Charles Stross: Iron Sunrise

Iron Sunrise is an exciting space opera thriller, filled with wonders of the post-singularity world and furnished with a clever plot with plenty of twists. It's fast and fun; that is, great entertainment for science fiction fans.

A planet called New Moscow is destroyed in a rather brutal manner. The surviving Muscovites aim their doomsday weapons to New Dresden, a neighbouring planet with which New Moscow had a trade conflict. Too bad the Dresdeners are actually innocent.

An angsty teenage Muscovite survivor called Wednesday happens to have some information about what really happened. An experienced warblogger Frank is looking into the matters. The diplomatic black osp forces from Earth are getting involved, and of course, there's the god-like artifical intelligence Eschaton, who doesn't like trouble in it's light-cone.

No wonder the things get interesting. The diplomat from Earth is, of course, Rachel Mansour, already familiar from Singularity Sky, set in the same world. The books share common background and Iron Sunrise refers to the events in Singularity Sky, but the books are essentially independent.

For the fans of high-tech science fiction and exciting techno thrillers, this is a fun ride. [ Iron Sunrise at Amazon.co.uk ] [ Iron Sunrise at LibraryThing ]