By: Charles Stross Publisher: Ace Hardcover Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Ace Hardcover Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 336 Publication Date: July 01, 2008
Product Description: 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.
edge of the envelope Stross is an accomplished story teller in the space opera arena. This story is at the edge of what one finds in the traditional SiFi space
The book is full of ideas and some challenging ones - like can we produce artificial intelligences similar to humans? Stross's answer is yes.
Don't read the reviews, especially all the crappy negatives ones, just buy it and enjoy a very good yarn!
I am kind of wondering if the people who made "Ghost In The Shell" might be interested in animating it. I think Charlie Stross would be down for it! Maybe someone could animate it and I could present the Renaissance and Baroque music for the soundtrack. Well, one day ....
Great stuff! Full marks to Charlie Stross!
PS: Buy the U.K. edition to avoid the cheese-cake cover.
I Don't See It! I've liked some of other Stross's work quite a bit. I was excited about this one after reading reviews likening it to everything from Heinlein to Futurama. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I'm really disappointed. I've read close to all of Heinlein, and I don't see much of a connection. Other than in a very few places, I didn't find much humor either. If you like your SF very plot heavy, you'll likely love this book. I prefer more character exploration or even philosophical exploration (despite what I've read elsewhere, I experienced little of either here). There's nothing wrong with the novel, but it's not one I'm going to remember in a year or two.
A Confusing Journey Into the World of Femmebots I thought this was going to be a wonderful book when I started it. Stross has quite an imagination for worlds unlike ours. He has created a world where humans are extinct and robots have colonized the galaxy because they don't have human biological restrictions. He has some really interesting ideas such interplanetary travel that starts with a giant ferris wheel that takes your pod into orbit where you're attached to something kind of like a ski lift that takes you to the next planet. He also has an interesting idea for a movable city that travels on railroad tracks across the face of Mercury to avoid the extreme hot and cold weather of each day as the planet turns.
I should have stopped reading after Mercury.
The main idea behind the story is that robots can experience the memories of their dead siblings by inserting their dead siblings' "soul chips" into themselves. Thus, your siblings' education, training, and memories can become your own. Unfortunately, this makes for confusing reading. The main character, Freya, switches between at least 6 identities. And other robots around her are switching identities, too -- even taking on some of Freya's alternate identities. I had no idea who was who and who was doing what to whom half the time. And then there was also the problem of not knowing if the character was dreaming, remembering, or living an experience of her own or of someone else.
You get to the end of the book and it's just more of a relief than an answer to any questions. I really wanted to like this book based on the strong beginning, but it just got more convoluted and confusing the further along it went. If I weren't stuck in a waiting room with this book, I don't think I could have finished it.
Better than expected! I like Stross' work and based on the plot description on the jacket I thought this would be a quick romp. But CS delivers enough plot warps and character richness to make me slow down and read carefully and enjoy it. A great slant on the universe without humanity, chugging along with the creations that we made along the way. And these creations of course have adopted lives of their own, with their own faults (regarldless that some of them were stupidly built in by the creators). I was sucked into the plot, help captive, entertained and really liked the original treatment of the premise. Great fun.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tailipoe
Trevor
