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Charles Stross

The Revolution Business (Merchant Princes) Mass Market Paperback – 5 Mar. 2010

by Charles Stross (Author)

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Things are going badly for the Clan in this new SF novel of the Merchant Princes, the immensely popular series by Charles Stross. Locked in a vicious civil war for control over the kingdom of Niejwein, their army is bottled up inside a fortress unders siege in two parallel universes at once. Duke Angbard, the Clan's leader, has been laid low by a stroke: plotters are already conspiring in readiness for the deadly dance to come. Miriam, rescued from a tight spot in New Britain, finds the hopes of the young, progressive faction focused on her. But do they want her as a leader or a figurehead? She soon finds herself thrown into a desperate struggle for power. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Clan, researchers working for the US government have achieved a technological breakthrough. The War on Terror is about to go transdimensional.

Print length

368 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Tor Books
Publication date

5 Mar. 2010
Dimensions

10.69 x 2.16 x 17.09 cm
ISBN-10

0765355906
ISBN-13

978-0765355904
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Product description

Review

"[These books] are, first and foremost, great fun. Charles Stross's Merchant Princes novels are economic science fiction worth reading." --Paul Krugman, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and author of The Great Unraveling

"Politics, intrigue, and striking plot twists make this story a compelling read. The fast-paced and complex interpersonal and political maneuvering will leave readers hard-pressed to put this book down before finding out how it ends." --RT BOOKreviews on The Revolution Business

"For sheer inventiveness and energy, this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top." --Publishers Weekly on The Merchants' War

"Stross has taken the broad idea with which he began the series...and expended it logically in several initially unexpected directions. The action continues to be compelling, with the author throwing in new surprises every time the reader thinks the story's about to settle down." --Asimov's Science Fiction on The Merchants' War

"Twenty-first-century politics and high-fantasy intrigue make remarkably good bedfellows in Stross' Merchant Princes series. . . . The world-building in this series is simply superb, in other words, it is engaging, crystal-clear and disturbingly real..... The Merchants' War is fast-paced and engrossing and will leave readers ravenous for the next installment." --SciFi.com

"The Clan Corporate offers more proof, if any were needed, why Charles Stross has become universally acknowledged as one of science fiction's major new talents." --Mike Resnick

"The Hidden Family is a festival of ideas in action, fast moving and often very funny, but underpinned by a rigorous logical strategy. . . .Stross's breezy, almost Heinleinian mode of narration is on fine display in The Hidden Family." --Locus

"Stross continues to mix high and low tech in amusing and surprising ways. . . .[he] weaves a tale worthy of Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown." --Publishers Weekly on The Hidden Family

"Charles Stross brings info-tech philosophy to the world of fantasy. . . .Stories unfold across three worlds that are brought to life with humor-laced action." --The Denver Post on The Hidden Family

"With The Family Trade, Stross brings to fantasy the same kind of sly humor and clear-eyed extrapolation that he previously brought to space opera and horror, Miriam's predicament is presented with great wit and high suspense." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Blending the surreal hip fantasy of Roger Zelazny's 'Amber' series with the modern drama of The Sopranos, Stross's latest novel features a determined, independent heroine ready to make the best of a whole new life." --Library Journal on The Family Trade

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

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tor Books; Reprint edition (5 Mar. 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 368 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0765355906
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0765355904
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10.69 x 2.16 x 17.09 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 1,523,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 20,187 in Science Fiction Adventure (Books)
- 118,722 in Fantasy (Books)

Customer reviews:
51 ratings

About the author

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Charles Stross

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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).

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D. R. Cantrell

Too silly, and too much obscure politicking

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2010

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The fifth installment in the series, and series-itis is rearing its head I'm afraid. It's getting a bit silly and over-the-top (you could tell that from the cover: a dude in plate armour, with a Maxim gun to one side and, errm, a nuke going off in the background) but that I can live with. It's fiction, it's entertainment, not serious literature. Unfortunately, there's rather too much politicking and I get the feeling that some fairly important background has been edited out in the process of turning the three huge books that were planned into six small books. That politicking is too opaque to the reader and takes away from the silly entertainment. And there's no chance at all that this would work in isolation - if you've not read the previous books, this will score nul points.

