This book was a good installment in the Merchant Princes story. I liked the various storyline featuring other characters which intersect at the end. I look forward to finding out what happens next in The Revolution Business. ( )

This ongoing story finds Mirjam Beckstein, a Boston journalist, worlds away from her home after escaping an attempt on her life. Finding herself in another world and just as much danger she tries to cope with the twisting plots of her long lost family (the Clan) and come to terms with who she is. In the meantime her family is having problems of their own and increasingly finds need of Mirjam.
Each book in this series tends to lead to the next so if you start in the middle you will be completely lost, but that said each book is well worth reading. ( )

Very good fourth book - although it feels like a second book. This is a fantastic series, but the complexity of the plots and the long interval between books is beginning to bog down my appreciation. There are complex concepts in these books, thoroughly examined. It is difficult to remember all of them - for example I can't recall the definition of "inner" and "outer" family, nor the complex social importance of the distinction.

In prior volumes, the Clan defeated the Lee subclan; once the Lee clan's secret advantage was made public, the mop up seemed to proceed quickly. In this volume, the clan is preparing a two front war between the royalty on their original world, and the FBI in "our" world. The war in the original world goes hot quickly, and there are people working furiously on both sides to prevent the war with the modern world from going hot. Probably the strongest feature of these books is that all parties - the clan, their adversaries, and our government are all smart people who think creatively, but none of them are supermen. All sides of the conflict are believable people, doing the best they can within their constraints. (I'm not advocating any more sympathy for any of them than that which is due to any other human. I don't like Madame Beckstein or His Royal Majesty Egon). The plots advance because of the character's action, not because of their adversaries stupidity.

The series is getting long in the tooth and losing focus. At this point I'd like to see the overplots resolved, and a series of smaller works set within the universe. I'd love to read more about Gruinmarket, but I feel it is getting short shrift. There are other plots that could be spun off into entire books without harming the core plots. I'd like a whole book on Brill.

Stross is a fantastic writer with an astonishing command of a wide variety of disciplines. ( )

Next up is the fourth book in Charles Stross series about a clan of world-walking drug dealers, the Merchants War shares the strengths and the weaknesses of the previous volumes and ramps up the action and plot nicely.

Book Three, Clan Corporate ended with a marriage announcement and gathering that went horribly wrong as, simultaneously, agents from a US Government agency managed to make their way across to the world of the Gruinmarkt into the middle of a gathering set to marry the heroine, Miriam, to a brain-damaged son of the King, and said gathering went up in flames.

Book Four shows the smoke clearing from that event as Egon, elder son of the King, takes control of the situation and decides Something Must Be Done. At the same time, Miriam, barely escaped into the third world of New London, has new problems with the police forces in that world. And of course Mike, part of that op across to that world, has problems of his own.

What's more, not content with merely working out the consequences of these plots, Stross throws a new puzzle in the mix, and starts to answer a long standing question of the series: just what is the mechanism that allows the Family to really worldwalk in the first place.

Splendid, vivid writing, great plot and action and character bits make this another winner for Mr. Stross. I particularly liked Mike's view of Olga, a character we've seen before through Miriam, and now get new sides and facets as we see her through the eyes of Mike, and get a sense that she's even more competent that we really knew. The world and set up are just as intriguing as before, if not more so, with the revelations made in the book.

The major flaw in the book, and once again its not Stross' fault, really, is the marketing. The book, like a couple of the previous books, has an "ending problem". These books have been sliced and diced and released in a suboptimal way, in my opinion. The book simply ends without a real attempt at a crescendo.

Still, fans of the previous three novels will love this one, and if you haven't started reading this series--go get the Family Trade and get yourself started. World walking scions, battles in a medieval world with guns and an ultralight(!), intrigue, mystery, fine writing and character development. Its a tasty chili of goodness. ( )

Four in a row.

Very impressive, the third book is just as enthralling as the first three. Also, it is quite clear it can't possibly end even after a fifth book in the series, barring some crazy publisher decision to stop it, which would seem extremely unlikely.

Just as well written and interesting, and all sorts of stuff is happening after the Egon instigated worldwalker massacre at the end.

Miriam is on the run, the NSA/FBI etc. task force in our world has their attention diverted trying to find a missing nuke, the intra-faction worldwalker conflict escalates into a small war, and more is discovered about other worlds.

It seems if you try a different pattern, in a different world, you may get somewhere else entirely. On top of this, the Americans are researching the biology and physics of worldwalker travelling, so it seems that Stross has some science fictional underpinnings in his planning all along, especially given one of the later scenes.

There's also a cliffhanger battle scene at the end, be warned.

When's the next book already.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2008/03... ( )