Books: Singularity Sky (Eschaton #1) By Charles Stross (2003)

“In the twenty-first century, man created the Eschaton, a sentient artificial intelligence. It pushed Earth through the greatest technological evolution ever known, while warning that any time travel is forbidden, and transgressors will be eliminated. Distant descendants of this ultra-high-tech Earth live in parochial simplicity on the far-flung worlds of the New Republic. Their way of life is threatened by the arrival of an alien information plague known as the Festival. As forbidden technologies are literally dropped from the sky, suppressed political factions descend into revolutionary turmoil. A battle fleet is sent from Earth to destroy the Festival, but Spaceship engineer Martin Springfield and U.N. diplomat Rachel Mansour have been assigned rather different tasks. Their orders are to diffuse the crisis or to sabotage the New Republic's war-fleet, whatever the cost, before the Eschaton takes hostile action on a galactic scale.” 

On the whole, Singularity Sky is as chock-full of bizarre and interesting ideas, but it also reminds me why I don’t read hard science/speculative fiction very often – because I really don’t understand the science and the techno-babble. While this book was not Stross’ first published title, it was the first released by a large publishers and I feel had I not read his Laundry Files books first, this one would’ve probably never wanted me to read another. Because, despite my enjoyment of the Laundry Files, this book is fairly dull, despite its strong story. It gets bogged with a spy vs. spy story aboard a capital ship run by two-dimensional military types. 

Also, is the novel satire? I mean it does have certain parts that seem to be aimed for comedic effect, but Stross alternates between moments of great satire and then bouts seriousness, which makes it feel a bit disjointed. I think Stross is an accomplished writer, and I like his dark humor, but I wasn't blown away by this book like I was by his other series.

There is a second book, which I have. But now I’m unsure if I want to tackle that one.

Books: The Apocalypse Codex (The Laundry Files #4) By Charles Stross (2012)

“Bob has been unintentionally working his way up in the Laundry, the secret British agency where computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists have, by accident, become sorcerers. For every case he’s been on, Bob has sort of bumbled his way into a successful outcome just by using his brains and creativity. Now he’s being groomed for a leadership position, so he needs some people skills. A lot of his preparation involves sitting in boring management training classes and seminars where he has to use role-playing to learn how to navigate the upper levels of the British government’s bureaucracy. This is not fun for Bob. He’s also learning more about how the Laundry functions and he’s surprised to discover that the agency uses “External Assets” when they need something done that is too politically sensitive for a government agency. In this case, the delicate issue is that the Prime Minister has become chummy with a wacky TV evangelist from Colorado Springs. Why is Pastor Schiller trying to get in with the PM? The Laundry suspects something fishy is going on, so they dispatch Persephone Hazard, an External Asset with an unsettling past. Bob is sent to Colorado Springs to monitor her activities and make sure she doesn’t embarrass the Crown… and, of course, he discovers that the something fishy is more than fishy; it’s tentacled, too.” 

For the most part, The Apocalypse Codex, the fourth novel in the Laundry Files, plays out like the three previous tales -a playful, nerd filled, silly joke ride through a bizarre universe where demons, sorcerers and things from other realms are trying to break into our world. Stross fully takes on the American fundamentalist Christianity, and tears them a new hole, both for their plotting and in general, a more social commentary look at them. He’s bound to find some his fans a bit pissed off at his remarks. But this is a British science fiction writer (whom seem generally to be atheists) who probably see (via our many “entertainment” channels) certain evangelical Christians reject science, believe the earth is six thousand years old, dress their daughters in long dresses that cover every part of their bodies, and are trying to take over the world. I think the British look at religion less as war for souls, and more something they do on Sunday out of tradition.  

Unlike the previous tales, a lot less of The Apocalypse Codex is told through the traditional first person narrative, as it includes Bob narrating third person views, as well as other perspectives, like each member of the free-lance team, the administrator who gives Bob this mission, and some opposing operatives and even Schiller himself. It’s a bit weird, but I can also understand why Stross did this, mostly, I think, because he was introducing some more world-building not previously expounded upon in the three earlier books. It’s sort of like he looked at the trajectory of the series and needed to start dropping more stuff for later volumes. We’ll see, as I go through them.

So I enjoyed the book, even though Stross's maths = magic and Cthulhu tale seemed more designed as a set up for the fifth book than an episodic adventure.

Books: Kahawa By Donald E. Westlake (1982/1995)

“In Uganda in 1977, a particular trainload of coffee, mostly belonging to Dictator Idi Amin, is worth six million dollars. As a group of scoundrels and international financiers hijack the train, the double and triple crosses pile up and the comic tension escalates in a brawling brew of buffoons, bumblers, beans and boxcars.” 

