Saturn's Children: A Space Opera [Hardcover]

Charles Stross has crafted a deeply thoughtful, elegant and many layered science fiction tale. The story is a fantastic mix of traditional sci-fi concepts (there are sly nods to things such as "Ghost in the Shell", "Do Androids dream electric sheep), coupled with fresh perspectives, new ideas and slick narrative and dialogue.

The most interesting aspect of this novel is that it is set after humanity's extinction, and is a tale of robotic society that survives the extinction. This offers a refreshing and new perspective on the traditional human/robot relationship, with robots having to come to terms with the emotional fall out of there being no humans, as well as tapping into an interesting trend in science fiction of looking at non-human propogation of human culture (there are some amusing comments about contemporary philosophy within the text).

With regards to the story, I am unwilling to discuss it too much in case it spoils the novel for potential readers. However for those readers who might be worried about Freya's (the main character) role as a courtesan, I would say that this is well handled and works well within the story, if anything it provides a useful point of empathy for a reader by providing a "more" human robot with emotions. The real delight for any reader will be from the well written narrative and some snappy dialogue which works to create a vivid, elegant and tangible sci-fi universe.

All in all I would recommend this work to anyone interested in reading a good, enjoyable and different sci-fi adventure.

Set in a future when humanity is extinct, intelligent robots carry on the task of spreading civilisation, having colonised the solar system and sent ships to nearby stars. These are not soulless Asimovian robots as their minds are copies of archetypal personalities, created by conditioning using human experiences (some extremely unpleasant). This conditioning also inculcates basic emotions and needs: for example, robots can enjoy a drink or two (though not of alcohol) and can experience the pleasures of sex when they 'link up'.

For control purposes, humans made serving them the deepest desire of a robot. Now humans are gone, 'aristo' robots use this servitude capacity to enslave other robots. Their greatest fear is of 'pink goo' - animal cells of any kind that could, in theory, be used to rebuild one of the lost human 'Creators'. A human, could, simply by their presence, control any and all robots using their inbuilt servitude routines.

The novel follows Freya, one of a defunct concubine archetype, cloned from the original called Rhea, who gets involved in something illegal that involves smuggling pink goo. Freya is given the 'soul chip' (memories) of another of her archetype, Juliette, and starts to be influenced by Juliette's experiences. The abilities to swap soul chips (and thus identities) and to blank parts of soul ships complicates the plot no end. Starting on Venus, the action takes Freya to Mercury, then Mars, Callisto and finally to 'Heinleingrad', on distant Eris, as aristo factions like the Black Talon, and robot archetypes, especially one modelled on the Jeeves character, struggle over the ultimate prize...

Ironies abound. Humans, as their creators, are like gods to robots. Robot society is as venal and despotic as that of their creators. In their restless journeying (space travel for robots is uncomfortable and slow but usually not fatal) they are driven by the expansionist dreams of their creators, as robots have no purpose of their own. Despite 50 years of AI research, 'intelligent' robots are still as much a figment of the imagination as warp drive. While on the surface this novel is a romp built from retreaded components from earlier writers, underneath it raises issues about self-hood, freedom and the purpose of life, none of which robots really have.

Saturn's Children is dedicated to the memories of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Heinlein gets name-checked in the book, as does John Scalzi and Richard Dawkins.

Saturn's Children imagines a time after we humans have mysteriously gone extinct -- leaving only our intelligent, but enslaved, robots behind. Freya 47 is one such robot, a courtesan designed ultimately to pleasure her male customers; hard-wired into her brain is a lust for her One True Love. Which would be fine, except that he, along with the whole human race, stopped existing many years before Freya's creation. She and her sister sibs (Freya, and her sisters, are all based upon the template matriarch of a robot called Rhea) are left with nothing to do except explore the galaxy. Many of them will kill themselves from despair. Others are simply incredibly bored.

An aristocracy, of sorts, has developed -- the robots with enough wealth and hired thugs control those without money and thugs. Of course, even the aristos aren't really free. They don't admit the fact, but show them a live Creator and they'd be on their knees before them. Which is one reason why the aristos, amongst others, are keen to keep their Creators dead, despite the technology of the black labs, which are capable of producing "pink goo" -- flesh. But anyone with a live, and tractable, Creator could wield enormous power, and perhaps even enslave the galaxy...

Which is why it falls to a sex robot, and an organisation of butlers, to stop them, getting very confused, and often aroused, in the process...

I'm not sure why I find this book so hard to review. I liked it a lot. It was perhaps the funniest of Stross' latest books, especially at the beginning -- to the extent that I was reading out whole passages to people, leaving them in hysterics from Freya's pessimistic view of space travel and other such things. Freya is our narrator, and the story is told in first-person, so it's natural that she be the most fleshed out (un-pun not intended), but I also enjoyed the characterisation of the butler Jeeves'. With no masters to serve, their organisation has begun to dabble in politics, and it's clear that not all Jeeves' are the same -- some are cold, and cruel, and not at all worried about doing nasty back-stabbing things to any sex robots that cross their path.

There is a fair amount of sex in Saturn's Children -- Freya's frequently penetrated, in every available orifice, by no end of robot devices -- even space-ships. It's no fête champêtre for her, though, as she's also frequently left in horrible places to die or lose multiple limbs. I was never afraid that she was going to die the final death (which reminds me, unavoidably of the Doctor Who spoof: The Curse of Fatal Death). After all, it's clear from the fact that she's telling these events, that she survived them -- but despite this, the pace was, for the most part, kept fast and entertainingly so.

For the most part. The extremely large amounts of travel worked because of Freya's often funny attitudes towards it, and the fact that she could go into slowtime and arrive several years later after four or five pages. Towards the end, though, the blend of mystery spy novel and cyberpunk got a bit confusing. Especially as, this being robots, after all, some characters ended up being two or three different people at once -- same names, different people (except in some cases where multiple personalities were developed...), with different agendas. In a normal cloak and dagger tale, it would be very obvious that the nasty janitor with the distinctive pox would be to blame. In Saturn's Children, it could, and probably is, anyone and everyone, and I found myself overwhelmed a bit towards the end.

Nevertheless, Charles Stross has created a good story in Saturn's Children. The muddled and confusing parts were more than balanced out by the extremely funny bits, and for once, instead of the cold, heartless efficiency of our robot overlords, I found myself caring for a robot who was more human than her dead Creators.

[I should point out here, as I didn't in my original review for the webjournal, The Book Swede, that I think Stross is something of an acquired taste; you'd be best to start on one of the "Laundry" books!]