Neil Fein's Blog

The Iron Sunrise
by Charles Stross

Writers producing novels in the same fictional world typically use the same voice and attitudes throughout. Charlie Stross has written, in the world of the Eschaton, two novels. The first, Singularity Sky, is a transparent metaphor for open-source ethics, and the sharing or technology across borders in the name of freedom and the right to receive spam. The second, Iron Sunrise, is a post-911 apocalyptic story of what can go wrong with grey goo. The fact that both novels with such disparate messages share a common voice and feel is a credit to Mr. Stross's skill.

Iron Sunrise one-ups the intergalactic intrigue and causality violation weapons we already know of by giving us a bigger and better playground. We again meet Rachel Mansour, UN black ops agent, and Martin Springfield, engineering consultant and part-time agent for the Eschaton, a weakly godlike entity that has charged itself with protecting space/time from dangerous technology. We also meet Frank, a warblogger; Svengali, a clown and generally sharp observer; and Wednesday, a precocious young adult or older teenager, we're never quite told which. If all this sounds to you like a B&W 40's detective/noir film, then you're not far off. We are also treated to more of a world where bandwidth is as pervasive as air.

The sun of the colony of Moscow explodes unexpectedly, obliterating most life in the system within hours as the shockwave spreads. Nearby colonies take in refugees and process them to nearby systems; Wednesday and her family end up in one of a system of O'neill-like stations with byzantine corridors and people.

In the meantime, Rachel finds that she's on a team to prevent the ongoing assassination of Muscovite diplomats currently on New Dresden, a colony that was cold enemies with Moscow, and also the next star system on the block -- within spitting distance from the cooling husk of Ground Zero. These ambassadors are the only people who can send the "abort" code to several slower-than-light craft who are carrying deadly, explosive cargos that will obliterate all life in New Dresden. There's more to the assassins than anyone had guessed, leading us to a colorful group called the ReMastered.

The obliteration of Moscow can be viewed as a loose Nine-One-One analogy. What this makes the ReMastered, a group of superiority junkies who want to upload the world so God can sort through the bits, is disturbing. Just as the foe in the US-spearheaded "war on terrorism" is somewhat hazy, Wednesday and Rachel end up sharing foes whose means become clear, but motives are difficult to understand. Everything ties up well enough in the end, but just as there are factions in Islamic fundamentalism, so are there in Mr. Stross's ReMastered. The real situation is even more complex, and the author is well aware of this. The strands of plot and dialog continue in the head of the reader, making for a satisfyingly complex and hazy moral universe. There are few black-hearted villans or shining saints in a Charlie Stross book, and this is no exception.

Mr. Stross's writing has improved somewhat since Singularity Sky, and it's wonderful to see him mature as a writer. Highly reccomended.