Singularity Sky (Paperback)

by Charles Stross (Author) "May I ask what I'm charged with?" asked Martin..." (more)
Key Phrases: drive kernel, causal channel, humbly report, New Republic, Sister Seventh, Lord Vanek (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In his first novel, British author Stross, one of the hottest short-story writers in the field, serves up an energetic and sometimes satiric mix of cutting-edge nanotechnology, old-fashioned space opera and leftist political commentary reminiscent of Ken MacLeod. Spaceship engineer Martin Springfield and U.N. diplomat Rachel Mansour hail from an Earth that has gone through the Singularity, an accelerated technological and social evolution far beyond anything we can imagine. The Singularity was triggered by the Eschaton, a super-powerful being descended from humanity that can travel in time and that essentially rules the universe. Springfield and Mansour meet on the home world of the New Republic, a repressive, backwater society that has outlawed virtually all advanced technology other than that necessary for interstellar warfare. When one of the New Republic's colonial worlds is besieged by the Festival, an enigmatic alien intelligence, the Republic counterattacks, using time travel in an attempt to put its warships in position to catch the Festival by surprise. Springfield and Mansour, working for different masters, have both been assigned the task of either diffusing the crisis or sabotaging the New Republic's warfleet, no matter what the cost. As a newcomer to long fiction, Stross has some problems with pacing, but the book still generates plenty of excitement.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
In the twenty-fifth century, human society has depended for several hundred years on faster-than-light travel and an artificial intelligence called the Eschaton. Interstellar colonies are scattered all over, and one, the New Republic, has become a classic refuge for antitechnological holdouts. But the New Republic is suddenly under attack, literally, by the technology it has tried to suppress, which now appears under the name the Festival. An Earth battle fleet is on the way, but is it coming to help, to ride to power on the coattails of the Festival, or to fulfill some entirely separate agenda, possibly set by the Eschaton, which has achieved consciousness, sentience, and probably a lust for power? If no element of Stross' novel is very original, all of them are formidably well-executed, especially the meticulous and imaginative portrayal of the New Republic and its Victorian technology. In addition, the book possesses the rare virtue of neither requiring nor precluding a sequel. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Ace (June 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0441011799
• ISBN-13: 978-0441011797
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #141,775 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very, very, very good., August 17, 2004

By	W. H. Jamison, Jr. (Burien, Washington United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beware The Telephone Rain, September 3, 2004

By	Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Singularity Sky (Hardcover)

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.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting postmodern space opera - w00t w00t!, October 23, 2003

By	Child with ADHD "researching parent" (Glen Ellyn, IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Singularity Sky (Hardcover)

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