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Title: Singularity Sky Author: Charles Stross Rating: Not available Avg. Score: 4 Submit Comment Hits: 25

Review of Singularity Sky (Singularity)

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Comments for Singularity Sky

• Posted on 2008-06-28
  Singularly uninspired
  
  Science fiction should inspire a sense of wonder. It is a genre which, in the hands of a master, can take us into the realm of the mythic, challenge our thinking, and confront us with the possibilities of technology and our place in the larger universe.
  
  Unfortunately Charles Stross is not a master. I had high hopes when I picked up this volume, but found my self singularly disappointed. Stross attempts to take a light and humorous approach to his material. Unfortunately as Woody Allen once remarked "Death is easy. Comedy, now that's hard." None of Stross's whimsical touches are really very funny, and they undercut all the death and destruction caused by the Festival, so that what might have been exotic, shocking, or tragic winds up just seeming as inane and vaguely surreal as a bad MTV video.
  
  But what finally caused me to put the book down forty or so odd pages before finishing it, (and some of those pages were very odd indeed) was that I realized I didn't actually care about what happened to any of the characters in the story. Even in hard science fiction where ideas are so vitally important, if the reader does not believe and care about the people, all is for nought. None of the characters in this hodgepodge of half-thought out ideas feel real. Each one is so riddled with cliches, that one wonders if the Eschaton might have fundamentally altered human nature and replaced everyone's personality with bland television generated stereotypes.
  
  Some of the ideas in Singularity Sky are bold and innovative, and in the hands of someone like Vernor Vinge, William Gibson, or Gene Wolfe, could have taken us into interesting territory. But they are thrown together randomly and unfortunately the direction we are taken in is a "timelike path" into boredom.
  Score: 1
• Posted on 2008-06-15
  Rather disappointing
  
  Charles Stross has a fertile imagination, disciplined enough to permit an imaginative story. Indeed, I enjoyed Singularity Sky when Stross became technical, if sometimes only by clever evocative words. Normally, I don't care much about character development in SF but Stross hung a fair amount of importance on his characters whom I found it difficult to distinguish. The heroine was of course the only female although given to masculine behaviors. Stross is good with apposite unexplained references which give the observant reader many a chuckle. The middle two-thirds of the story held me but I found the opening tedious and the ending unsatisfying although not implausible. In short, the book is well worth reading once but I did not find it memorable.
  Score: 3
• Posted on 2008-05-07
  Self Indulgent Crap
  
  I bought this and the follow up just a couple of days ago, based purely on the authors rep and the fact that some writers that I do enjoy seem to think well of his work. Well I just have to assume that he's a really nice guy or has hypnotic powers because personally i think the books are utter garbage. Full of impenetrable science, (or possibly psuedo-science), interminably slow, clever for the sake of being clever, and politically rather childish. I must admit that when I wrote to Mr Stross, to ask why I was having trouble grasping his universe, he replied most promptly explaining his background was in computers, but even in his reply he couldn't resist using the word causuality! If you love cutting physics and don't mind authors who make up words to describe non-existant technology, then maybe you'll like this. Personally I'll stick with authors such as Heinlein, Scalzi, McDevitt, et al who can set up a technology and make it clear as a part of the narrative, rather than confounding their readers with gibberish.
  Score: 1
• Posted on 2008-04-08
  Wonderful but probably not for everyone
  
  I personally was absolutely spellbound by this book. Wonderful creative ideas: A space-going civilization called "The Festival" that attacks by raining down telephones that, if you pick on up, will grant you your every wish if you only tell it a story... "The Eschaton", a sort-of god that evolved from human AIs and forbids time-travel so as to avoid being edited out of existence, "Bouncers", kilometers long disposable starships that turn into fuzzy clouds of soldier nanotech, "The Critics", an entire civilization evolved from naked mole rats that makes a living via very aggressive social commentary, Paleo-Marxists, Reactionaries, Bemused New-Age civilizations, space battles, close-quarters battles, romance, spy drama, whatever, it's probably in here somewhere.
  
  It's hard to predict who will like this and who will not: if you like your sci-fi rich and broad with a lot of technobabble this might be for you.
  Score: 5
• Posted on 2007-11-29
  Thoughtfully and artfully crafted sci-fi
  
  Stross weaves a tale of "post singularity" technology that draws the reader in right from the first chapter. The best way to decide on this book is to download the first chapter on a Kindle and read it. You'll love the book if you love the first chapter, it's not a book that wanders off, it has a satisfying ending and all the middle bits are just as engaging as the opening.
  Score: 4