The Family Trade

A riff on the old "down-on-her-luck orphan finds out that she's a princess in an alternate world but when her parent's enemies find out she's alive try to kill her" story.

In addition to the predictable factions and conspiracies and alliances and threats, there's a lot of socioeconomics that make it interesting, a cut above the typical fantasy adventure. One of the challenges is how to best use the ability to travel between worlds to make money, preferably legally. Made more challenging by the other world being pre-technological with a feudal system. And how to quickly transform a society with a 17th century economy into the 21st century. All while wearing frilly ball gowns and dodging assassins.

On the negative side, there's no attempt show more at resolving anything at the end of the book, clearly it's meant to feed directly into the next one in the series. I would have preferred at least some sort of subplot that gets wrapped up, like in the Laundry Files. show less

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I had been looking forward to reading this for some time. Reviews that I had skimmed (and indeed hints dropped by the author) led me to understand that it borrows the feudal and feuding families who can walk between the worlds of Roger Zelazny's Amber series, a firm favourite of mine from an early age. But my anticipation was mixed with a little trepidation: even Zelazny was unable to really pull it off in the end - while the Amber books contain some of his most lyrical prose, the plot has holes you can drive an army of dark, clawed, fanged, furry man-like creatures through, and his own interest and energy had very obviously faded by the middle of the second series. And as for the Betancourt show more prequels - critical reaction has been pretty unanimous, so I don't think I'll bother.

Well, I think Charlie has pulled it off. He's taken Zelazny's idea and wondered what people with that ability would actually do with it in today's world; applied an economic model to it, if you like. Amber was always supposedly a great trading nexus (Corwin had written its anthem, the Ballad of the Water Crossers), but the evidence of this was pretty minimal - rather than wealth, its children seemed to be more attracted to power, and went off to find kingdoms and wars of their own. In the Stross version, there is a convincing business model using the fact that those with the gift can shift between our world and one where the Vikings settled North America and Europe never developed (and, we suspect, at least one other such parallel universe). Also in the Stross version, we have a plot that makes sense and is compelling reading; and some very interesting and complex characters. The Family Trade doesn't have the vivid imagery of some of his other work, but I sat up much later than I should have last night to finish it, and now can't wait for the sequel, The Hidden Family. show less

I went in hoping to like this, and I got more and more demoralised as I kept reading. I at least liked the protagonist, but found the plot and premise increasingly wearying. About halfway through, much was redeemed when a second female character was rounded out, showing that the protagonist had been relying on stereotypes and not thinking things through very much. And this second(ary) character, Olga, was very much my favourite by the end of the book.

The story itself runs straight in to a brick wall, with clear indication that there will be more machinations in the second and subsequent books, but I don't think that I'm going to bother. Yes, it was a nice conceit for how to put a self-aware, somewhat empowered modern woman in a feudal show more fantasy setting, but it really didn't work for me. What it felt like was an allegory of my life -- this isn't fantasy/prediction, this is the life that people (women. powerless minorities. other oppressed groups) are living Right Now, it has just been written by someone who isn't living it*. Which isn't to say that I think Stross is ignorant of the way that life can be oppressive even for educated white women, but that the contrast fell so flat for me, because it didn't feel like a contrast at all, other than in how blatant the control and manipulation was.

Characterisation was good, although depressing. World-building was good, but depressing. Writing was good. Plotting was murky.

* I don't know enough about Stross to say whether he is/isn't a member of any of the groups that struggle against oppression/discrimination/etc. What I am saying is that the book *read* as if he hasn't experienced these things. show less

I don't like it. It's well-written, excellent characterization, fascinating universe and "magic" - but I have the same headache as Miriam does trying to work out who's doing what why. The manipulation, plotting, tricks, and flat lies that make up the storyline are overwhelming. Now I've finished it, I still have very little idea what's going on; the new enemy is reasonably clear, but the older one is still obscure to me - is it Angbard, Miriam's direct relatives, someone else? Honestly, at this point I don't even care. And the fact that the sample of the next book has an entirely new set of characters (well, almost entirely new) and portentously announces that the rather boring meeting that's described is very important some way doesn't show more particularly appeal. Not for me, I think - someone who enjoys this kind of double- and triple-thinking would love it, but I won't bother to get the next one. show less

This is a book with a somewhat typical fantasy premise. Adopted girl finds out that her birth parents are from an alternate Earth, and that she is actually royalty. The beginning of the book was a bit slow for me and I wasn't very impressed with Miriam, the main character. However, the alternate Earth and the Family that Miriam finds herself pulled back into are interesting; just the politics and economics of a group of people who can cross over between our world and an alternate Earth makes for some fascinating what-ifs. By the end of the book, I was totally drawn in to Miriam's troubles and the larger political struggle going on.

