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    Singularity Sky
    Singularity Sky
    Singularity Sky
    Audiobook13 hours

    Singularity Sky

    Written by Charles Stross

    Narrated by George Guidall

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Critically acclaimed author Charles Stross has mastered numerous genres, including Lovecraftian horror, fantasy, and alternate history, claiming such prizes as the Locus and Sidewise Awards. His breathtaking science fiction has earned him a Hugo Award and several additional Hugo nominations, including one for Singularity Sky.

    In the 21st century, the perfection of faster-than-light travel and the rise of a prodigious artificial intelligence known as the Eschaton altered the course of humankind. New civilizations were founded across the vastness of space. Now, the technology-eschewing world known as the New Republic is besieged by an alien information plague. Earth quickly sends a battle fleet—but is it coming to the rescue, or is a sinister plot in motion?

    Singularity Sky emerges as a brilliant space opera replete with groundbreaking concepts and energized by an imaginative vision of the future.

    “If ever science fiction is about new ideas … [Stross] is the crème de la crème.”—Locus
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 15, 2009
    ISBN9781440714764
    Singularity Sky
    Author

    Charles Stross

    Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. To date, Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. He is the author of the popular Merchant Princes and Empire Games series, set in the same world. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages. Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

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    Reviews for Singularity Sky

    3.5/5

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    • 4/5
      (Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)I recently had the chance to acquire every single book ever written by trippy sci-fi author Charles Stross, and so have decided to spend the year actually reading and reviewing them here for the blog; and I've decided to read them in chronological order, too (or, the general books by chronological order, then take on the themed series one at a time), which means that first up is his 2003 novel debut Singularity Sky, which along with his other early classic Accelerando are the ones that really first established him as a major genre force, and that helped cement the cliche of the SF "British Invasion" of the early 2000s. And so that's what makes it an even bigger shock than normal to find out that the novel is not a serious-minded brainteaser, like I think of whenever I think of the other Stross novels I've already read, but rather a very funny absurdist comedy along the lines of late-period Robert Heinlein. Not actually a story about Ray Kurzweil's famous theory of the "Singularity" (that is, the moment in the future that computers gain sentience, and thus usher in a new blazingly fast era for humanity where the mechanical and the biological blur into unrecognizable forms), the novel instead takes this Singularity moment as its historical start, and the fact that humans quickly figure out how to time-travel, at which point a mysterious alien force known as the Eschaton literally create a human diaspora to stop such development, by taking 90 percent of Earth's population and magically scattering them on various inhabitable worlds across the cosmos, these people now free to develop whatever kinds of societies they want but with "the big E" stepping in again whenever a "law of causality" is about to be broken, doing things like wiping out entire star systems to ensure that these stupid hairless apes don't accidentally erase the universe's existence.Our actual tale, then, takes place hundreds of years after the events just described, when this scattered humanity have formed an endless series of different governments, tech capabilities, and even corporeal forms; to be specific, it's the story of a race of post-human creatures known as "The Festival" who exist mostly as forms of pure information as they travel the cosmos, who literally create new fantastical bodies whenever they stop at a new star system, then proceed to create a kind of benevolent chaos in that new system for awhile (the actual "Singularity Sky" of the book's title), swapping