 

For one reason or another, I’ve put off reading this book for a while. Part of the reason was the length – as I’ve gotten older, books longer than 475 to 500 plus pages are not worth my time (with a few exceptions), as I have so books in my TBR pile (and add to it monthly). In addition, Westlake was known for lean plots with little to none extraneous plots and characters to keep track of. The other was that some Westlake scholars, for lack of a better word, have mixed feelings about the narrative, the people, and the fact that it’s only a handful of novels he set outside his beloved New York City (those always seemed to be seen in a negative light).

 

As I noted in a Part One, the heist idea was supposedly based on a true story, but while it’s certainly possible some smuggling went on in Uganda during Idi Aimn’s dictatorship, it’s probable not as elaborate as the one described here (as a matter of fact, in his Afterword, Westlake notes that “something similar did take place”, his description and all the characters -with a few exemptions of real-life ones- is all made up by him (then again, in the prologue, which is unconnected to the rest of the plot, is a reference to the real-life event on which the novel is based).

 

I would say I liked this book, even if it’s different than anything he usually did. There is a lot more geo-political stuff, along with some racial and sexual commentary. As matter of fact, he surprised me (and probably a lot of his longtime reader), by having some extremely explicit sex scenes in this book. Probably far more than in all those paperback ‘porn’ titles he wrote under multiple pseudonyms in the 1950s to support his family before he became a success in later decades. In some ways, while this is a heist novel, filled with real life death and violence, it’s also, strangely a relationship book, with Lew Brady seemly dealing with a trio of women who want to have sex with in. And Lew, who likes having these affairs, also loves Ellen (even if sex is seemly the only thing that connects them). But in being this way, both Lew and Ellen are not that very interesting characters.

 

Anyways, there are a lot plot elements in this book than I can't possibly synopsize here, and I have no desire to extend this review to a third part. What I can say is the book is good, not great, it carries a lot of violence, commentary on the Amin regime (which came about due a coup backed by the British and the Israelis in 1971, and who odiously came to regret it. But even as Westlake unflinchingly describes a number of killings, including those of two major characters, it is not a nasty book like some of his darker thrillers; only Amin and his regime are portrayed as nasty).

 

It’s worth the read, even if a tips into being a bit overlong. But I would also agree with most Westlake scholars, this is not the book to start reading his oeuvre. It’s too complex and you don’t really get what he was doing here until you’ve read a few of his thrillers, a handful of Parker tales, and some of more humorous tales. 

Books: Kahawa By Donald E. Westlake, Part One

I just started my first Westlake novel of 2025 and decided to do some research after reading the Introduction to this hardcover edition. 

This is part one of two (which I’ll post after finishing the book). 

So, in the introduction to the 1995 reissue hardcover, Donald E. Westlake writes about this caper tale that was so different from what he written before, that when it was originally released in 1982, it was not a bestseller for him. 

The genesis of the novel is based on true story (though there is no evidence that can confirm this actually did happen in reality) about “a group of white mercenaries, in Uganda, while it was under Idi Amin, stole a railroad train a mile long, full of coffee, and made it disappear.” As Westlake writes, he was known for both serious (the Parker tales under his pseudonym of Richard Stark) and comic (the Dortmunder series) capers. The more outrageous the theft, the more interesting the idea was to him. He writes “Once, for instance, before the government started paying by check, Parker stole the entire payroll from a United States Air Force Base (The Green Eagle Score). Dortmunder, not to be outdone, has made off with a complete bank, temporarily housed in a mobile home (Bank Shot). And what could be more outrageous than to steal a mile-long train from the dread Idi Amin, and make it disappear?” 

But then he began his research and it sent him down a dark hole (“Research is my own personal Sargasso Sea”) and discovered that there was much more to tell than stealing a train that he would need to incorporate into the tale. One was the fact that under Amin’s years in power, his primary goal was to rid Uganda of Christians. But in a country made up at the time of some sixteen million people, where seventy-five percent identified as Christians, it meant including parts about how roughly five hundred thousand men, women, and children were slaughtered not because they were political, or rebellious, or dangerous, but because they were Christians. 

So Kahawa (the Swahili word for coffee) had to be an exciting caper tale, but also needed to include the horrors of Amin’s dictatorship (which is why, in some sense, the book’s title is so different as well. Westlake’s original was Coffee to Go, but that eventually “slunk off in embarrassment”).

He sold the book to Viking, but the publishing house “was in the midst of an upheaval” and his original editor was let go and the replacement one, what he called an “oil painting of an editor”, couldn’t figure out how to help market the book and felt no one would really want to read a caper novel with such dark and terrible parts to it (this event in his publishing life was the genesis of his 1984 comic novel that took on the publishing industry, A Likely Story). 

When Westalke moved to Warner Books, who through their Mysterious Press imprint, began reissuing a lot of older Westlake titles, as well as new ones, Kahawa was given a second chance at life. In the thirty years since that re-release, it’s probably still one Westlake’s less popular titles. But even as prolific as the man was, he could, on occasion, throw a left curve and surprise readers, both long-time ones and new. 

TO BE CONTINUED…