go nova (it is explained that the Crab Nebula is one such result).

Rachel Mansour is a UN intelligence agent who is trying to prevent the New Republic from doing anything stupid that would bring down the wrath of the Eschaton and endanger other star systems. She is thrown together as a military observer with Springfield as the New Republic fleet plans to assault New Rochard.

_Singularity Sky_ is about the efforts of Springfield and Mansour to prevent the actions of the New Republic from causing a catastrophe and is also about what would happen to a planetary civilization if scarcity were abolished and wishes, mediated by advanced technology, could come true. The book is full of lots of great ideas and is a lot of fun to read for those. Stross's examination of what it means to abolish scarcity is also interesting and he demolishes all of the junk space operas out there such as the Honor Harrington series by showing that fighting a truly advanced civilization with a space navy based upon the principles of the British Navy ca. 1805 would be a very short war indeed, with the space navy coming out far the worse for wear.

The only reason I'm not giving this five stars is because I felt that Stross needed to flesh some things out. He put a lot of ideas out there but I felt that some of them weren't adequately examined.

I blazed through this book. It is playful, irreverent, consumed by more raw ideas and imaginative takes on traditional scifi tropes than I've seen in a dog's age. And it contains the most vivid spaceship command deck combat dialogue I've ever read. If you enjoy the occasional fat mouthful of jargon, you're going to find yourself chewing vigorously throughout Singularity Sky.

Mr. Stross is obviously having more fun in some parts of his writing than others, which while noticable, isn't fatal. I think the other reviewers should give this book another read without their Clarion baseball hats on, or at least with them loosened a few notches. Perfection isn't required for enjoyment - just energy and novelty. Maybe they were dissatisfied at the denouement to the Big Space Battle, but that was the point - sometimes, you don't get the lollypop.

Singularity Sky is about *bigness*, like John Clute's _Appleseed_, but more accessbile. It's full of little in-jokes and sly tech-culture references, doing for the IETF what _Silverlock_ did for filk. It baps around collectivism, the principles of sovereignty, mutation theory, spy techniques, nanotechnology, Newtonian physics, kangaroo courts, secret police, and a character straight out of a Gilbert and Sullivan production. Oi vey!

I liked it. I'm looking forward to his next book A Lot. He will only get better.

bob

I've been reading Charles Stross's "Accellerando" cycle of short stories in Asimov and have been much impressed. As such, I've been looking forward to reading Singularity Sky.

This is a first novel and much be judged accordingly. It does have its rough edges. Like many hard SF authors, Stross has a love of technical jargon that does, sometimes, get in the way of the story. I must also note that I found the ending to be less than satisfactory and something of a cheat given the events of the story.

That said, the book is brimming with fresh ideas. Stross appears to be one of the few authors who takes the notion of a Vingean Singularity seriously and that comes through in this story to its benefit. He's also better at characterization than most hard SF authors manage (which isn't to say that it couldn't stand some improvement).

It is a book filled with ideas and brimming with a sense of wonder. I don't doubt that as he hones his skills, he will be an author to reckon with.

During the mid-twenty first century, a superhuman intelligence that calls itself the Echelon makes it's presence known to the inhabitants of Earth in a big way. Nine of the ten billion people on Earth disappear and it is discovered that they are involuntary colonists on thousands of worlds. The Eschaton warns the humans that if they try and figure out causality (time travel) and use it, they will be destroyed.

When one planet did exactly that, the Eschaton destroyed thirty planets making up that solar system. The empire of the New Republic wants no part of advanced technology and it keeps the inhabitants in the member worlds on a level with Tsarist Russia. One of the most technologically backward planets of The New Republic, Rochard's World, is being deluged by an information plague known as the Festival. The fatherland planet is sending its warships to destroy the festival but two people onboard one of the starships have a different agenda that must be carried out if they don't want the Eschaton to take hostile action.

SINGULARITY SKY is a fascinating space opera that immediately grabs and keeps the attention of the reader. The Eschaton is an ingenious concept and it would be terrific if the author would write another book involving it at a more intimate level. The idea of the Festival, a non-sentient communication repair machine is very original and it is interesting to see how the people of Rochard's world react to the information overload. Charles Stross is a very creative and innovative storyteller.

