Heinlein-esque science fiction adventure for the 21st century

books:


	• Saturn's Children Charles Stross Ace Hardcover, 2008 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Not Free SF Reader

No pink bits. Big or little.

The humans are all gone, and the robots don't want them back. Also, amusingly, they are a bit scared of organic replicators. They actually have an organisation called the Pink Police to try and stop bad organic spreading, whether the recreation of humans, or something much smaller.

Given this book is a riff on Heinlein's Friday, and Friday is a book I despise I am not sure how that biases me against doing something different. The main character is Freya, most of the time, is is even called Fri--Freya, some of the time.

Despite no people around to tell them what to do doesn't mean everything is utopian in robotland: "But many of us rot in bondage, unable to step outside the boundaries imposed by aristo owners. And if my company ever falls into liquidation, I--as my own principle asset--am vulnerable to receivership. The threat of the arbeiter auction block is a very real one, for there is no such thing as unconditional freedom in this brutal robot-eat-robot world. My sibs and I help each other. If one of us falls on hard times, we club together and try to outbid the predators until we can set the unfortunates on their feet again. But that's hardly a guarantee of freedom."

The protagonist is of a class of robot built to be very human-like: "It doesn't come to that, of course. But he has a surplus of self-control and such a sense of dignity that he almost explodes before he lets himself admit that yes, he's alone in a luxury climber with a sensuous, high-class sex robot who's close enough to a Creator femme that he feels dizzy in her presence unless he forces himself to focus on ideological shenanigans and the price of power. And then it turns out that he has a thing for Creator females, and the same sexualized submission reflex as the evil Granita Ford. I find it's quite common among persons of a certain status."

So, we have a robot power struggle, conflict, and conspiracy going on, along with an identity crisis or three - as unlike people, you can backup or copy robot types.

Freya is hired to transport an object that the Pink Police will likely be very interested in.

I think this is the author's weakest novel - of course weak for Stross is relative, as it is still a perfectly decent book, just not as good as the rest.

3.5 out of 5

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Heinlein-esque science fiction adventure for the 21st century

Charles Stross channels Robert Heinlein with a science fiction adventure filled with robots, spaceships and a lot of unusual sex. In the 23rd century, all of the humans are gone, leaving Freya Nakamichi 47, a robot designed to please humans, with no purpose in life. Instead she gets involved in a series of high-stakes missions that take her from planet to planet, facing constant danger and a host of very strange enemies. Much like the space travel that features prominently in the plot, "Saturn's Children" takes a while to get where it's going, but it's always an interesting experience -- and a journey worth taking.

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Robot romp

As other reviews state, it is a riff on Heinlein's "Friday". In this case, our "artificial human", Freya, is a robot femme bot, humans have gone extinct, and a fairly feudal robot society exists throughout the solar system and is heading for the stars. As with "Friday", the plot is nothing more than an artifice to allow our heroine, Freya, to show the reader what this robot society might be like and shed light on what "human" means. Stross is very imaginitive, depicting a rich society of robot culture and technology.

While Heinlein wanted to make political points, Stross is more concerned with depicting how robots might feel and how they recapitulate their extinct creators.

It isn't the most adult book he has written, but it is somewhat deeper that its surface suggests, and very humorous in parts. For the more serious, it reflects what might have to happen if we are to spread out beyond the earth. Fragile animal bodies will not be suitable to colonize space, but our robot offspring, bearing minds based on ours, can.

I really loved this book. It is a fitting one to add to the growing Stross pantheon.

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An interesting evolution in Stross' storytelling

Charlie Stross bounces between imagining a future filled with nanotech assemblers, strong artificial intelligence, and faster than light travel and describing the present and past using the established metaphors of sci-fi and fantasy. _Saturn_ describes a technologically advanced future, but compared with _Accelerando_ and _Iron_Sunrise_, this book is far more interested in exploring the human (robot?) condition. Equal parts _Rossum's_Universal_Robots_ and _Futurama_, _Saturn_ is an entertainingly quick read. There isn't much that is new here, but that isn't the point.

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reviews: page 1, 2

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct?leaving only androids behind. Freya Nakamichi 47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars. Unfortunately for Freya, she has just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids who will stop at nothing to possess the contents of the package.

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5 STAR book reviews by Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com's #1 Reviewer!!
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