“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.
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