Harriet Klausner

What is perhaps most interesting about Singularity Sky is what it is not about. In Stross's universe science has the means of time travel in hand, and the earth's population has reached an astonishing 10 billion. Suddenly aware of the risk that human ability to modify past history would create an all-powerful force manifests and, with total nonchalance, scatters 9 billion of us throughout the inhabitable worlds of the galaxy. "I am not your god," declares this thing that calls itself the Eschaton, although it might very well be for all practical purposes. This being makes it perfectly clear that time travel into the past is forbidden, and enforces this policy by dropping moons on disobedient populations. But the Eschaton is not always so brutal; there are times when it is much subtler...

But I digress, Singularity Sky is not about the Eschaton, but about life in a reality that has more than it's share of things that can cause singularities when least expected. The Eschaton is not the only cause of accelerated change and future shock. Take for example the worlds of the New Republic. Anti-progress, paranoically moral, stuck in a tension between 18th Century Russia and the modern galaxy, they had a cozy little empire going until, without warning, The Festival suddenly appears in the skies of the backwater of Rochard's World and start asking people to 'entertain' them. Their payment for this entertainment (information) is to suddenly thrust the planet into the 23rd century and foment a revolution while they are at it.

The real heroes of the story (if you don't count the Eschaton, the Festival, the New Republic space fleet, or the neo-Marxist revolutionary forces) are Martin Springfield, itinerant ship engine tuner and spy for somebody or other, and Rachel Mansour, special agent and spy for someone else entirely. These two make their way onto the Lord Vanek, battle cruiser of the space fleet that is going to try to space hop to Rochard's World one split second after the Festival arrives and blow it out of space. Unfortunately this skates right on the edge of violating the Eschaton's directive, and fails to take into consideration the fact that the Festival doesn't fight fair either. Rachel and Martin find themselves desperately trying to sidetrack a crisis that could result in the destruction of several worlds.

That, in a nutshell is what Singularity Sky is about. Leaving out the peculiar socioeconomic condition created by having the Festival appear and start granting the desires of anyone who can muster up a story (be very, very careful what you wish for). Or the adventures of the ex-governor of Rochard's World, who finds himself suddenly very young and adventuring with a talking rabbit. Or one of the Critics that hitch rides with the Festival, searching the world for its creative soul, disguised as Baba Yaga in a hut on the legs of a chicken. Yes, this is a more complicated story than you originally thought.

While the main story of the book is pure space opera, other story arcs range from political and social commentary to post-postmodern aesthetics. Stross loves tiny details and technical discourses, as well. This, for almost any reader, there will be moments of delight and flashes of tedium. Unless your interests exactly duplicate Stross's own. Mine come close, and I find his ability to combine the best of E. E. 'Doc' Smith with the philosophical outlook of Michel Foucault sometimes jarring, but always interesting. This isn't Stross's best book to date, Atrocity Archives is still my favorite, but, once he gets past the scene setting, this shows every sign of being a topnotch series.

First, let me say that I've read very little from Mr. Stross prior to picking up this novel. Second, I'm the type of reader who enjoys character driven stories rather than plot or technologically driven stories. So this is probably why I didn't enjoy this book. That and I hate to read futuristic stories with modern cliches in them. And this book was LOADED with them.

The crux of the story focuses around Martin Springfield (an engineer) and Rachel Mansour (a U.N. diplomat) as they travel aboard a spaceship toward Rochald's World, which has been overrun by technology and fancy by the arrival of something called 'The Festival'. The Festival are information gatherers and, in return for information, they give back...well...whatever your heart desires (youth, health, intelligence, an impenetrable home, etc.). For a world that is stuck in the post-industrial age, this is disastrous. And the military dispatches a fleet to deal with this 'Festival' and bring Rochald's World back in line.

Of course, all does not go as planned. Everyone has a different agenda as to how to deal with this threat and the future of the planet.

And that's about it. Really. Oh sure, you can go on about how great the author developed the post-industrial society, the time travel technology, the corruption of governments in order to keep themselves in power. But lost amongst this...this...this mess, were the characters! Mr. Stross seems to enjoy telling us about every switch that gets set, and every lever that gets pulled. He often loses us when he goes on and on and on about how certain technologies work. This pulls us away from the characters for so long that we lose site of the story itself (at least it did for me!).

