blind teeth

I’m a fan of Charlie Stross, I am. I wrote a glowing review of Singularity Sky for Slashdot that got me a lot of comments and crashed his server. But the last 2 books of his that I read (this and Glasshouse) were downright dissapointing. I liked Accelerando mostly but even it had more than it’s share of down points. I haven’t read Halting State yet but it’s on my shelf.

Saturn’s Children doesn’t want for the mad ideas that I expect from its author, it just packs in so much other stuff that I can’t like it. Beyond the cover, which isn’t his fault, the books tone is one of flipness and mocking. Some parts of it made me think Stross is embarrased to be writing science fiction and feels the need to ironically make fun of it. Stross has said that people misunderstand that the books Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise were actually supposed to be satires but I never saw that myself. Now I believe it though. Kurt Vonnegut always resented being put into the science fiction drawer but he never mocked it or the audience.

My other problem is probably one of those pointless complaints about how he didn’t write the book I wish he’d written so feel free to ignore it. The idea that the robots in the book have continued to be basically human except with more powerful bodies, is kind of ridiculous. He goes to great lengths explaining that their brains are synthetic versions of our own and not fast computers but this strikes me as a cheat that allows him to write about humans, but with robotic standins instead of examing how a robotic slave society would actually evolve after the masters have all died. In this book, everything continues pretty much status quo.

It might have been my general lack of interest in the plot after about halfway through but I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on after awhile, and not in a good way. Everybody is mixing personalities (if the robot’s brains are just like ours, why can they swap memories?) and double crossing each other and switching sides. I ended up just skimming and hoping the later sections would illuminate what was happening.

I’m definately going to read Halting State since I’m in a science fiction mood recently (the release of the Matter, the latest of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels and re-release of the previous Culture books got me back in the sf mindset I guess). Depending on how Halting State goes, I’ll either go back to snatching up Stross’ latest book at first sight or I’ll put him on the back burner. I really hope the snide anti-sf tone goes away though. Even as somebody who at times has little good to say about most science fiction, I can’t abide reading a book that wear it’s sf-ness on it’s sleeve and mocks it at the same time.