This story keeps growing and growing, with no signs that it is going to end anytime soon. What started out in The Family Trade as the story of Miriam has become a convoluted twist of characters and plots, factions and universes, all building toward an explosive confrontation across dimensions. It can be a bit confusing at time, trying to understand the wheels within wheels within wheels, and then Stross will add another layer on top (or underneath) it all, and he has no problem with unnamed mystery characters plotting in plain sight of the reader who, if they are like me, cannot keep all the characters, their motivations, their connections, etc. in mind at once, so when the truths are revealed they really have an impact. And there's more than a handful of shockers in here, rest assured. ( )

The latest of "The Merchant Princes" series, book five in fact, is a wonderful deepening of a chain of alternate worlds that resemble the mundane one you and I live in more, or less, depending on which strand of his story Stross is highlighting at any given moment.

The basic premise of all alternate history is to take off from the world the reader knows at a point he or she can get revved up about. In the US, that most often means alternate outcomes of the American Civil War, 1861-1865; I'd hesitate to speculate about other countries, but I've seen a LOT of Bonaparte-wins stuff in French. In a way, this area of fiction allows readers to fulfill fantasies of what the world Could and Should be like.

What I most like about this series of books is that Stross takes off from multiple departure points, and some so subtly that most all readers will slide right past the references that let you know you're down the rabbit hole until sucker-punched with the difference. Stross does that in this book, and he does it well, if a sucker-punch can be done well. A nagging not-quite-rightness from previous books gets brought up full force, and it's a game-changer for the series. Well done, Sir Charles.

Now, there is a downside to every artistic choice...since there are multiple alternate worlds, each with its own issues and problems to work out on these pages, the focus tends to be a bit blurry. The constraints of having the series POV character physically move among the alternate realities limits Stross's forward momentum in her story, and can feel as though the alternates are getting short shrift. I'd have to say, though, that the sensation of wanting more of all the threads is a good sign that Stross is a capable storyteller operating at full throttle.

This entry in the series will repay your time spent reading it. Don't start here, though...start with book one, The Family Trade. It's high-quality thinking, and reading.

Oh, and George Bush gets blown up by a nuke. ( )

The Merchant Prince series, about Miriam Beckstein, is the series that got me into the works of Charles Stross.

The Revolution Business is the fifth in this series. It follows off of the explosive ending to the fourth novel, where the machinations of several parties, ranging from the Clan to the U.S. Government, to the political enemies of the Clan in the Gruinmarkt, all fall against each other, inadvertently messing up each other.

Even more important is Miriam, our central character. In the novel, she quickly finds herself thrust into politics of the Family in a way that she could not imagine even in previous novels. Her previous efforts are nothing compared to the cut and thrust of politics now, in the wake of the deadly politics in the Gruinmarkt. And then there is the technological breakthrough of the US Government in terms of worldwalking, and the Clan's very personal approach to their feud with the US Government...

About the only fault I have in the novel is that we don't get enough of the third world, the New Britain world. It suffers a bit in comparison to events in our world and the Gruinmarkt. With that aside, though, this novel continues to build on the previous four novels of the series. Stross has managed this series, its worlds and assumptions, with enviable and undeniable skill. His skill in developing believable and complex characters, having them grow and change (and in some instances, kill them off) is admirable.

There is one more novel planned in the sequence, and Stross ends this book with an explosive cliffhanger that will make you want to read the sixth book all the more. I know that I certainly do! ( )

This was a real page turner of book - I read it through in virtually a single sitting. Even though Stross has not finished in this universe, the inevitable cliff-hangers just made you wanting more rather than feeling relieved that the book had come to an end (a hazard of a series) ( )

Charles Stross is a good writer. With this series he is putting a backbone into to fantasy idea of people who can walk into different worlds and what they might do there. There is a lot of thought given to economics and politics, much more thought than given in the average science fiction novel. He even investigates how economic strategies fail and what people can do instead of their original plans. And his politics are not merely a good and evil set of opponents, but an ever shifting series of coalitions that form and reform, split and strike out at former allies.

So why don't I like this book more? Part of it is just the length of time it takes to publish each volume. The first volume was published in 2004. The fourth volume was published in 2007. So it has been two years since I last read about this universe. And this is complex universe. I know I missed a lot of the undercurrents by reading this book without reviewing the past books. I won't read the next book until I reread the past books. I am sure that when this series if finished, that I will love it, but it is hard to follow all the characters when you don't read all the books back to back. ( )