Singularity Sky

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: George Guidall

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?

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

pointless story

you knew the outcome of the story...when you have an unbelievable entity, it makes all the actions of the characters pointless.

1st in Eschaton series Fast & Fun 6/2020.

The Eschaton is an uber-powerful AI. FTL exists, which makes possible causal violations including going back and eliminating the Eschaton, so it ruthlessly punishes that behavior.

On a conservative planet, an entity called the Festival drops millions of phones that day "can you entertain is?" If so, they offer to make any wish come true.

Martin meets Rachel and good violent fin ensues!

Interesting ideas but very shallow characters

It started ok, a bit confusing but with interesting ideas. However when the “hero”s were quite standard and everyone else were almost like caricatures.

Humorous look at the futility of fighting progress

There seems to be an uncomfortable amount of bashing the Russian Revolution in the themes found here. A brittle authoritarian monarchy with a deep distrust of post-industrial technology is confronted by an external visitor that turns everything in their society on its head with a deluge of free information. When undercover agents from a freer, more liberal and technologically advanced society insert themselves into the military response, it’s hard not to think of cold war cat-and-mouse thrillers. To make the parallels completely undeniable, Stross has loaded the Soviet-style civilization (ironically named the New Republic) with Eastern European surnames. There’s not a lot of surprises in the plot, however, as the adversaries are so overwhelmingly mismatched. The rigid commanders of the New Republic refuse to realize this, so the reader is treated to a very rapid illustration of a society entering into a technological singularity. Here, I was reminded a bit of Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels where the practically omnipotent Culture society often comes into well-meaning conflict with it’s mortal neighbors. There were also some intriguing possibilities brought up regarding FTL travel and its implications on Causality, as well as some practical economic effects resulting from cheap nano fabricators. Separately, a lot of these ideas are explored in other Space Opera books, but they came together nicely here and serve as a reminder of what foundations must be in place before certain technologies safely come into a society’s grasp.

Hard sci-fi that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

My esteem for Charles Stross just grew with this one. It had been a while since I’d read one of his books (Accelerondo the last) and it wasn’t until this that I realized how much I missed his humor and humanity.