Fourth Book in the Series shares strengths and weaknesses of its predecessors

books:


	• The Merchants' War: Book Four of the Merchant Princes Charles Stross Tor Books, 2007 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
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No more doubt: this is a serial novel series

The first two novels in this series had the feel of well contained (if short) novels, but the third novel leaves us with a cliff hanger that might as well finish, "Tune in next week to find out what happens to our dashing heroine." The fourth book also ends with a cliff hanger, in my opinion even more blatant than that of book three.

So, we are now firmly in serial novel territory, and I think that is a bad thing for several reasons. First, we devoted readers are forced to wade through the background information repeatedly, which is increasingly dominating these slender books. Second, the story is fragmenting to the point that it is a chore to follow the shifts among story lines that are now barraging us several times per chapter. Third, and related to the previous point, Miriam has been marginalized to a frustrating degree. In book three she becomes a self-pitying pawn, and in book four she does absolutely nothing of real interest for the entire book (and no new characters are developed with sufficient depth to be compelling).

As a science fiction reader, I actively seek out books that are based on original ideas. From that perspective I am still quite satisfied with this series. However, I would be much happier if it were comprised of three or four much more developed books, rather than an endless series that only slightly advances the story with each volume. Reading these books is starting to feel like work.

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Editorial oversight

There is an embarressing error in the book. At one point a few chapters into the book, all referrences to the LEE family suddenly become the WU family. This is made worse by the fact that there already IS a WU family in the series that serves a different role.

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Not Free SF Reader

Four in a row.

Very impressive. The fourth book is just as enthralling as the first three. Also, it is quite clear it can't possibly end even after a fifth book in the series, barring some crazy publisher decision to stop it, which would seem extremely unlikely. (Wonder if his plan is to equal the Zelazny 10?)

Just as well written and interesting, and all sorts of stuff is happening after the Egon instigated worldwalker massacre at the end.

Miriam is on the run, the NSA/FBI etc. taskforce in our world has their attention diverted trying to find a missing nuke, the intra-faction worldwalker conflict escalates into a small war, and more is discovered about other worlds.

It seems if you try a different pattern, in a different world, you may get somewhere else entirely. On top of this, the Americans are researching the biology and physics of worldwalker travelling, so it seems that Stross has some science fictional underpinnings in his planning all along, especially given one of the later scenes.

There's also a cliffhanger battle scene at the end, be warned.

When's the next book already?

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Fourth Book in the Series shares strengths and weaknesses of its predecessors

The Merchants War is the fourth book in Charles Stross series about a clan of world-walking drug dealers, and the book shares the strengths and the weaknesses of the previous volumes and ramps up the action and plot nicely.

Book Three, Clan Corporate ended with a marriage announcement and gathering that went horribly wrong as, simultaneously, agents from a US Government agency managed to make their way across to the world of the Gruinmarkt into the middle of a gathering set to marry the heroine, Miriam, to a brain-damaged son of the King, and said gathering went up in flames.

Book Four shows the smoke clearing from that event as Egon, elder son of the King, takes control of the situation and decides Something Must Be Done. At the same time, Miriam, barely escaped into the third world of New London, has new problems with the police forces in that world. And of course Mike, part of that op across to that world, has problems of his own.

What's more, not content with merely working out the consequences of these plots, Stross throws a new puzzle in the mix, and starts to answer a long standing question of the series: just what is the mechanism that allows the Family to really worldwalk in the first place.

Splendid, vivid writing, great plot and action and character bits make this another winner for Mr. Stross. I particularly liked Mike's view of Olga, a character we've seen before through Miriam, and now get new sides and facets as we see her through the eyes of Mike, and get a sense that she's even more competent that we really knew. The world and set up are just as intriguing as before, if not more so, with the revelations made in the book.

The major flaw in the book, and once again its not Stross' fault, really, is the marketing. The book, like a couple of the previous books, has an "ending problem". These books have been sliced and diced and released in a suboptimal way, in my opinion. The book simply ends without a real attempt at a crescendo.

Still, fans of the previous three novels will love this one, and if you haven't started reading this series--go get the Family Trade and get yourself started. World walking scions, battles in a medieval world with guns and an ultralight(!), intrigue, mystery, fine writing and character development. Its a tasty chili of goodness.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3

Miriam Beckstein is a young, hip, business journalist in Boston. She discovered in The Family Trade and The Hidden Family that her family came from an alternate reality, that she was very well-connected, and that her family was too much like the mafia for comfort. She found herself caught in a family trap in The Clan Corporate and betrothed to a brain-damaged prince, and then all hell broke loose. Now, in The Merchants' War, Miriam has escaped to yet another world and remains in hiding from both the Clan and their opponents. There is a nasty shooting war going on in the Gruinmarkt world of the Clan, and we know something that Miriam does not; something that she's really going to hate--if she lives long enough to find out.

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