unheard-of technology for new info about the universe from that new system before finally getting their fill, dumping their temporary bodies, and taking off again for yet another century-long flight to the next habitable system, in this case the recipients being a militaristic quasi-fascist colonial dictatorship who shun technology and who clearly resemble the Bush administration that was in power when this novel was first published in the US. As always with Stross, this is a lot of infodump to take in at once, with the above recap only scratching the surface of this expansive storyline, and with my promise that the whole thing becomes much clearer once you read the actual book; but like I said, the biggest surprise is that Stross plays all this mostly for laughs, a sort of ridiculous adventure tale about a backwards military that purposely builds outdated tech into their warships for the purpose of "tradition," and who then tries to fight a conventional war against a group that can barely fathom what the concept of "war" even is, and who are so technologically advanced over their opponents that they see the traditional battles as little more than you or I swatting at a pesky fly on a hot summer day. I know this all sounds a bit disjointed in a small write-up like this, but trust me when I say that the whole story when written out is a comic masterpiece; and it's easy to see why this made such a big splash when it first came out, after a 1990s that saw perhaps the lowest point of SF in its entire history. It comes highly recommended, and needless to say that I'm looking forward to the next book on the list, 2004's Iron Sunrise which just happens to be a direct sequel to this volume.
    • 4/5
      This book is jam-packed full of great scifi ideas, and for those I would give it 4 stars. Everything from relativity to biotechnology to a touch of steampunk maybe.But I found the first third or so dragged, and the ideas perhaps crowded out the characters a little, so that lowers the rating a bit. I did enjoy it however - at times it remind me of Red October, at times Douglas Adams' humour, both good things.An aside to the publishers: The edition I read (which might not be the latest one, I think it's a year or two since it was purchased) was littered with distracting mistakes - stray capitals, repeat letters, missing full stops. Not sure whether those were bugs from poor OCR, or perhaps it was an older draft not the final polished one, but I would appreciate better editing. Ebooks might be cheaper, but they're not free.
    • 4/5
      This well written and enjoyable space opera combines dry satire with steady, romantic adventure. Like Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep and Deepness in the Sky (although those are better), Singularity Sky takes a basically humanist view of a future in which human beings are minor actors in the cosmos but are the main characters in the story. The two dominant post-human actors are the Eschaton, an artificial intelligence of godlike power that forbids time travel; and the Festival, about which the less said the better, as the unfolding of its nature is one of the pleasures of reading the book. Adding acid to the tale, Stross' satire mocks the notion that government can control the flow of ideas without bringing about its own demise. The book's faith that 'information wants to be free' may be naive, but it makes for a satisfying story. The bigger challenge is that, in a future where humans are insignificant compared to the real powers, an author must choose between letting events play out within this framework -- in which case the actions of the characters can't matter all that much in a cosmic sense -- or pumping up the characters until they reach a kind of superhuman status so the climax can turn on their decisions, even if that seems inconsistent with the way the story says the world works. The way Stross handles this felt somewhat clunky as I was reading, but in retrospect is probably as good a solution as any other post-singularity story I've read.
    • 2/5
      It's a sci-fi novel, with various different planets, and lots of interesting machinery, and even some interesting races. I liked it a lot better than Accelerando, and understood pretty much all of it, which is a good sign. I think it's still more of an idea-novel than a novel about people, but the characters managed to be interesting and in most cases, not horribly alien.

