Naughty naughty time-like curves
Oct. 19th, 2005 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
threemonkeysClarke, Reynolds, MacLeod, Baxter, Morgan, Brunner, Greenland and Banks - British hard SF/Space Opera authors that occupy a fair amount of my shelf space and therefore my reading time. This isn't a complete list either - there are more, but it is quite a significant list. When a list gets to this size, I do wonder if I should take care to not let it dominate. By that I just mean that I might take a little more time before deciding to add to it. The illustration of this being my attitude to Charles Stross. I had read a few of his short stories and he seemed to be trying to exist in roughly the same place as Alastair Reynolds and Ken MacLeod. Interesting but not enough to drive me out an buy from the amazingly fast building list of his novels on the shelves. But I saw a good copy of Singularity Sky on the secondhand shelves, so though I would invest the time to give it a shot and see if Stross was worth adding to the list.
In terms of setting and story Singularity Sky certainly feels like it has much in common with the likes of Reynolds' works. But the writing style is simpler and plainer than most of the other recent entrants in the field. Not a bad thing if you are looking for an easy fun read - the others can be pretty hard word sometimes. Stross is certainly aiming for lighter too, because the book contains a good number of humorous allusions - nothing like a bit of pop culture to spice things up. He throws a bit of political comment in as well. The story is multi-threaded from a character point of view, but actually fits into a fairly simple linear mould.
If you are put off by the amount of heavy physics that Reynolds or Baxter include, you might be more comfortable with Stross. He still includes some fairly up to date concepts, but it is at a more superficial level. However the universe building he uses it for is well done. On the minus side he seems to be rather interested in the detail of commanding a battleship bridge going into a battle. Its the sort of pointless detail that you tend to see in military SF epitomised by David Weber and his ilk - it holds no interest for me. Also holding no interest for me are his characters. They are described with some detail and attempts at creating distinctive motivation etc, but they just have no engagement for me at all.
Well I may buy more Stross, but it will continue to come from the secondhand shelves or bargain bins.
In terms of setting and story Singularity Sky certainly feels like it has much in common with the likes of Reynolds' works. But the writing style is simpler and plainer than most of the other recent entrants in the field. Not a bad thing if you are looking for an easy fun read - the others can be pretty hard word sometimes. Stross is certainly aiming for lighter too, because the book contains a good number of humorous allusions - nothing like a bit of pop culture to spice things up. He throws a bit of political comment in as well. The story is multi-threaded from a character point of view, but actually fits into a fairly simple linear mould.
If you are put off by the amount of heavy physics that Reynolds or Baxter include, you might be more comfortable with Stross. He still includes some fairly up to date concepts, but it is at a more superficial level. However the universe building he uses it for is well done. On the minus side he seems to be rather interested in the detail of commanding a battleship bridge going into a battle. Its the sort of pointless detail that you tend to see in military SF epitomised by David Weber and his ilk - it holds no interest for me. Also holding no interest for me are his characters. They are described with some detail and attempts at creating distinctive motivation etc, but they just have no engagement for me at all.
Well I may buy more Stross, but it will continue to come from the secondhand shelves or bargain bins.