Tuesday 18 August 2009

SCIENCE-FICTION REVIEW: Saturn's Children - Charles Stoss


BOOK BLURB:

Freya Nakamachi-47 has some major existential issues. She's the perfect concubine, designed to please her human masters - hardwired to become aroused at the mere sight of a human male. There's just one problem: she came off the production line a year after the human species went extinct. Whatever else she may be, Freya Nakamachi-47 is gloriously obsolete. What's more, the rigid social hierarchy that has risen in the 200 years since the last human died, places beings such as Freya very near the bottom. So when she has a run-in on Venus with a murderous aristocrat, she needs passage off-world in a hurry - and can't be too fussy about how she pays her way. But if Venus was a frying pan, Mercury is the fire - and soon she's going to be running for her life. Because the job she's taken as a courier has drawn her to the attention of powerful and dangerous people, and they don't just want the package she's carrying. They want her soul ...


REVIEW:

To be honest not the best work ever released by Charles. Unfortunately, it seems to try to explore way too many themes without delivering on many of the promises within, sadly letting the reader down as it appears to be more a book that’s either expected to sell by the authors name or just to hit deadline so that the author gets paid.

A great shame to be honest as this sort of novel is something to which Charles normally excels. The characters are confusing, the plot convoluted and seems to borrow heavily from books and films of the last thirty years bringing nothing new to the fore. It really will make me question my placing of this authors books in my TBR list and he’ll have to do something special in his next book to make up for this offering.

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