      Definitely going to read the sequel, Iron Sunrise, since I have it already, but I'm not entirely sure I'll ever read more of this guy's stuff in future.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book, particularly the idea of what would happen if everyone was given everything they wished for. I spent 30 minutes trying to track it down having not remembered either the title or the author so I think that should act as an edorsement as well :-)
    • 4/5
      So the beginning was very good and drew me in and I finished the book pretty quickly considering how long it normally takes me to read (though I got the paperback as a gift six months ago and didn't really start reading it until I "space-shifted" it by pirating an ebook copy for my phone).

      Toward the middle/end the battle scenes were a bit rough, with all the "bearing two-five-three at five-zero-zero M meters arriving in two-zero-zero seconds at five-zero kps" technobabble. Yes, yes, I get it, they are a backwards culture and use archaic naval traditions instead of mind-machine interfaces. You don't have to spell out every single command.

      Then a bit of technolibertarian "information wants to be free" preachiness, with Vassily playing the part of statist strawman.

      A number of points where characters acted in especially unrealistic ways. Vassily acting like a dumb kid the entire time, and then in one scene acting like a competent confident adult, and then back to acting like a dumb kid in the next scene. Wondering whether he had made the right choices in life while staring into death, and then doing a complete about-face and showing absolutely zero introspection or gratitude for saving his life. Rachel knowing that her package is no longer necessary, but then delivering it anyway, and then acting offended when he laughs at it not being necessary?

