Book review: The Family Trade and The Hidden family (sci-fi/fantasy)

[vulturesrow]

I just finished up reading The Family Trade and The Hidden Family. These are the first two books in the Merchant Princes series by Charles Stross . Stross is the author of some excellent sci-fi, including a book called Accelerando which be downloaded free of charge from the link.

The basic premise of the series is a woman from our current time finding out that she is a member of a family of world walkers, who use this ability for economic gain. This is obviously shades of Zelazny, but dont worry, the simliarity is superficial other than the obvious one and the fact that a lot of the plot centers around intra-family intrigue.

The series starts off a bit slow and but quickly picked up the pace to a more enjoyable level. Stross is a very good writer with a real knack for giving the story a twist just when you think you have it all figured out. The writing is technically proficient, but I did find the character development of the protagonist to be a bit weak, and indeed I thought some of the other prominent characters were a bit more interesting. This is a minor point though, because Stross is an excellent storyteller and after the initial lethargy in the pacing, I had a hard time time putting these books down. The only other minor criticism I have is that the second book ends rather abruptly after what I though was a very nice buildup to the finale. The end of the book resolves a lot of plot lines, so it will be interesting to see where Stross goes with this story next.

All in all, I think these books are a solid recommendation for any sci-fi/fantasy fan. For you Zelazny fanatics, they arent cheap knockoffs, which was somewhat of a worry of mine before I started reading. 4 out of 5 stars.

[vulturesrow]

Bump for the East coast lunch crowd.

[JPinAZ]

I recently read Singularity Sky & liked it quite well. I'll have to check out the Family books. Thanks for the review.