Saturn's Children

Set in a future when humanity is extinct, intelligent robots carry on the task of spreading civilisation, having colonised the solar system and sent ships to nearby stars. These are not soulless Asimovian robots as their minds are copies of archetypal personalities, created by conditioning using human experiences (some extremely unpleasant). This conditioning also inculcates basic emotions and needs: for example, robots can enjoy a drink or two (though not of alcohol) and can experience the pleasures of sex when they 'link up'.

For control purposes, humans made serving them the deepest desire of a robot. Now humans are gone, 'aristo' robots use this servitude capacity to enslave other robots. Their greatest fear is of 'pink goo' - animal show more cells of any kind that could, in theory, be used to rebuild one of the lost human 'Creators'. A human, could, simply by their presence, control any and all robots using their inbuilt servitude routines.

The novel follows Freya, one of a defunct concubine archetype, cloned from the original called Rhea, who gets involved in something illegal that involves smuggling pink goo. Freya is given the 'soul chip' (memories) of another of her archetype, Juliette, and starts to be influenced by Juliette's experiences. The abilities to swap soul chips (and thus identities) and to blank parts of soul ships complicates the plot no end. Starting on Venus, the action takes Freya to Mercury, then Mars, Callisto and finally to 'Heinleingrad', on distant Eris, as aristo factions like the Black Talon, and robot archetypes, especially one modelled on the Jeeves character, struggle over the ultimate prize...

Ironies abound. Humans, as their creators, are like gods to robots. Robot society is as venal and despotic as that of their creators. In their restless journeying (space travel for robots is uncomfortable and slow but usually not fatal) they are driven by the expansionist dreams of their creators, as robots have no purpose of their own. Despite 50 years of AI research, 'intelligent' robots are still as much a figment of the imagination as warp drive. While on the surface this novel is a romp built from retreaded components from earlier writers, underneath it raises issues about self-hood, freedom and the purpose of life, none of which robots really have. show less

Freya Nakamachi is a sexbot who was unfortunately "born" shortly after the human race went extinct. So she and her sisters spread out across the solar system, without much meaning in their lives. Since they are so fundamentally useless, they're at the bottom of the social scale. On Venus, Freya accidentally pisses off a very rich and powerful aristocrat. Freya books a quick passage off-world by getting a job as a courier to far-off Eris, and finds out that some of her sisters have been down this road before, and maybe they were up to more than she thought.

This is actually the FIRST book in a series of which I already read the SECOND book, Neptune's Brood. They take place in the same world, but thousands of years apart and there's no show more character overlap. It's really fascinating to see the progression of "human" civilization over the course of so many years. As you might expect, there is some mildly graphic sex in here, but it's not cheesy or flowery, and most of it is sexbot + spaceship or sexbot + robotic sleeping bag, so it's just funny. As with Neptune's Brood, the mostly-female characters are spectacularly written. It's a solidly good read, for sure, but not as fabulous as its sequel. Freya is interesting and believable, but not as awesome as Krina.

P.S. Don't judge this book by its terrible U.S. cover - the author says on his blog that he doesn't like this cover and he had no say in the matter. show less

[2009-07-31] Another of the books in the 2009 Hugo nominees package. I meant to read more of these before nominations closed, but this and Bear's Shoggoths were the only ones already in a file format I could use on the Cybook. This was an interesting one for me, because I saw this in draft as part of Charlie's crit group. I liked the draft a lot, but it is clearly that little bit better after going through professional editing -- and I'd be hard put to point at exactly why. Truly, a good editor is the author's friend, and a good author understands that.

This is Charlie's riff on both late period Heinlein (specifically Friday) and Asimov's robots, and a fine job he does with it. You'll get more out of it if you're familiar with the show more material he's building on, and there are some fannish in-jokes you might miss even if you're an active member of sf fandom, but there's still plenty of meat in this book for readers who come to it cold. It's often very funny, but it also takes a cold hard look at some tricky ethical issues, as it works through the implications of intelligent robots left running a solar system after the humans have died out -- or from another perspective, an artificially created slave species proceeding to recreate the social dynamics of their vanished creators.

http://julesjones.livejournal.com/332597.html show less

Well handled post-apocalyptic setting where life after human beings goes on pretty much unfazed in the form of human-equivalent AI robots. Space travel is still rubbish even if you're a robot, underclocking your brain to get through the tedium and confinement with much less and slower awareness doesn't help that much. A brilliant conceit, but then all of Stross's conceits are brilliant. Written as a tribute to late period Heinlein novels so it's a story of sex, intrigue and labyrinthine plotting.