      But overall it's good.
    • 3/5
      Rachel Mansour, UN rep, is traveling with a backwards planet’s military to try to stop them from violating causality, which will cause the AI intelligence that caused/is the Eschaton to destroy them and perhaps the systems around them; they’re worryingly close to Earth. OK but now I’m looking to see whether Stross’s obsessions (bureaucracy, artificial intelligence, Cherenkov radiation and glowing-green eyes) will show up the same way in the Merchant Princes series, which is next on my list.
    • 3/5
      So preachy, not much of a story, mostly propaganda for anarchism. Singularity has no bigger fanboy. Not sure why one follows the other but somehow they're logically equivalent in the author's mind, as if monarchy couldn't produce science or anarchy couldn't commit genocide.
    • 5/5
      This novel, Stross' first, is a space-operatic excursion into a universe of strangeness. Humanity has been scattered across the galaxy by an advanced intelligence from the future, the Eschaton, which may or may not be the ultimate development of humanity itself. In the five hundred years since that event, humanity has split into many different societies, many of which are in touch with distant Earth. Earth, meanwhile, has recovered from losing 90% of its population and concerns itself with trying to avoid further interventions by the Eschaton, which has warned humanity against trying to leverage the time paradoxes that faster-than-light travel can cause. This it takes a dim view of, and some populations been wiped out as a consequence.This novel concentrates on one particular society, which brands itself the “New Republic” but which is actually a rigid monarchical state along the lines of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire. It has subjugated a number of other human colony worlds, and on one of them, Rochard's World, a neo-Marxist revolutionary group is close to seizing power from the New Republic when a trans-human polity, Festival, suddenly manifests itself and intervenes with a cargo cult-like ability to create advanced consumer goods in return for input – art, music, philosophy, entertainment or just plain stories. The New Republic gets wind of this and sends a space fleet to restore order. On that fleet are two people all the way from Earth: a space drive engineer on contract from Mikoyan i Gurevich and a United Nations weapons inspector on the lookout for people foolish enough to try to circumvent causality and with the mission of stopping them before they cause the Eschaton to descend on their civilization and descend on it hard. That's extinction-level event hard.This is space opera in something of a steampunk mode. The New Republic's navy has a distinct Edwardian vibe to it; the ships are all mahogany panelling and gleaming brasswork inside, the uniforms are like something out of 'The Battleship Potemkin' and some of the officers' attitudes are not much different. The forms of address used by lower ranked ratings are lifted straight out of Hasek's 'The Good Soldier Sjevk', though in truth it has to be said that unlike Hasek's story of the Dual Monarchy in World War I, the officers are, for the most part, competent but severely blinkered. (Though the Fleet Admiral is in his dotage, which doesn't help matters.) Which leads to the course of the fleet's mission going something like the Russo-Japnese War of 1904-05 (where, in case you weren't aware, a Tsarist Russian fleet left St.Petersberg to sail half-way round the world to attack Japan, encountered and sank a fleet of British fishing trawlers in the North Sea having mistaken them for Japanese torpedo boats, and eventually was defeated by the Japanese seven months later in the Battle of Tsushima.)The engineer is assumed to be a spy (he is, but not for who anyone thinks); the UN inspector is worse, because she is - Shock! Horror! - a woman. (The New Republic's functionaries are nearly all very 19th Century in their attitudes.) Things are not helped by the presence of a member of the secret police, who is a recent recruit and seriously out of his depth.Meanwhile, on Rochard's World, the neo-Bolshevik revolutionary cadres are coming into contact with some of the races that accompany Festival as it travels across the galaxy, contacting civilizations, and then seedin copies of itself to spread further. Things are getting distinctly strange.The novel's style is quite distinct; it started out feeling like some of Stross' novellas from the early 2000s, packed full of ideas and throwing them off in all directions. Characterisation is competent: the naval officers, as I said, are out of Potemkin and Sjevk, the revolutionaries out of Eisenstein's 'October'; whilst the engineer reminded me of Jonathan Harker, the protagonist in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' and the UN weapons inspector is reminiscent of no-one as much as Lola Montez, the femme fatale spy (based on a real person, though someone romanticised) in George Macdonald Fraser's Ruritanian 'Flashman' novel 'Royal Flash'.I found this fun: other reviewers have not, mainly because they seem to have taken it too seriously and expected Military SF, a political story or a tale of first contact. It is at the same time all, and none, of these things.This novel is the beginning a series of novels concerning the Eschaton and the universe it shaped; I suspect that there will be no carry-over of characters into later novels.
    • 3/5
      I liked that he actually grappled with the glaring hole in wide-screen space opera: causality violation. Kudos for that. On the other hand, there was just something about the main characters that seemed a trifle teenager-ish despite their advanced ages; they didn't ring quite true to me.I'm still trying to decide what I think about Alice in Wonderland meets the Russian Revolution meets Baba Yaga...
    • 4/5
      first of the Eschaton series. slow to get going, but once it hits its stride half way through, it becomes a romp. it's about the extreme culture shock experienced by a tidy and primitive humanity suddenly overwhelmed by the chaotically open and technologically advanced culture of the far future. concepts like war completely lose their meaning when the technological level and the mindset is so utterly different, and the encounter devolves rapidly at the point of intersection to 'change or die'. not very interesting characters, but it's more about the plot. i think maybe he must have been reading a lot of Iain Banks at the time, which shows in the setting and the future shock culture-clash themes, and a bunch of Rudy Rucker, which shows in the breakneck pace and the mad surrealism achieved by tossing a whole lot of quantum and nanotech cutting-edge science into the blender and mixing at top speed. the result is entertaining, but not as thoughtful as Banks or as manically brilliant as Rucker, and his repressive and revolutionary human-cultural (arche)types are notably basic-issue. on nanotech stuff i'd be more inclined to recommend Accelerando, on singularity issues Glasshouse, both of which are really excellent and sparky. still, a fun read, and quite memorable for the over-the-top chaotic genius of the extremely alien culture called The Festival.
    • 3/5
      Singularity Sky was Charlie Stross' debut novel, and for those who embrace "hard" science fiction, it's a good read. Big fun, lots of ideas, and a singular take on humanity. At times, Stross writes his characters a little one-dimensional, but overall, this novel deserves the buzz it generated for Stross.

