Iron Sunrise - Charles Stross

Iron sunrise

Iron sunrise is innovative science fiction novel with lots of subplots, effortlessly leading back to the main storyline.
The characters are well developed and feel realistic, whilst the interaction between them is smoothly written.

It starts with the destruction of a whole solar system, with collateral damage to nearby star systems, and then follows the race to uncover who was behind it, and to stop ...
...Escheton, is an artificial intelligence, which has caused the human disappearance on earth, sending the nine billion people to different planets by opening macroscopic wormholes in space-time. People were warned not to violate causality (time travel) or they would suffer the consequences by the Escheton or its agents.

Five years ago, weapons of mass destruction destroyed the planetary system of Moscow though nobody knows who caused ... more

Iron sunrise

Iron sunrise is innovative science fiction novel with lots of subplots, effortlessly leading back to the main storyline.
The characters are well developed and feel realistic, whilst the interaction between them is smoothly written.

It starts with the destruction of a whole solar system, with collateral damage to nearby star systems, and then follows the race to uncover who was behind it, and to stop further destruction of people and planets.

The Escheton, is an artificial intelligence, which has caused the human disappearance on earth, sending the nine billion people to different planets by opening macroscopic wormholes in space-time. People were warned not to violate causality (time travel) or they would suffer the consequences by the Escheton or its agents.

Five years ago, weapons of mass destruction destroyed the planetary system of Moscow though nobody knows who caused it.
Moscow had in orbit four ships that were sent to destroy the 800 million inhabitants of New Dresden who they believed caused the destruction of their planet.
There are people who know the codes to abort the attack but an enemy who seems invisible and invincible is killing them one by one.

Rachel Mansour, a black ops agent is sent to New Dresden where two of the people with the codes are staying and hopes to bait a trap to catch the assassin and find out who is behind this tragedy.
The one person who does know is a disaffected teenager who calls herself Wednesday Shadowmist. But Wednesday has no idea where she might be hiding this significant information (i do though). Time is limited and if Rachel can't resolve this mystery it will mean annihilation of an entire world.
Wednesday, a goth teenage, whose parents were killed by the same group which was involved in destroying her home world Moscow. Although she is emotionally a mess, she has the brains to be an agent of Escheton even though for much of the book she does not know what its' plans for her are.
She, who works with the Escheton, wants to learn who the enemy is and destroy it. These threads and more are drawn into a complex yet rewarding tapestry spanning lightyears of space and time,

Charles Stross lives in Edinburgh where, no doubt, he spends his free time with the other SF intellectuals of that ilk.

Bullet points

• Charles Stross is a great storyteller in the science fiction genre.
• Wittily written, a potential classic in its own time.
• Highly recommended read.
• All embellished with Stross's trademark wit and attention to detail.
• What it really has going for it, though, is the sly humour and plenty of weirdness but it all serves the story.
• The story is dissimilar to any other books I have read.
• Iron sunrise is a big-canvas space opera, and manages to pack a whole lot of action, intrigue and nasty plot twists into a surprisingly punchy page-count.
• This book stands alone from its predecessor, 'Singularity Sky', the good news is that this is even better than singularity.
• Iron Sunrise is a must read. 

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