Buy used:

£4.93

FREE delivery: Nov 30 - Dec 7 Details

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas USA

Share

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

Follow the author

Charles Stross

The Hidden Family (Merchant Princes) Mass Market Paperback – 3 July 2006

by Charles Stross (Author)

51 ratings

See all formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

£3.96

£41.27

£3.96

Mass Market Paperback

"Please retry"

£4.93

£96.99

£3.50

"The Hidden Family" is the second volume of Charles Stross's thrill-a-minute saga of multiple worlds. Miriam, a hip tech journalist from Boston, discovered her alternate world relatives in The Family Trade, and with them an elite identity she didn't know was hers. Now, in order to avoid a slippery slope down to an unmarked grave, Miriam, known as Lady Helge to the Family, starts applying modern business practices and scientific knowledge to a trade dominated by mercantilists - with unexpected consequences for three different timelines, including the quasi-Victorian one exploited by the hidden family.

Print length

336 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor,U.S.
Publication date

3 July 2006
Dimensions

10.64 x 2.34 x 17.12 cm
ISBN-10

9780765352057
ISBN-13

978-0765352057
See all details

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Charles Stross
77
Mass Market Paperback
10 offers from £1.72
Charles Stross
830
Paperback
10 offers from £2.79

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

Charles Stross
119
Paperback
7 offers from £4.75
Charles Stross
381
Paperback
6 offers from £2.31
Charles Stross
4
Paperback
12 offers from £0.60
Charles Stross
1,429
Paperback
24 offers from £6.70
Charles Stross
77
Mass Market Paperback
10 offers from £1.72
Charles Stross
62
Mass Market Paperback
9 offers from £0.65

Product description

About the Author

Charles Stross is the author of the bestselling Merchant Princes series, the Laundry series, and several stand-alone novels including Glasshouse, Accelerando, and Saturn's Children. Born in Leeds, England, in 1964, Stross studied in London and Bradford, earning degrees in pharmacy and computer science. Over the next decade and a half he worked as a pharmacist, a technical writer, a software engineer, and eventually as a prolific journalist covering the IT industry. His short fiction began attracting wide attention in the late 1990s; his first novel, Singularity Sky, appeared in 2003. He has subsequently won the Hugo Award twice. He lives with his wife in Edinburgh, Scotland, in a flat that is slightly older than the state of Texas.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0765352052
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor,U.S.; New Ed edition (3 July 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780765352057
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765352057
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10.64 x 2.34 x 17.12 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,418,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 12,381 in Contemporary Fantasy (Books)

Customer reviews:
51 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Charles Stross

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Charles Stross, 50, is a full-time science fiction writer and resident of Edinburgh, Scotland. The author of six Hugo-nominated novels and winner of the 2005, 2010, and 2015 Hugo awards for best novella, Stross's works have been translated into over twelve languages.

Like many writers, Stross has had a variety of careers, occupations, and job-shaped-catastrophes in the past, from pharmacist (he quit after the second police stake-out) to first code monkey on the team of a successful dot-com startup (with brilliant timing he tried to change employer just as the bubble burst).

Customer reviews

5 star		47%
4 star		34%
3 star		11%
2 star		4%
1 star		3%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

D. R. Cantrell

Good sequel, not so good in isolation

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 July 2009

Verified Purchase

Carrying on from where the first book in the series left off, this is really the second half of the story that the previous volume started. As such, it makes some things rather clearer which were just confusing in the first installment, although not all - but then, there are more sequels to come. Overall, this and its predecessor combine to make one satisfying story which I have no hesitation in recommending to you.

But that's a recommendation for the two books together. This one won't work well in isolation.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 November 2012

Verified Purchase

i was so engrossed by this book when it came my way that i could not put it down and read it in one go.
Having just bought a kindle and still in bed when I finished this book I immediately purchased the 2nd instalment.
Again absolutly enthralling, I am hooked totally on this series, but eventually went a purchased "real books" for
the final three of the series as the Kindle editions were so overpriced saving myself £5

I have now ditched the kindle and purchased a Barnes and Noble NOOK ereader which allows me to download free library books
so Bye Bye Amazon/Kindles rip off. I will save a fortune now.
Great series. But unsure if the odd "ending or conclusion of this series" is due to Stross leaving him the option to run with more books in this series or just he ran out of a better ending>? The Hidden Family (Merchant Princes)