    • 4/5
      Meh. Far from Stross's best work. The plot doesn't really work - which given that it's a time travel parody isn't that surprising - but the intersection between the steampunk colony and the more nanotech based rest of the universe is also rather poor. In attempting to parody or at least highlight the shortcomings of a socialist style society, Stross spends far too long belabouring the point, telling instead of showing. When he does show us things he too frequently descends into farce, which doesn't help an SF book get taken seriously.Two main storylines are interwoven. Michael is an outside engineer on contract to the steampunk age Republic, fixing thier starships when word arrives that one of their colonies has been "attacked". Rachel is a diplomat on board with him - from the UN of all places - overseeing the causality laws.Everything follows pretty much as you'd expect. The second plotline follows the fate of the colony world, it's imperial rulers and a cell of counterrevolutionaries, as the attackers - a distant human offshoot called the Festival unpack from their microships and transform matter upon request in exchange for any information. Too little information is ever given about the set-up of the universe, which doesnt help explain it all, however Stross goes into quite excrutiating imaginary details about the different technologies at various points. This can work as a style but Stross fails to manage to do so, focusing on the outlandish bits rather than elegant summaries of possabiltiies. Likewise he dweels far too long on the vectors and g-forces of various in-system objects. No reader will be able to keep track of htese - unless they're modeling the system in realtime on a PC. Hence the book would be much easier to read if all the numbers weer ditched, and reported as "heading towards us really fast captain!". Similarly the various political ideologies get forced onto us in some detail, and whilst I'm sure these likewise contained various errors, they were too dull to read, so I skipped them. For no readily explainable reason many of the tropes created by the Festival end up resembling fairy tale characters. Maybe the story would have worked better if the reason for this had been laid out more clearly. The ending though does resolve most of hte plot points and neatly sets up a sequel - something I doubt I'll bother with.Readable. Probably enjoyable for rightwing timetravel steampunk fans, but he's written a lot better.
    • 4/5
      A good story that moved along pretty well. It was in the same vein as Stross's other "Singularity" books, though perhaps more accessible than some. My only real complaint is that the conclusion seemed a bit weak, not leaving me feeling truly satisfied.
    • 4/5
      This is the first Charles Stross book that I have read, though I've been reading his blog for a while. It has a fantastical and compelling start, but I worried that we'd be missing out on some likeable characters. However after a few chapters they appeared and the story really got going. Because I liked it so much I'd like to pick a small hole in the pacing of the second half where there's a lot of detail on the battle situation. However it doesn't drag and the story comes to a very good ending.
    • 2/5
      A science fiction novel with much hard science. Only some of it worked for me and I struggled to read it in parts.
    • 3/5
      I really liked the premise, the story and the characters. Unfortunately the technical explanations he goes into were, at least for me, very tedious and distracted from the story's flow. Parts of the book were like reading a user's manual. But over all the story won out in the end.
    • 2/5
      I have a love/hate relationship with Stross. He often is at the forefront of new ideas, but I can find the narritive often descending into farce breaking the suspension of disbelief.This book had a certain anticlimax to it which contributed to finishing with an overall sense of pointlessness. However, maybe this reflects its nature as the first of a series.
    • 3/5
      Well maybe it's just me but I got bored of this book about 3/4 of the way in. I thought maybe I should just keep reading till the end, but I just couldn't do it. There's some great ideas here, but the story seemed a bit confused and I found it difficult to remember all of the characters, let alone relate to them. I read this book after someone said it was like Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep. I disagree. Also I would say if you want to read a Stross novel, check out Glasshouse which is awesome.
    • 2/5
      Too heavily scifi for me.Singularity Sky takes place in the wake of a technological singularity that leaves mankind strewn across the galaxy by an artificial intelligence. As ever, Stross seeds his novel with thought provoking concepts backed by a firm foundation of cause-and-effect (you'll find very little real "magic" in his books) that keep the reader interested, but I think he sacrificed the characters in his book at the altar of technology. His characters felt like cardboard cutouts needed only to advance the plot to the multi-page, technology heavy descriptions of space battles. The author has a tendency to use dialogue in a heavy handed way to advance the plot and flesh out concepts in a way I found jarring. Also, as with Halting State, I found his use of multiple viewpoints ineffective. He has firm roots as a short story writer, and it feels as though he starts with a great novella and transforms it into a full length novel by adding another viewpoint in a very inorganic way.
    • 2/5
      Perhaps I'm just too old for this, but I couldn't make heads of tails of it. Too much theory, too many big ideas, not enough character and emotion for me.
    • 3/5
      Stross' dazzling space epic works on so many levels---his latent humor is a great break from the (at times) mind-numbing technobabble. Aside from its underlying NWO agenda (!!!), this is a great ride.
