Singularity Sky
by Charles Stross
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charles StrossEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-06-29
ISBN: 0441011799
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Ace
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780441011797
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Singularity Sky
Book Review: Excellent, intelligent space opera, if you like Vernor Vinge you will like this novel
Summary: 5 Stars
_Singularity Sky_ by Charles Stross is an impressive wide-ranging intelligent space opera, a book that reminds me a lot of Vernor Vinge's novels, particularly his _A Fire Upon the Deep_. Though not quite as good, it like Vinge's works manages to balance action, interesting characters with often entirely different viewpoints, a well-developed universe, and tackles some of the huge questions that science fiction does such an extraordinary job of exploring.
The basic premise is that sometime around the 25th century humans range throughout the vast reaches of space, not only because faster-than-light travel exists but because a very nearly god-like being known as the Eschaton scattered humanity far and wide across the galaxy. Arising from super intelligent machines in our not too distant future, the Eschaton can travel through time and space at will and sought to impress upon humanity its vast power (and for reasons of its own wanted humans to no longer be confined to just their original solar system). In the novel's past, a huge percentage of humanity - in the many billions - was whisked off of Earth, deposited on habitable planets throughout the nearby galaxy (a fact not known on Earth for some time) and gigantic God-talking-to-Moses-on-Mount-Sinai type letters were carved prominently on not only Earth but on each of the new colony worlds. In essence, the Eschaton declared that it doesn't want anyone to mess with time travel or anything approaching time travel (and in a universe that allows faster-than-light travel time travel is possible). The Eschaton doesn't care what else humanity does, but it will smite them mightily if they ever mess with the time stream (as in maybe making their star go nova or supernova).
Anyway, that's the background basis for the setting and it is not presented in any "info-dump" type piece of exposition, but worked into the storyline and only revealed as necessary for the story. And it is necessary, for the possibility exists in the novel's plotline for violating the Eschaton's One Rule (my wording). A bizarre alien entity or group of entities has appeared in orbit of a distant colony planet of the New Republic, a Russian-type civilization that has deliberately turned its back on many forms of advanced technology though still possesses a decent military space force. This entity or entities known as the Festival has violated all manner of New Republic rules around Rochard`s World, chief among them a widespread and free dissemination of technology to the planet's inhabitants; millions of phones rain down from orbit. Curious citizens pick them up, are surprised to find a voice on the other end of the line asking to be told a story, to be entertained. The people naturally ask what they will get in return. The mysterious voices replies anything. Name it.
Soon the home world of New Republic loses contact with its colony and all manner of chaos breaks out on Rochard`s World. The fleet is sent to investigate and attack the Festival. On board are the two main characters, Martin Springfield, a spaceship engineer from Earth working under contract for the New Republic military, and Rachel Mansour, a U.N. diplomat/military inspector/special agent sent to monitor the New Republic's response to the crisis with the Festival, ensuring that they do not become guilty of any causality violations (use of time travel basically, such as responding to an attack before it happens or acting on information from the future to modify the past, all of which raises the ire of the mysterious Eschaton). Not only does Rachel want to avoid massive loss of life in the New Republic that might result from the Eschaton punishing them, she is fearful that any reprisals the godlike entity might undertake would affect nearby systems, such as Earth (a star going supernova might necessitate the evacuation of dozens of planets).
Of course all is not as it appears, and much of the fun of the novel is the hidden agenda of both Rachel and the even more hidden agenda of Martin, as well as what the Festival actually is, what it represents, and what lasting effects it will have on Rochard`s World.
As I said earlier, this work reminded me a lot of Vinge's efforts. Both Vinge and Stross have tackled in their fiction the idea of the Singularity, that at some point there will be a rapid, revolutionary, paradigm-shattering, sudden evolution of human technology and society, one that will happen virtually overnight. A Post-Singularity society would be radically different from anything experienced before the Singularity; quite possibly humans from after this event would almost be unrecognizable to any human from a previous era. In earlier Stross works such as _Glasshouse_ such a civilization might have easy matter transformation, even of living beings (tired of being a man, or even human, we can fix that in seconds and then back again if you change your mind), though Stross in this work (hopefully I don't give too much away here) focuses on the economic and political effects of a "post scarcity economy," a civilization where any material need you could ever want could be had instantly, for free.
Much like with Vinge, Stross explores really alien beings as well as Post-Singularity humans but largely from the view point of either humans from a Pre-Singularity civilization (describing what they see and do) or by writing aliens or Post-Singularity humans who have deliberately modified their behavior so as to be easily understood or relatable to Pre-Singularity people.
A good work, I thought there were relatively few problems. There were maybe a few too many navy characters to keep track of in the New Republic fleet and some of them were hard to distinguish from one another. I wasn't entirely sure where Stross was going with some of the plotlines on New Rochard itself, ones that didn't involve either Martin or Rachel, at least until the very end. By and large though it was a really good novel.
Summary of Singularity Sky
Four hundred years in the future, time travel has been perfected and groundbreaking developments in Artificial Intelligence have been made. But is this a great step forward for humanity--or its ultimate downfall?Literature & Fiction Books
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