The Family Trade – Charles Stross (2004, My Copy 2007 U.K paperback

This is the first of The Merchant Princes books. In total there are 9 books but the first 6 have been reprinted in 3 Omnibus editions in the U.K, containing two books in each edition. Even though these have been slightly rewritten the plot is unchanged. I decided to approach these books as the separate editions as I’m a fan of smaller books.

I normally like to mention the covers in my reviews this U.K edition in my opinion has a terrible cover, the U.S edition has a far better cover. To me you do judge a book by it’s cover and if I had seen this in a shop on a shelf, I would not have picked it up. A cover is what visually sells a book and this one totally fails on show more that level.

The Merchant princes is a Parallel world/Alternate History series. I wonder if the title of the series is a nod towards Asimov and one of the stories in the original Foundation trilogy. This first book, Family Trade, follows Mirriam Beckstein who is a successful Journalist in Technology and Economics, when she uncovers an obvious large-scale fraud, after informing her boss she then loses her job and receives death threats. In a visit to her adoptive mother, she is given a locket from her birth mother which manages to transport her to a parallel world.

The general set up obviously owes a nod to Roger Zelazny’s Amber series it also got me at points in thinking of Piers Anthony Apprentice Adept series. I like the idea of Parallel worlds but it’s always how it’s used as a plot mechanism that decides if it works. This was a bit of a strange read for me, for the first half of the book I was convinced I was going to get to the end of the book and decide not to continue with the series, but at the end I was pulled in enough to care and want to know what happens next.

Charles Stross’s Protaganist isn’t the most likeable of characters, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but she does suffer from literary intelligence, in that she appears in another unfamiliar world and seems able to navigate it and its politics better than those that have lived it all their lives. This was part of the reason I struggled with the first half of the book, I think once I let myself go and got a little more invested in the story, I was able to look past this and see the ideas the author was playing with. There are obvious themes about how economically richer more technically advanced nations attempt to bring less advanced nations up to them. I hope in further books this and the morality of it is explored more deeply. There are a lot of different avenues these themes could take.

Unsurprisingly being the first book of a longer series there are many threads left open which I hope are addressed in future books. This is my first experience of Charles Stross’s writing and prose whilst being quite straightforward in his writing he can pull you in and explain ideas well. There is a central relationship within the book that I think could have been a bit more three dimensional but hopefully that will develop in time.

If you’re a fan of books with interesting politics and manoeuvring, you could do far worse than take a look at The Merchant Princes series. I think this first book shows some promise of developing very well into an interesting narrative. It also reinforces my personal stance that I don’t DNF a book as you never know how it will develop in the end. If I had abandoned at the first 50% of the book I would have missed the developments within the story that make you want to go on and read the sequels.

Goodreads ratings are pretty limiting, my benchmark using those ratings are anything 3 or above is a good strong recommendation that I would happily reread at some point
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I'm a big fan of Chuck Stross's science fiction -- SINGULARITY SKY, ACCELERANDO. But this one left me cold. Why?

For one thing, the conceit is heavily purloined from Narnia: the hero is a boring person here, but a crucial person Over (or Under) There. Neil
Gaiman found a way to take the curse off it in NEVERWHERE: his restless, mundane hero makes the mistake of helping a runaway girl from Under There, and soon starts to become a nonentity Over Here. Stross goes another way: his heroine simply makes a series of logical decisions that she is in more danger Over Here and therefore ought to scamper Over There. You hardly want to be transported to a land of magic and wonder because it is the most sensible thing to do.

I wonder if the problem show more is the great yawning divide between SF and F. Star Wars is Fantasy; the Force is magic. Star Trek is Science Fiction: the science is balderdash but it is still science. When Star Wars tried to explain Annakin Skywalker's talent for the Force -- he had a high midichlorian count? -- it felt like a betrayal of the genre. Stross has created a fantasy premise - magic locket transports those of the Blood -- but then approaches the story rationally, like an SF author. What sort of things would you do if you could walk between the worlds? Open a courier service, natch. You can Fedex things in this world that would take a long tme to travel in that world. You can smuggle huge quantities of drugs, slowly but surely, across the Other World.

Who cares?

This, I think, was my big problem. I felt there was no real emotional issue. Nothing that could only be solved by the heart; nothing without whose solving the heart would remain forever restless.

Dorothy wants to get home.


THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE was about kids who were unimportant in this world feeling terribly important in this world. (Oh, and it's an allegory for the last days of Jesus Christ. Sorry.)

I did not know what the main character wanted. Or rather, she wanted too many sensible things. She wants safety. She wants a guy. She wants to liberate the peasants.

So what? show less