Saturn's Children by Charles Stross
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Book Reviews of Saturn's Children
Book Review: Stross' Best To Date; 4.5 Stars
Summary: 4 Stars
An imaginative and generally well written science fiction novel. Inspired partly by Isaac Asimov's Robot stories and stylistically derived from Robert Heinlein, this is a clever future history story dealing with some relatively sophisticated themes. This is a very ambitious book. Stross constructed a future in which the human race has withered away, leaving behind intelligent robot servitors to inherit the Solar System. The robots develop a complex civilization spanning the whole Solar System, inlcuding the Oort Cloud, and initiating interstellar colonization. Using a Heinlein style adventure story, Stross takes us on a grand tour of the Solar System (Earth itself excepted) terminating in the Oort Cloud. Stross' complex society is based on a ingenious extrapolation of the basic idea of intelligent robots, including marked limitations of robot behavior imposed by the encoded imperative to be subservient to humans, which leads to a highly stratified society based on a foundation of slavery. Stross has a taste for satire and much of his prior work features satire of business/corporate life and bureaucracy. Stross is able to use his robot civilization to develop a pointed satire of capitalism in general. Stross' ambition doesn't stop there, he also deals with issues of personhood and the nature of autonomy. This is difficult to bring off in the context of an adventure novel, but Stross does quite well. The quality of writing is generally solid, though the plot is arguably too complex and the robot sex scenes are a bit repetitive.Book Review: Good, but not Stross's best
Summary: 4 Stars
Freya Nakamichi-47 is an android designed as a sexual companion for humans, but in the twenty-third century, humans are extinct, and Freya and her sister models have to find other ways to make a living in the all-robot society that spans the solar system. Freya offends a member of the robot aristocracy, and takes a job smuggling restricted biological materials in order to get off of Venus. This starts her on a tour of the solar system as she is drawn into deeper levels of espionage among the robot ruling class.
I enjoyed the novel, but it seems like a fairly minor work by Stross without the complexity and depth of ideas of some of his other novels. It is written as a tribute to the later Heinlein novels, which means there is a lot of non-explicit, somewhat silly sex, but without the pontificating of the Heinlein books. I enjoyed a lot of the ideas such as the structure of the robot society and how it cam about, and its fear of biological life as "pink goo" replicators. The depiction of the tedium of space travel is something that does not usually show up in science fiction. The story does get somewhat confusing though, and beyond the interesting concepts there is not much else in this novel that left a lasting impression on me.
Book Review: Fun and Saucy
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is a nice way to pass an afternoon. It's not deep literature, though it does raise the question of the future of space travel, since it points out just how fragile human beings are and how inhospitable space really is. But mostly you read Saturn's Children and you find yourself enjoying the ride as the lovely android Freya tries to unravel the mystery of her own origins and why other androids are trying to do her in as she travels through the solar system. The plot moves along in lively fashion, and it doesn't hurt that Freya is a sexbot, so there's an undertone of naughtiness to the whole thing.
I was reminded of Robert Heinlein's Friday as I read, but I think Saturn's Children is a better book; Heinlein never really wrote female characters very well (they basically are just men with boobies), but Stross does. And you just know that the second we can build sexbots like Freya, we will...
Because that's the way we're wired, aren't we?
Book Review: What do the Robots do when the people are gone?
Summary: 4 Stars
In the distant future where Saturn's Children takes place humans are extinct, but the robots they built are still going strong. These robots are intelligent thinking machines many equipped with human emotions; they also have a large degree of autonomy. In fact now that the humans are gone robots are running everything. Robot society is very class stratified. With a scheming, bitterly competitive, vicious aristocracy at the top.
Saturn's Children is very creative, like many of Charlie Stross's novels. It has a very complex plot, which I had trouble following at some points. I also could not understand all the chemical and biological references. The author has a pharmacy degree and is not afraid to use it.
Saturn's Children is a creative and entertaining look at one of our possible futures.
Book Review: Very enjoyable, but...
Summary: 4 Stars
I agree with what previous reviewers have written - the book does seem to fall into two halves. The first half is a crackerjack interplanetary adventure story. The second half is a tricky, post-modernist work in which concepts of identity are explored, batted about, and toyed with. The first half feels like 21st century Heinlein, the second half feels more like M. John Harrison. If you liked Harrison's Light, you will enjoy the second half. If you like space opera, you'll enjoy the first.
I can enjoy both types of stories, but I didn't especially enjoy being jerked out of the cozy whiz-bang of the first part and forced to concentrate and ponder the second.
I'd give it four-and-a-half stars if I could. I really did enjoy it. Perhaps you'll enjoy it more if you're forewarned.