Example: 'The gamma-ray traces lit up on the main screen, labeled icons indicating their position and vector relative to the system ahead. One-point-three gees wasn't particularly fast, but it was enough to send cold shudders up Mirsky's spine: it meant serious high-delta-vee propulsion systems, fusion or antimatter or quantum gravity induction, not the feeble ion drive of a robot tug . . .'

If you're a bit perplexed by this, don't be too concerned. I don't consider myself a genius, but nor am I a 'dope' either. I read a lot of material every year and even if I don't enjoy a book, I usually don't feel completely lost. In Singularity Sky, I felt as though I were adrift in Mr. Stross' universe, but with reference points that only he (the author) felt comfortable with. I just couldn't make it from point-A to point-B.

All that said, I'd be willing to bet that there are some incredibly techno-savy folks out there who would absolutely love this book. But not me. The characters have to come first for me.

D-Rating

I was amazed and excited by "Toast: And Other Rusted Futures" Stross' collection of short stories. (I highly recommend this book). So, I was hoping for more of the same from his first novel.

The other reviews are pretty accurate.

Pluses:
+ He's from my generation - a programmer, avid Slashdot reader, etc. Much shared "mindspace"
+ Lots of jokes. Different than Stephenson's humor in Snowcrash, but still funny. My favorite was the one about the IETF taking over the UN (must see context)
+ Great exploration of clashing worldviews
+ Good technology substrate - this is a space opera for the post cyberpunk era. Nano tech, quantum mechanics, AI, bioengineering.

Minuses
- Pace. he describes action almost in terms of RPG "melee rounds" of a few seconds each, but the description of those rounds takes a whole paragraph of dense military-technical jargon. If it is supposed to be fast, it should *read* fast.
- Certain sections (esp the end) are more monologues on his perception of the world and the future than really part of the story.

Maybe this was targeted more at a larger fan base or something, but it didn't have the edge or wild ride feeling of his short stories which I loved so much. My reaction to those was "finally a new, original, exciting sci-fi author", but this is more "space opera formula with a twist".

I will certainly read his next book and hope for something more.

cheers

Science fiction should inspire a sense of wonder. It is a genre which, in the hands of a master, can take us into the realm of the mythic, challenge our thinking, and confront us with the possibilities of technology and our place in the larger universe.

Unfortunately Charles Stross is not a master. I had high hopes when I picked up this volume, but found my self singularly disappointed. Stross attempts to take a light and humorous approach to his material. Unfortunately as Woody Allen once remarked "Death is easy. Comedy, now that's hard." None of Stross's whimsical touches are really very funny, and they undercut all the death and destruction caused by the Festival, so that what might have been exotic, shocking, or tragic winds up just seeming as inane and vaguely surreal as a bad MTV video.

But what finally caused me to put the book down forty or so odd pages before finishing it, (and some of those pages were very odd indeed) was that I realized I didn't actually care about what happened to any of the characters in the story. Even in hard science fiction where ideas are so vitally important, if the reader does not believe and care about the people, all is for nought. None of the characters in this hodgepodge of half-thought out ideas feel real. Each one is so riddled with cliches, that one wonders if the Eschaton might have fundamentally altered human nature and replaced everyone's personality with bland television generated stereotypes.

Some of the ideas in Singularity Sky are bold and innovative, and in the hands of someone like Vernor Vinge, William Gibson, or Gene Wolfe, could have taken us into interesting territory. But they are thrown together randomly and unfortunately the direction we are taken in is a "timelike path" into boredom.

With his long awaited and eagerly anticipated debut novel, (Stross) joins the upper echelon of new SF writers. 'Singularity Sky' has everything an SF fan could want: Human colonies scattered across the length and breadth of the universe, sophisticated technology, mystery and intrigue, conflict and revolt, and it's a damn good read! Leaves the reader wanting more.

Stross writes with confidence and in fine style, but I was still left feeling empty. The problem with writing about technological singularity is that it's like trying to describe the Internet to an ant. Too far outside the frame of reference of even the author.

I enjoy novels where I feel something for the characters, whether it be affection, love or even loathing. These characters left me indifferent.

Having said all that, Stross has an eye for irony that gave me a few chuckles.