Iron Sunrise
by Charles Stross
New York: Ace, 2004. ISBN 0-441-01159-4. 368 pages. Cloth. $23.95.
Reviewed by Bill Dynes
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Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross New York: Ace, 2004. ISBN 0-441-01159-4. 368 pages. Cloth. $23.95. Reviewed by Bill Dynes |
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Charles Stross' sequel to his popular first novel, Singularity Sky, begins with quite a bang. Something goes wrong at the core of the star Moscow Prime, and in the resulting nova a populated solar system dies. The accident wasn't a natural one, and it has triggered a "mutually assured destruction" scheme sending warships toward the assumed enemy's home world. Unless the expatriate ambassadors of the dead world send the proper recall orders, more millions of possibly innocent people will die. But someone is hunting down and murdering the ambassadors who hold the recall orders.
Singularity Sky has been nominated for a 2004 Hugo, and readers who enjoyed it will find much in Iron Sunrise to enjoy. Returning are agents Rachel Monsour and Martin Springfield, struggling again against the clock to save whole planets … and themselves. More importantly, perhaps, Stross also brings back his deft hand at plotting and his rich imagination, key elements in Singularity Sky's success. Less self-consciously humorous than his first novel, Iron Sunrise is more even in tone, but certainly not without wit and verve; it is a very engaging read.
Intertwined with the story of Rachel and Martin's hunt for the serial killer is the story of "Wednesday" Strowger, an adolescent refugee with a dangerous secret. Before evacuating her space station home, she uncovered documents implicating another organization in the destruction of Moscow's star. She's unaware of the significance of what she as found, but turns out to be pretty good at the cat-and-mouse games that develop when she is discovered. And it doesn't hurt that she's got a friend in a very high place. One of the frustrations with Singularity Sky had to do with Stross' reticence about the Eschaton, an enigmatic entity guiding Martin and concerned with limiting time travel and maintaining temporal stability within human-occupied space. It's Martin's disembodied contact Herman that leads Wednesday to those incriminating documents, and in the ensuing crisis we finally learn the history of the Eschaton and just why it is so worried about the future.
This combination of ambitious plotting, sweeping scale, and fast-paced action places the novel firmly within the space opera, but it also employs a healthy dash of the spy thriller, and isn't shy about mixing in the occasional social commentary. It must be admitted that the novel does fall prey to some of the familiar limitations of these types. The demands of juggling complicated plot lines can lead to unconvincing coincidences, and while Stross' characters are vivid, they are not particularly fully developed. Rachel Monsour for example is never much more than the typical cool-headed, supremely capable secret agent (and it doesn't hurt that she's got a magical bag of tricks that Bond's Q would envy), and her new husband Martin often just seems to be along for the ride. Wednesday, one of the principal point-of-view characters for the story, is however appealing on many levels, an adolescent rebel struggling with the consequences of decisions made in the hat of the moment.
At its heart, like all good spy novels, Iron Sunrise is interested in information: who knows what, when? how can -- or should -- information be communicated? Information can be as mundane as a backup file that wasn't trashed as ordered, or as provocative as "entangled" quarks that permit the transmission of data across the light years instantaneously. And of course, in an SF trope dating back to Mary Shelley, information may eventually become self-aware. The Eschaton, we discover, is an artificial intelligence born out of a "technological singularity" some three centuries earlier, a new kind of thinker that is interested, as all life is, in its own preservation. In Singularity Sky, the Eschaton demonstrated its desire to limit time travel, since the concomitant paradoxes could endanger its existence. Now, working to protect Wednesday from those who may be responsible for the deaths of whole planets, Herman realizes that the Eschaton may be capable of making mistakes.
A number of SF writers, Vernor Vinge perhaps chief among them, have written about the prospect of an informational singularity, which David Brin in an essay in his recent Tomorrow Happens describes as a kind of "techno-transcendence." Writers at least as far back as Shelly have warned of the dangers posed by a preternatural intelligence awakened by mortal meddling, dangers currently being demonized by Hollywood franchises such as The Terminator or The Matrix. Stross' approach is far less apprehensive, perhaps even optimistic. The Eschaton is, apparently at least, an agent for stability and continuity here, though a reclusive one, stepping in only when it perceives its own interests being threatened. More generally, Stross plays in highly interesting ways with the ways in which information -- political, tactical, computational, emotional &endash; flows among people, and he is deeply interested in the responsibilities that awareness or ignorance can bring. A basic dynamic at the core of Stross' handling of this trope is that those most anxious to control access to knowledge are the most dangerous.
If Iron Sunrise is a bit less ambitious in scope than some recent space opera cycles, such as that by Alastair Reynolds, it is no less creative and witty. The novel will certainly not disappoint Stross' fans, and should bring new readers to his work. A fast-paced and inventive tale, it does an excellent job of keeping the reader engaged and entertained … and looking forward to Rachel and Martin's next adventures.