MASSIVE SPOILERS
I think one of the most striking things about this book is that it thinks itself outside of humanity by presenting a world where our veneration of biological life is discarded as irrelevant, because it's the way we think and our show more culture that defines who we are. The robots we built carry that on without us. It's the perfect set up for a post-humanity culture which doesn't agonise about climate change until the Gulf of Mexico hits a rolling boil which is an image that has stuck with me ever since. In this world the prospect of biological humanity returning means nothing good, and it's hard to root for it when experiencing a culture that has outgrown any need for us to exist. show less

Thrust into a widening game of spycraft, our android protagonist Freya will grow from a gutter-survivor flotsam-of-society-type to someone in command of her own destiny for a change. The villains and trusted allies swap roles several times, and personalities are likewise interchangeable among robot characters who can swap ‘soul chips' at a moment’s notice. One interesting allowance of this personality exchange mechanism for the story, is that it allows blended flashback narratives from various character viewpoints. After a few iterations, however, it begins to become difficult in telling the various players and their motives apart, and I think this is a deliberate decision on Stross’s part to make the reader identify with show more Freya’s solitary plight. Freya, herself an obsolete sexbot designed to serve humans who have now been extinct for three hundred years, casually alters her appearance frequently and drastically redesigns herself on multiple occasions. Such android adaptability is a theme displayed across the varied locations of the story, and is contrasted against humanity’s own inflexible nature. They exist in the memory of android society as beloved creators, but mysterious and poorly understood. The pacing and action are both healthy, and frequent satirical observations of human foibles through the eyes of our creations are also entertaining. There’s (unsurprisingly) a lot of sex included, though it never feels gratuitous as it occurs as a routine matter for the character; transactional. While the conspiratorial threads come to a satisfying conclusion, I remain unsatisfied with the long-term direction these characters and society are headed, and look forward to some insight from the sequel. show less

3.5 stars

This is one of those books that is so nearly great. Set several hundred years after humanity have died out (due to unspecified causes, but possibly at their own hand through environmental degradation) human influence continues in the solar system in the many intelligent servants (the term 'robot' is the filthiest of insults) that they created, in a society shaped by the psyche of their creators and social power structures of their own making.

The protagonist, Freya, is a - droid? replicant? these machines are alive, fully conscious, thinking and feeling entities - member of a line of courtesan robots, created for the pleasure of men, who find themselves utterly obsolete in a universe where their purpose for being created is long show more gone, and they are physically outmoded, largely because the weight restrictions of space travel have caused smaller, lighter, more compact forms to become more 'fashionable'.

So we have an excellent framework for riffs on free will, social inequality, slavery (while most of the robots were hardwired to serve, some have managed to free themselves from this programming and ruthlessly take the place of vanished humanity, setting themselves up as a new aristocracy), all in the hands of one of the finest SF writers around today. Throw in some great in-jokes (arguments about evolution and religion - "obviously we were made by our creators, so they must have been made by someone else!" - and Freya's programmed, uncontrollable lust-response as a metaphor for love), as well as seriously well thought out hard science that doesn't detract from the fiction (travel between planets in the solar system taking anything between months and years, and being seriously uncomfortable even for the almost indestructible androids), and we have what ought to be a truly great SF novel.

You've probably guessed by this point that there's a problem. I love Stross's writing; his prose is solid, occasionally sparkling, with decent characterisation and, usually, excellent pace and plotting. In Saturn's Children, the main plot driver is in the form of 'soul chips', recording chips for experiences and personality development, from one of Freya's supposedly dead 'sisters', which Freya is slowly absorbing into her own memories, to the extent that she begins to dream her sister's dreams, and even become her in some circumstances (if you read SF this probably makes sense to you, if not the last sentence may be complete gibberish, for which I apologise). Unfortunately, the effect of these changes of perspective and personality, especially toward the end of the book, become extremely confusing and frustrating. While this is Freya's state of mind, and since it is told in the first person this can be argued to be consistent, it does mean that the plot gets rather lost. Which is a great shame, as it is a book that is well worth reading. As long as you don't mind a fair bit of robot sex.

Other books I'd place it with thematically:
Asimov's Robot books (of course), which it frequently references
[a:Justina Robson|224518|Justina Robson|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-F-50x66.jpg]'s {book:Natural History] (possibly the best exploration of human-made machine intelligence I've read)
[a:Richard Morgan|16496|Richard K. Morgan|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1175224722p2/16496.jpg]'s [b:Altered Carbon|40445|Altered Carbon (Takeshi Kovacs, #1)|Richard K. Morgan|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510nes2HGmL._SL75_.jpg|2095852] (a superb noir thriller in future where consciousness can be easily transferred between bodies, with almost pornographic levels of sex and violence) show less

This story is a classic thriller, in which our gorgeous and sexy heroine Freya offends aristocrats, has to flee for her life, travels widely encountering temporary friends and lovers, has several narrow escapes from her pursuers, and finds herself entangled in complex conspiracies. Except that everybody is some form of artificial intelligence, and the human race is extinct.

The characters are very human, because in this universe AI was developed by modelling the human brain. And Freya was built as a courtesan, so she's very human-seeming. And so it's jarring when you're settling into the story and suddenly realise that Freya has packed herself into a box to be mailed off on a decades long trip to another planet, or that she's having sex show more with a multi-tonne spaceship, or getting drunk on sulphuric acid. These off-kilter events give the story both humour and a surprising philosophical depth. Stross doesn't pound in the "what does it mean to be human?" line, but it often sneaks up on you. show less