Nice combination of the genres of 'space opera' and 'secret agent'. ( )

After reading Saturn's Children recently, and thinking it was his weakest novel, I was wrong. It is certainly Iron Sunrise, so the former needs correcting.

This story of Eschaton agent trying to stop a planet or lots going Kabloeey is perfectly serviceable, and I definitely don't regret the time spent reading it. Certainly not as good as the first of this pair.

In fact, I'd call this one a 3.25, which is pretty much my garden variety average novel rating over the lot of them.

It quite possibly suffers in comparison to all his other work, and the copious amounts of brilliant inventiveness on display in those books. Iron Sunrise is a fairly standard-Omnisomething Eschaton monitors aside-sf adventure. People that prefer that sort of story to something like Lobsters or Accelerando might actually want to choose this one as their introduction to his work, perhaps, to get a little of the flavour, if not the full hit.

(call it 3.25)
3 out of 5

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/09...
( )

Good space opera with some cyberpunk traits. Not as original as its prequel but at least it doesn't have all the technical gibberish the former had. I would have liked to hear more about the "festival" but instead we get new bad guys, some kind of neo-nazis of the future. All in all It is quite a page-turner, but without the awe-effect "Singularity Sky" could provide. 17/03/2008 ( )

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. (Review of Iron Sunrise in Mikko reads) ( )

Stross is an excellent writer of very complicated worlds. Despite his general fascination with sexual culture that doesn't really seem to advance the plot, the man writes a darn good singularity. ( )