    • 5/5
      The future in this story is a taut, almost understandable form, and in the next instant. . .alien. This page turner has a sardonic humor to it that will keep the reader's mind pausing with intense attempts to viscerally imagine what you've just read.
    • 4/5
      I've read seven of Stross' novels before I read this one, and that was a serious mistake. One reason is because this is a very entertaining read, as an isolated post-disaster civilization that's a farcical, steam-punk, take on the Russian Empire is steam-rollered by a super-technology force that is beyond the comprehension of the autocrats. However, I would also have had a better understanding of the basic themes and tropisms that pop up in the following stories that Stross has written. There's the low-key hero who is simply trying to do the right thing. There's the put-upon woman of action, seething under the pressure of stupid gender expectations. There's the fascination with espionage and secret operatives. And, of course, there is then the whole matter of coping when your world is turned upside down, and you had better have an intellectual break-though, or else. I really have nothing critical to say about the book, though I can see where the many info dumps could put off some readers.
    • 4/5
      This is a strong first novel with lots of good things going for it. If features writing that feels effortless, a fast pace that keeps you turning pages, good and often quite original ideas, and occasional moments of surprise and humor. Indeed this book reminded me a bit of something you might read from Iain M. Banks, although Stross neither uses as broad a canvass nor seems as comfortable with ambiguity.Having said all that, the thing that, for me, kept this from being a really great novel was the characters. Martin and Rachel are likable enough, but neither is particularly deep and neither seemed to grow much in the face of some fairly astonishing experiences. Characters like Vasily and Burya and for that matter all of the citizens of the New Republic felt more like caricatures than real people. The book would have been much more powerful if I had really cared about what happened to these two in particular. The few denizens of the Festival that we meet seemed to offer lots of potential for intriguing development, but never got much. Since I never really connected well to any of the characters, I never really rooted for them or cared that much about which side won (not that Stross ever gave of any reason to doubt the final outcome).Beyond that, I’d say that as a society, the New Republic felt a lot too simplistic, and what happens after the climactic battle came as a bit of a let down. Still, I’ll definitely plan to read more from this author.
    • 4/5
      Terrific stuff. Owes a bit to Banks and MacLeod, but madly inventive: sensawonder space battles with post singularity AIs, Ruritarian conservatives, soviet revolutionaries... a wonderful debut.
    • 2/5
      Mr. Stross has a number of really good and clever ideas and an engaging style. However this book felt "crowded" as though he was trying to put all of his good ideas into one novel and didn't have the space to fully develop them. In Heinlein's For Us the Living (his first novel, published posthumously) - you can see all of the ideas that Heinlein later filled out in his dozens of later works. I get that same feeling reading this book - I would like to see what Mr. Stross does when he takes ONE of these balls and rolls with it, rather than trying to keep them all in the air.
    • 3/5
      It's been a long time since I read hard science fiction, and keeping up with the science and technology was quite hard. But Stross's vision is as interesting in political theory as scientific. It juxtaposes two cultures, one more advanced that is making no government work (the anarchist's dream), and one that has reverted to almost a feudal society. Everything changes by contact with the Festival, not a society at all but an information-gathering colossus with amazing technology they share in return for stories.The man characters are appealing. It is a real brain-stretcher of a book.
    • 4/5
      This is an enjoyable read, with a fast pace and some great characters. It has some very funny moments, with humour which at times verges on Pythonesque - however it's no comedy, and offers some interesting observations on how people (and economies, and political institutions) might react when suddenly exposed to technology which renders almost every aspect of their society obsolete.At times I felt the humour was out of place, and at others I wanted more of it. Sometimes I wanted more political intrigue, and sometimes I just wanted more on the space-based warfare. I didn't really know what I wanted from this book, and the author seemed determined to give me a bit of everything.While the style is all over the place, the result is satisfying. There's a story to be told and we do get there in the end.This was the first book I've read by this author, and I'll definitely be coming back for more.
    • 4/5
      A rollercoaster ride through a brilliantly imagined post-singularity future. Stross writes with a tongue-in-cheek style, loose and quick-witted, and although he's far from a ground-breaking stylist, the prose is decent enough to draw you through the adventures.Although the narrative is inventive, action-packed, and in places laugh-out-loud funny, the characters feel a little flat throughout. But this is more a novel of ideas than a story about real people, and Stross handles his theme - the effects on a rigid, primitive society of sudden contact with and alien species and access to anything people could want - well enough. There's nothing startlingly original here, and the swathes of technobabble may distance some readers, but as a first novel goes this was a credible effort, and shows promise for future works from a man who seems to be publishing a new novel every few weeks.