Invisible Sun

Empire Games, Book 3

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Length: 18 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

The alternate timelines of Charles Stross' Empire Games trilogy have never been so entangled than in Invisible Sun - the techno-thriller follow-up to Dark State - as stakes escalate in a conflict that could spell extermination for humanity across all known timelines.

An inter-timeline coup d'état gone awry.

A renegade British monarch on the run through the streets of Berlin.

And robotic alien invaders from a distant timeline flood through a wormhole, wreaking havoc in the USA.

Can disgraced worldwalker Rita and her intertemporal extraordinaire agent of a mother neutralize the livewire contention before it's too late?

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2021 Charles Stross (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

Pretty good

Not sure why some reviewers complain about this book being "rushed." I felt like it was very well put together, all the way up to the end. Stross is very good at narrating events. I would say this book is actually better than the previous two. if you've read the previous two books in the series you definitely want this one.

A good finish to a long running series.

This was a great conclusion to a story that's kept me coming back for each new entry for years now. Enough threads were left neatly tied off to be satisfying and enough is left to the imagination to make the reader wish to return to these worlds some day.

Excellent conclusion

this was an excellent conclusion to an exciting and well put together series. Stross can really write action and he's in fine form here. his characterizations of the protagonist are fairly well drawn and convincing.

stross is back

I only wish for more of the technothriller bits.

Finally we see the sci-fi roots of this once fantasy series and it's spectacular.

Engaging story and concept, weird ignorance of US

I admit that I found this book, and the others in this series, a page-turner. The world-walking concept, that is, traveling to alternate versions of Earth, is fascinating and is elaborated with some imagination, though some things, like the difference between the English of different timelines, are first brought out and then seemingly forgotten, as the author grows bored with them.
The main drawback is that Stross has chosen to set much of his book in the USA, without having any knowledge of or affection for our culture. His American characters speak a ludicrous Brit-tastic dialect, full of trainers (sneakers), goods wagons (freight cars), windscreens...you get the idea. His notion of American history is standard Euro-lefty paranoid, combining valid criticisms of international bullying with crackpot paranoia (he thinks the CIA engineered a series of "color revolutions" in Eastern Europe).
The series features a cuddly band of old Stasi agents, which makes me wonder whether to applaud Stross' chutzpah or question his sanity.