Iron Sunrise

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Not only is Charles Stross' Iron Sunrise a "hard-science fiction masterpiece" ( Library Journal), it's also "a Hollywood thriller with a cyberpunk heart" ( Entertainment Weekly).

Planet Moscow is vaporized by an unnatural star explosion, prompting those who escaped to counterattack the likely culprit - planet New Dresden of the neighboring system. But New Dresden wasn't to blame, and as worlds go to war, an unseen enemy labors to destroy the universe itself.

©2004 Charles Stross (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Better than Singularity Sky, but still not there.

The story line and characters in this 2nd Eschaton book are much better. The bad guys are truly menacing and evil in way that is worthy of Stross's best writing. But the narrator is less than emotionally gripping. He just does an adequate job, but somehow he does not convey the menace, the fear, and the horror of it all. You can sense in the background because of the quality of the writing, but it does not ooze out from the lips of the characters as he reads the dialogue.

Is it the Eschaton's doing?

Charles Stross' Iron Sunrise is the second installment in his Eschaton series but is a standalone tale. In this universe, the Eschaton is an advanced AI that has inexplicably distributed the human race across the galaxy. Faster than light travel is feasible, but the Eschaton forbids causality violation. The tale opens with the recent destruction of a planetary civilization apparently by such a device. The main plot revolves around the investigation of the event and the prevention of a deadman kill switch initiated by the destroyed civilization that can take out the presumed perpetrators. A young girl who survived the destruction (and possesses an implant connected with the Eschaton), a pair of UN spooks, and a bizarre semi-religious sect that can thrall people gradually converge with plenty of plot twists to the end.

Stross plays with some heady concepts, not the least is the notion that human can create an AI so all powerful and so far beyond man's capabilities as to be unstoppable. At the same time, while many of the trappings of 21st century life persists (especially teenagers), a religion evolves to create their own gods in their own image with terrifying results. All the while, in the background, the Eschaton is watching and fiddling.

The narration is superb with excellent character distinction and smooth even pacing throughout.

good, not so good as Singularity Sky

The previous book in the series, Singularity Sky, is awesome. It's a fun, playful concept, being stuck in a future ruled by a mysterious and capricious post-human intelligence of human creation. Abounds with crazed juxtapositions of the suposed human diaspora with tongue-in-cheek-contemporary relevance. This one is good for the same reason, but it lacks the freshness and playfulness of the earlier one. Stross has brought in a new protagonist or two for this one, which is just as well, as the surviving protagonists of the earlier version were not so interestingly conflicted and/or flawed that you'd want to follow them through a whole new book. In fact, I reckon he could have ditched them entirely because they don't bring much to the new book apart from setting.

But leaving aside the dead weight, there is still a lot fo fun to be had in this book, and he does get some nice twists out of the Nanotech-nazis-in-space theme. And that's really Stross's strong suit - taking hackneyed old SF tropes and spinning them in a cheeky post-dotcom way. Worthwhile.

2nd in Eschaton series Fast & Fun 6/2020.

The Eschaton is an all-powerful AI. FTL travel is possible, which also makes causality violations possible, because it's possible to go back in time and change things, Including possible to go back in time and prevent the Eschaton from coming into existence. An evil group wants to do exactly that. Fascinating and fast moving events follow, involving Martin and Rachel, and an implausible but charming young teen called Wednesday. Worth re-reading

Meh. Not bad, but not good.

Any additional comments?

I only got this book because of the narrator, the summary didn't really appeal to me. Once the plot devices were explained, I bought in. The book started out good. It was a bit disconcerting though as it felt like the maturity level and the intelligence of the characters shifted as the point of view of the narrator changed. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but I didn't care for it. It wasn't just a "blind spot" change, it was more dramatic.

The character Wednesday started out being voiced as a highly intelligent if defiant teenage girl. When the point of view shifted to another character, she sounded like a whimpering, somewhat slow brat.

Also the motivation, at least what one could glean of it, of the bad guys seemed, to me, to be a bit shallow. The book appears to have been written with a next volume in mind. Haven't made up my mind if I'll continue the series.

Meh, good and glad I read it

It was good, fairly decent imagery, and plot moved along. The foreshadowing was obvious, and only a handful of characters to track. Even the ending was know early on. I did like it overall and helped ideas for my own book. Thanks.

Compelling

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes it is interesting, clever, compelling. It moves very fast, which I really like in an audio book.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Iron Sunrise?

Not giving anything away.

most underrated Sci-fi author I've ever found

I don't know how this author has so few good reviews on this platform but this guy blows my mind with his Intense working knowledge of The subject matter surrounding genre while bringing an amazing wit humor and cold realism into it. Novel possibilities never presented to me before. Unique and novel style of of the use of metaphor and adjective. I'm already depressed that there isn't A lot more of his work available for me to dig into.

Great follow-up novel

Charles Stross is a relatively recent find for me, but after reading his truly awesome Laundry series I made it a point to go back and explore some of his other works. Iron Sunrise is actually a sequel (though the author has said that there will be no more books in this universe) to Singularity Sky. It brings back the two main characters from that story, Rachel and her now husband, and introduces a who new spread of characters (slowly weaving the seemingly unrelated plots together). The world of these novels is quite interesting, as it is affected by the post-Singularity intelligence Eschaton, which upon reaching consciousness immediately flung 90% of the Earths inhabitants onto planets up to thousands of light years (and correspondingly that far back in time).

Humans being humans, we don't quite get along with each other, and the story begins with the planet of Moscow dying due to the sun exploding, and the retaliatory fleet (which can take decades to arrive) is launched at their competitor New Dresden. Of course the story isn't simply the mission to hunt down the Moscow Ambassadors who can recall the retaliation fleet, in a race against time as the Ambassadors are slowly being murdered, because as you would expect that is just the first layer of a multi-level plot that will keep you entertained through out the book.

Overall this is a great book. Enhanced if you read Singularity Sky but with enough exposition to allow you to jump in if you have not.

Meow!

Narrator makes several obvious mistakes, this one needs re-recording. Great story though, and want more from these characters and worlds!