[FYA]⋙ [PDF] Free Empire Games A Tale of the Merchant Princes Universe Charles Stross Books

Empire Games A Tale of the Merchant Princes Universe Charles Stross Books

Download As PDF : Empire Games A Tale of the Merchant Princes Universe Charles Stross Books

Empire Games A Tale of the Merchant Princes Universe Charles Stross Books

Charles Stross kicks off the second trilogy of his Merchant Princes series with a fast-paced, thoughtful and very readable novel. If you've not read the original trilogy, there's enough exposition (deftly done, without excessive infodumping) to get you up to speed. The first trilogy is worth reading anyway though.

By turns we see a near-future USA which has become a panopticon police state (albeit not wholly without justification: what would *you* do if interdimensional world-walkers had just nuked your capital?), and an alternative-world North America a generation after a radical revolution trying hard not to go down the route of the USSR, but with a looming succession crisis threatening to derail that. And then the two timelines come into contact...

There's some good characterisation going on too, with the principal viewpoint character, Rita, being well developed and sympathetic.

Of course, this is the first book of a new trilogy, so yes it does end, if not on a cliff-hanger, then with clearly much left to cover. Nonetheless, the book finishes in a satisfactory manner, with something of a twist at the very end, which Stross manages to both pre-figure sufficiently that it's not a deus ex machina yet still comes as quite a surprise.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to parts two and three with anticipation.


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Empire Games A Tale of the Merchant Princes Universe Charles Stross Books Reviews

Well, here’s something a bit different an interuniverse spy story. Stross spun out a series of books in his series “the merchant princes” a few years ago. (Full disclosure. I have not read those.) Now, he brings the series back to life with the smooth as silk “Empire Games,” which is the first of the new series. Or something like that. It’s also meant to set the stage for what he plans on going on with now.

In short, it’s a bridge book from the old series to the new.

But it’s an intriguing tale in itself. Stross, not one to waste words, gives new readers all they need to know with a capsule description of what has gone before at the top. There was a “world walking” group, the Clan, who hung out in Universe 1, and in 2003 nuked the White House (universe 2), which had up to then been identical to the one we’re living in. Now, in 2020, the US has long since discovered world walkers, and set up a national security state that is essentially a panopticon.

Our heroine, Rita, down on her luck as all reluctant spies are, grudgingly agrees to join the world of intel. What she doesn’t know is that she has the world-walking gene. She finds out soon enough. Rita is an annoying sort (at one point she is described by the spymasters as a “high-functioning introvert”); she tries to sass all the people who are using her, which doesn’t get her very far, and she’s not really all that good at her job. But she is, umm, not unlucky.

Meanwhile, in universe 3, described as one in which France invaded England in 1760 (huh?) and the British royal family fled to North America, they have taken in the remnants of the Clan, after the US nukes their little operation in their original universe. One of the immigrants is Miriam, who is, yep, Rita’s real mom. We meet her in a refugee camp, and the next thing we know she’s a revolutionary.

Universe 2 discovers universe 3, and ... well, enough. Are you intrigued yet?

As I said, the book is a bridge book, so if you are intrigued you’ll be happy to know the next volume, Dark State, has arrived. I’ll give it a try.
I think I hate Charles Stross for not going on amphetamines and writing 24/7. Now I need to wait an interminable time for the next installment of the Trader Clan stories. Not even a promise date...
The book is an entertaining next chapter in his saga of people who can skip between paralegal universes and the logical events than unfolds as a result. The book starts a few years after the last series ended, and the US has a Department of Homeland Security amped up to the Nth degree, ready to go into spasmodic reflexive counteraction against threat of a supposed of an inter-universe attack. Meanwhile, in the other universe the remaining universe skippers desperately try to prepare their dimension to survive an incursion from the US. After all, the US carpet bombed the last universe with nuclear weapons.
The book nicely describes the events leading up to (I hope) some sort of diplomatic exchange based on mutually assured destruction - if the second universe can technologically catch up to the technology of our world.
What I find very satisfying is to build upon the hints - not so subtle - that a third and very advanced universe exists. One with terrifying technology such as converting the earth into a black hole.... Talk about doomsday weapons. And there are hints of an "origin" for the skippers abilities to "Jaunt".
Anyway - great book. Loved reading it. Hard to put down. (It helps, by the way, to have read the previous books...)
The Clan novels, which started well but descended into vituperous chaos, have been resuscitated. After the long lapse Stross has had time to clear his head and revive some elements which were obviously prepared in the original series but never developed as he got wrapped around politics and distracted from an enduring story. This new novel has promise of an intricate new series and walks away from the dead end of the old books. Not dead end story - he makes a fine job of weaving a new story that depends on the old - but the dead end breathless venom of the way the original series closed.

It is escapism with political overtones and social commentary, thoughtful and interesting. You don't really need to read the first series to understand it, and I have mixed feeling recommending you do. Just the first two or three maybe, ... or maybe just build your world view with this new one. It is almost like the new book is a new timeline.
Charles Stross kicks off the second trilogy of his Merchant Princes series with a fast-paced, thoughtful and very readable novel. If you've not read the original trilogy, there's enough exposition (deftly done, without excessive infodumping) to get you up to speed. The first trilogy is worth reading anyway though.

By turns we see a near-future USA which has become a panopticon police state (albeit not wholly without justification what would *you* do if interdimensional world-walkers had just nuked your capital?), and an alternative-world North America a generation after a radical revolution trying hard not to go down the route of the USSR, but with a looming succession crisis threatening to derail that. And then the two timelines come into contact...

There's some good characterisation going on too, with the principal viewpoint character, Rita, being well developed and sympathetic.

Of course, this is the first book of a new trilogy, so yes it does end, if not on a cliff-hanger, then with clearly much left to cover. Nonetheless, the book finishes in a satisfactory manner, with something of a twist at the very end, which Stross manages to both pre-figure sufficiently that it's not a deus ex machina yet still comes as quite a surprise.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and I'm looking forward to parts two and three with anticipation.