Tag archives for Charles Stross
Dark State by Charles Stross [Book Review]
Dark State by Charles Stross My rating: 4 of 5 stars Dark State is the middle book in a trilogy, and leaves us on a multi-threaded set of cliffhangers waiting for the final instalment in January 2019. Dark State The story continues from where Empire Games left off, with nary a beat missed. Paranoia is set to eleventy one and everyone is watching everybody else. We have four major threads to follow. Rita and her official mission with the US Dept of Homeland Security. Rita's girlfriend and grandfather and the Wolf Orchestra trying to save Rita from DHS. Major Hulius Hjorth who is engineering Elizabeth Hanover's defection from the old monarchy the Commonwealth. The remnants of the Clan in the Commonwealth and their plans for the imminent succession crisis when the First Citizen dies. Through all of these there are…
The Handmaid’s Tale & Failure Modes of Democracy
I've finally caught up with The Handmaid's Tale that Channel Four recently showed. I haven't read the book by Margaret Atwood but I have read some of her interviews about it. I've added the book to my wish list. The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaid's Tale is essentially a piece of speculative fiction about the failure of Democracy in the US. It's scarily plausible, which is sort of the definition of speculative fiction. Elisabeth Moss as Offred in The Handmaid's Tale (photo: Hulu) In the TV series of The Handmaid's Tale we follow Offred (formerly known as June) as she survives in the post-coup Republic of Gilead. That being the survivors of the former US. Elisabeth Moss does a great job playing the main character through both the flashbacks that explain how she got there and the 'present day' parts of…
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross [Book Review]
The Delirium Brief by Charles Stross My rating: 5 of 5 stars Bob is back, and the whole Laundry series just levelled up a couple of notches. I'm a major fan of Charlie Stross and have read his entire output. The Laundry is right up my street (being a civil servant with more than a passing interest in IT). This novel even more so, because it gets into other areas that I've got a professional interest in too. The Delirium Brief In terms of broad storyline, the Delirium Brief brings back some old characters and uncovers secrets that were compartmented away from Bob in the earlier stories. It also shows more of the inner workings and rationale for the Laundry that Bob wouldn't have either known about or cared much about if he had known. The Delirium Brief of the…
Fiction Bookshelf – Bookshelves Abound = #Shelfie 01
Bookshelves abound in my home and this is my fiction bookshelf. Every room has some books in it. So inspired by this tweet from @helionbooks I thought that it might be interesting to take pictures of all the bookshelves in my house and post them one at a time over the next couple of months with a little tiny bit of commentary on where it is and what the books are. Here is the first #Shelfie Fiction Bookshelf Fiction Bookshelf on the upstairs landing I've called this the Fiction Bookshelf because it is majority fiction, and most of my books aren't fiction. So this one is unusual because it houses most of the fiction titles in my house (well at least most of my fiction, there's a lot of other fiction belonging to my wife and children). This is a…
Bloodline Feud by Charles Stross [Book Review]
The Bloodline Feud by Charles Stross My rating: 5 of 5 stars Bloodline Feud is a reworking of the first two books in the Merchant Princes series. Charlie Stross explained why he'd rewritten them on his blog. Basically he'd written them this way and was asked by the publisher to split them into smaller books because the fantasy doorstop wasn't in fashion. The Bloodline Feud I'd already read the entire series so I was wary of buying the Bloodline Feud. The only reason I did was because it was on special offer from Amazon for 99p. At that price almost anything is worth trying. Bloodline Feud is mostly the same story, but it is better than I remember either of the two books being. Also the combining them into one volume works very well. The story has a better pace…