So yesterday I *finally* finished reading Iron Sunrise. Its been sitting on my desk, daring me too pick up, but somehow I keep reading comix instead. That doesn’t mean its not a good book though, just that I’ve only had bite sized chunks of time to read lately, and have been wanting to sink my teeth into the book, rather than nibble at it.
Iron Sunrise is a sequel of sorts to Stross’s earlier work Singularity Sky. It is set in the same post-Singularity universe (where an entity called the Eschaton has literally flung humanity to all corners of space and time, and is enforcing certain guidelines) and features some of the same characters, namely U.N black-ops agent Rachel and her (now) husband, ship-building engineer (and sometime proxy of the Eschaton) Martin.
But the more interesting characters are the new ones introduced in this book, Wednesday – the goth kid turned secret agent, and Frank the Nose, war-blogger for The Times of London. These four characters basically take on powers that want to change the political structure of the galaxies, and the stuff.
The book opens with a bang, literally. Wednesday’s home planet is being evacuated because the local sun has gone nova, hence the iron sunrise. It also fleshes out exactly what the Eschaton is, without detracting from its deity-like’ness.
Also, the whole Frank the war-blogger character is quite prescient, given Yahoo!’s recent lauching of “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone”.
Its a good read, and you can see Stross’s abilities develop further in his next book, Accelerando.
Hopefully this will make the sequel all the better.. (from Charlies site🙂
Title to be Announced
A sequel to Iron Sunrise. Due out in 2008. (Yes, I caved :))
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 