I still got some enjoyment from it, but there were too many points, especially in the last quarter, when I came close to just putting the book down and not finishing it. So I'm afraid that I can't recommend this.

3 people found this helpful

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Nick

Great story but start at the beginning of the series

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 February 2013

Verified Purchase

I have managed to read all 6 box in the correct sequence, it's a great story and is really captivating if you can manage to get hold of all them to read in the right order. Highly recommended.

One person found this helpful

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A. J. Poulter

An excellent series continues...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 April 2010

This is book 5 in the 'Merchant Princes' series. Normally, 'book 5 in a series' raises the spectre of something running on cliches inherited from earlier books in the series. This series though continually re-invents itself and this book is no exception.

The series started in what appeared to be a classic fantasy scenario as ex-journalist Miriam Beckstein found she,had the ability to 'world walk' - jump realities between North America as we know it and one in which crime families, the Clan, operate in a feudal society, and use their limited ability to 'world walk' to extend their crime operations into the USA. Clan families fight among themselves and with a 'lost Clan' branch, living in a third alternate reality of North America. Things got more complicated when Miriam found a fourth reality, in which revolution was brewing in an early industrial Georgian monarchy, left isolated by French control of Europe.

This book starts with the American government closing in on the Clan. It has discovered that they have stolen some back-back nukes and is researching 'world walking' in order to mount an invasion, seeing the Clan's alternate reality as an easy source of oil. The Clan is having its own problems as it is under attack from without and within in its reality. Miriam has been impregnated with an heir to the vacant position of Clan chief. Understandably she is not thrilled by this and unsure about who is on her side - should she follow her mother's plan for Clan domination? Clan investigators have discovered a new fifth reality, which seems deserted but contains some relics of very advanced technology. Everything is building towards an explosive conclusion as elements of the Clan plan revenge for a nuke set off in their reality by the USA, while the US Vice-President, known only by his codename WARBUCKS, seems to be in cahoots with certain Clan elements. It is clear that the USA portrayed here is similar to, but not the same as, the one in our reality.

This is an excellent series: hopefully someone will see its television potential.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 March 2010

This book is simply amazing - not the best of the Merchant Princes, but only because the sequel The Trade of Queens (Merchant Princes) - the last in the series - is fractionally better.

So. At the end of The Merchants' War (Merchant Princes) the Clan were in a perilous position, under attack from the pseudo medieval army of Gruinmarkt, an alternate history replacement for the eastern United States. This volume picks up exactly where that one left, and maintains a frenetic action laced pace throughout, flipping between Gruinmarkt, our world, and the third reality, "New Britain", a world of steam cars and revolutionary cabals. (That timeline doesn't really come into its own till the sequel, but when it does...!)

Anyway, the languors of The Clan Corporate (Merchant Princes 3) are now left long behind and the story pushes on. Miriam, the closest person to a hero in this sequence, is still trying to get some control over her life, despite the rising tide of events - not only the war in Gruinmarkt, but increasingly hostile interventions by the US security forces (Stross does their business rather well, with a dense barrage of CODENAMES, tersely described tradecraft, and numerous expletives. (And where did he find out so much about how atomic weapons work? It's rather worrying.)

Some mysteries remain, but the storylines are now being tidied up, so though there are some - actually quite a few - surprises it's a bit less baffling than the earlier ones.

A really good read: I enhanced the pleasure by denying myself this until The Trade of Queens (Merchant Princes) was out (it really is, you know!) then reading the two back to back.

There are hints form the author that he may, in a few years' time, consider a new sequence set in this universe. I do hope so. In the meantime we have The Fuller Memorandum (Laundry 3) to look forward to (am I turning into a Stross nerd? I fear so...)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 June 2010

I'm loving this series of books. The fourth and this, the fifth, volumes have been real page turners.

The book does end on something of a cliff-hanger - but the sixth and, for the time being, final book is now published so I'll be investing in that very shortly.

One interesting thing about reading this series is the divided loyalties you feel as a reader. There's not exactly a clear 'good' or 'bad' side of the unfolding events, so you can end up rooting for a group of people who are actually terrorists and drug-traffickers!

Anyway, it's a fun book, not to be taken too seriously, but well worth a read.

3 people found this helpful

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The Revolution Business (Merchant Princes) Mass Market Paperback – 5 Mar. 2010

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Charles Stross

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