Helpful

A. Parry

Part 2 of "The Family Trade"

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 May 2006

Verified Purchase

It's fortunate that I read "The Hidden Family" immediately after "The Family Trade" rather than buying them as they were published, as they are really one story split over two volumes, and neither volume completely makes sense on its own - indeed there's one scene in "The Family Trade" which makes no sense whatsoever as it is completely separate from the rest of that books' story. Read as one work, however, this is a very engaging parallel worlds story which I can heartily recommend.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

John Fletcher

Don't read this if you're English

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 May 2010

Verified Purchase

I've enjoyed other books by Charles Stross, and I looked on Amazon to see which of the Merchant Princes titles had received the best reviews. I bought this one and took it on holiday, but left it behind when I returned home. That's something I rarely do, and only when I am sure I won't read the book again. Why? Well, the book certainly has virtues. The concept is interesting, the story rattles along and the writing is generally good. But it was the tone of the book that put me off. Stross is British, but the book is written for an American audience (it's entirely set in different versions of the US). It's perhaps understandable that he tries to write like an American in the US sequences, but when describing the Families, he lapses into an Englishman's view of what Americans would think the English nobility would be like - essentially a second or third-hand parody, which is hard to take seriously. A shame, really.

Helpful

The hidden family

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 November 2013

I liked this more than the first book as the premise has been established and we got on with the adventure. I still didn't quite fall into it though. Maybe it's because almost all the main characters in this are women and it's easy to wonder which one Brill was again. We also don't meet the poor people, though we do get a better look at them.
Miriam the former journalist has world-walked into a less advanced version of America and people have tried to kill her for her involvement with a sponging aristocratic family that she didn't know she had. In this book she world-walks into another alternate version of America, somewhat more industrialised but running on coal like in 'The Two Georges'. I found it hard to believe that nobody had ever experimented with designs before on the medallions that allow them to travel. And who would not bring back solar panels and copper pipes from our world to wire and plumb their draughty castle? We also see no obvious sources of power such as windmills and watermills. Anyway, people continue trying to kill our heroine as she sets up a business selling patents and subversive ideas.
For a determined bright woman, it's a fine story, but Miriam doesn't come across as particularly feminine and she has a filthy mouth. In other words, a man in drag. At one point the mother she didn't know she had reappears and the way this is done just felt forced, as though the author had changed his mind and used a character who already was written in from the previous book. Maybe not.
I still note that Stross doesn't know how to use colons. He follows a colon with a capital letter. This is incorrect. It's also very annoying.

Helpful

Big Ben

This is where I started this entertaining series.....

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 June 2009

....and it worked well for me. There is just enough back story to make the plot clear without spoiling my enjoyment of the first book - a neat trick from Charles Stross and one of the reasons he is a favourite author here.
This is highly inventive writing, with a tightly-woven plot that twists and turns, then doubles back just when you think that things are heading a particular direction. He uses the whole canvas available to him.
Our protagonist is a seemingly tough lady journalist with scientific training, I found that she grows on you as her underlying vulnerabilities and qualities are coloured in.
The character development is gradual but well fleshed-out in the main players - some of the supporting cast is more mysteriously depicted, but this can turn out to be necessary in the subsequent books. All is not entirely as it seems.
There is nothing predictable here, at least for me!
I am now on the fourth book, loved them all, and this one is a favourite, having started the series her.
Recommended for those who enjoy action-driven SF that explores alternative worlds with a retro flavour. Worth trying one of the books to see if you like it, since there is more of the same, and the pace never flags.
I loved it! Hope you do too.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	AbeBooks Books, art & collectables	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Download Audiobooks	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	DPReview Digital Photography	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations

Amazon Home Services Experienced pros Happiness Guarantee	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands

Amazon Warehouse Deep Discounts Open-Box Products	Amazon Business Service for business customers	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food	Amazon Second Chance Pass it on, trade it in, give it a second life

Select Your Cookie Preferences

Follow the author

The Hidden Family (Merchant Princes) Mass Market Paperback – 3 July 2006

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Customers who bought this item also bought

Product description

About the Author

Product details

About the author

Charles Stross

Customer reviews

Top reviews from United Kingdom

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.