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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9232 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Sex oozes from every page of this erotic futuristic thriller. In a far-future class-driven android society, most of the populace are slave-chipped and owned by wealthy aristos. When low-caste but unenslaved android Freya offends an aristo and needs to get off-world, she takes a courier position with the mysterious Jeeves Corporation, but the job turns out to have dangers of its own. Designed as a pleasure-module, Freya isn't quite as obsolete as she could be, as androids have sex with each other incessantly. Hugo-winner Stross (Halting State) has a deep message of how android slavery recapitulates humanity's past mistakes, but he struggles to make it heard over the moans and gunshots. Readers nostalgic for the SF of the '60s will find much that's familiar (including Freya's jumpsuit-clad form on the cover), but that doesn't quite compensate for the flaws. (July)
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Review
“The act of creation seems to come easily to Charles Stross…He is peerless at dreaming up devices that could conceivably exist in 6, 60, or 600 years’ time.”
—New York Times

“Where Charles Stross goes today, the rest of science fiction will follow tomorrow.”
—Gardner Dozois, Editor, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine

“Stross sizzles with ideas.”
—Denver Post

“Charles Stross may be the science fiction field’s most exciting writer.”
—SF Revu

About the Author
Charles Stross is a full-time writer who was born in Leeds, England in 1964. He studied in London and Bradford, gaining degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has worked in a variety of jobs, including pharmacist, technical author, software engineer, and freelance journalist.

Customer Reviews

Juliette, Juliette, Wherefore art thou?
Stross is back only this time the future is one without people. This is only a technicality however. Humanity disappeared for the usual vague reasons (loss of vigor, environmental destruction, blah blah) but the surviving android/robots picked up where humans left off and since they were built in the image of the Creators, civilization has not really changed. Some androids are rulers - think Dominatrix Natash - and others are slaves, money is still a driving concern, there's lots and lots of sex, crummy space travel and enough political intrigue to put the current campaign for President to shame.

HALTING STATE inquired about the nature of reality, Virtual reality vs. "real" reality and what happens when simultaneous realities mix. Virtual reality pops up again in GLASS HOUSE. The Singularity of ACCELERANDO, a cult favorite, is nowhere to be seen here. Instead we have a rather crude and at times childish romp through the Solar System with a female android who becomes, at one time or another, Freya, Rhea, Juliette, Maria and Kate among others. One problem for the reader is the sometimes daunting task of trying to figuire out which one she is. But the muddled personalities and plot is topped with the intriguing ideas presented. Souls on chips, soul graveyard, the similarities of android societies, the attitudes toward the Creators, sex between machines, slow time - all very exicting yet one gets the idea Stross is simply having fun. He's not really serious about it all.

But even with imaginative inventions, witty and sometimes hilarious dialogue and action galore, nothing can rescue this runaway plot. If Freya, the protagonist, cannot figure out who she is, what's happening, what she's supposed to do and why, how in the world is the reader expected to do so? The fact that Stross had to patiently and repeatedly explain the myriad layers and strings of the "plot" (still unclear at the last) in all its wacky meanderings says volumes.

Stross is a gifted writer - one of the best of this generation. His work is cutting edge, not quite cyber punk, not total space opera, not Asimov or Heinlein or Bradbury. Instead he offers a unique perspective on the current state of sci-fi thought. In SATURN'S CHILDREN (the title is one of the worst) Stross has reverted to older times updated by interesting ideas. My grade: B

Very Confusingly Written
I downloaded this title onto my kindle, and so far I'm only halfway through. While it seems that there is a good story buried in this novel somewhere, it's so confusingly written that I'm not sure I'll ever find it. But I still have hope.

Not being a Heinlein fan, I am underwhelmed
Never before had I enjoyed so much the first half of a book, only to watch it nosedive (as far as I am concerned) in the second half so badly that I gave up in utter disinterest less than 50 pages from the end.

Like Stross himself, I am very skeptical about space colonization prospects of Human version 1.0 -- we are just too spectacularly unsuited for it, -- and I absolutely loved Stross' take on traditional image of Solar System Civilization. It's a very clever irony, and I need not rehash it as other reviewers already did adequate job. My problem with "Saturn's Children" is that I am not a Heinlein fan.

Somewhere between Callisto and Eris, the book became a homage to RAH... and lost me completely. I simply have no interest in convoluted caper stories with multiple identities, multiple layers of deception, and a super-competent (or super-lucky) protagonist in the middle somehow surviving it all. I lost track of which of Freya's sisters was supposed to be what, when they were backed up and copied, and worse, I found that I do not care. For the first half of the book Freya was a sympathetic and fun character; when [***SPOILERS AHEAD!***] turned out she was an assassin-in-waiting... she ceased being fun. Last straw was Rhea's revelation that "all that was a set up to test you before your REAL work begins". (Or is it? It might yet be another lie.) During "Interview with Domina" my eyes began to glaze over as I realized that I have no idea who is supposed to be working for whom, and I just don't care.

In short -- if you love Heinlein, especially "Friday", this book is for you. If not, it starts out great, then becomes a turgid implausible mess. Just like "Friday", as far as I am concerned.