Steven Guy wrote on December 31, 2009

This is one hell of an entertaining and thought provoking book. Again, the book is nearly entirely centred on a female character – one Freya Nakamachi – Baroque and Renaissance musician, professional concubine and kick-arse cybernetic dame! (you gotta be interested after a resumé like that!?) One of his best characters since Reeve in “Glasshouse” and Sue, the Lesbian Scottish cop in “Halting State”.

The book is full of thoughts and some challenging ones – like can we produce artificial intelligences similar to humans? Stross’s answer is yes.

Don’t read the reviews, especially all the crappy negatives ones, just buy it and delight in a very excellent yarn!

I am kind of wondering if the people who made “Ghost In The Shell” might be interested in animating it. I reckon Charlie Stross would be down for it! Maybe someone could animate it and I could present the Renaissance and Baroque music for the soundtrack. Well, one day . . . .

Fantastic stuff! Full marks to Charlie Stross!

PS: Buy the U. K. edition to avoid the cheese-cake cover.

Rating: 5 / 5

Jules Mazarin wrote on January 1, 2010

This should have been a likable book; I certainly started it with high hopes. We’ve got spaceships, awesome technology, a fetching heroine who is in perpetual peril of assassination by mutant ninja dwarves, and I know Stross can write tales that keep me enthusiastically turning pages to find out what happens next. Yet, I had to force myself to end this book; it wasn’t completely horrible, but reading it was more of a chore than anything else.

What went incorrect? Well, for starters, I reckon Stross had distress handling the fundamental premise of the book: the whole human race has died out (apparently through some sort of oversight), and the entire solar system is now populated by nothing but robots–who keep on pretending to be the human-like servants of mankind. As you know if you’ve read any of the other reviews, this puts our heroine, Freya, pretty much out of work, as she was made to be a sex toy for humans.

Stross could have played this as satire. We know he can be amusing and satirical; this is the guy who wrote Atrocity Archives, after all. But no, Saturn’s Children is completely and unrelentingly serious. Unfortunately, this is a premise that is hard to take seriously. Levity would have eased the suspension of disbelief; as it was, I had a hard time figuring out why all these robots cared about acting like humans. Worse, I found it hard to care about the robots.

I started out wanting to like Freya. But, to like a character, I must be able to empathize with that character to some degree. I’ve read tales in which there were robot characters who I liked–but that liking depends on how human the author makes his “robot” seem to the reader. The problem with this book is that every time I thought I might be getting to like Freya, Stross goes out of his way to hit me over the head with a reminder that she’s a machine: she leaks hydraulic fluid from certain orifices, sweats “silicone lubricant”, or takes an acetone shower to get squeaky clean. To be blunt, Freya is about as likable–and as sexy–as a fork lift. And that makes the book hard to like, indeed.
Rating: 1 / 5

Harriet Klausner wrote on January 1, 2010

By the twenty-third century humanity was extinct leaving behind androids that were built to feel and reckon and even dream like mankind once did. The androids made a caste system. The Aristos are nobles who own slaves expected to obey them or else. There are also some free independent droids who are mostly impoverished manual laborers.

Freya Nakamichi was made to be a sexbot, but thanks to her sibs is free. The mysterious Jeeves offers Freya a well paying job as a courier; she accepts. Her first assignment is to go to Mercury to pick up a biological sample that she is to place in her uterus and bring it to a lab on Mars. The task seems simple and straightforward although she has no thought what the sample is and why suddenly people seem to be hunting her for her “package”. She eludes killers, thieves and an assortment of other predators as she races to Mars.

Imagine a world in which androids are the dominant species and act like humans in all respects except they cannot reproduce. Thus SATURN’S CHILDREN is about a culture the androids have forged centered on a caste system although the slaves and the free strive for a better life. Freya is a bot Lara Craft, a strong willed skilled beauty who uses brain and some brawn to reckon her way out of danger. Charles Stross answers the Philip K. Dick philosophical question Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? with this original look at a mirror humanoid culture.

Harriet Klausner

Rating: 5 / 5

C. F. Crowe wrote on January 1, 2010

Stross is an accomplished tale teller in the space opera arena. This tale is at the edge of what one finds in the traditional SiFi space
Rating: 3 / 5

Alan Little wrote on January 1, 2010

The human race has baked itself off the planet. We are extinct. Excellent riddance to terrible rubbish! But!! We have left our artificial intelligences behind to carry on our wonderful traditions.

This is a very “Weird” novel. I would have to say it is the most unusual novel I have ever read. A Techno/Psycho/Mystery/Political/Sexual Thriller that has no lifeforms as we know it! (All Robots and Androids!) The main character is a “SEX-BOT!” A human form Android built to mimic a human female in every way. (Literally!) Now that humans are gone, She and her sisters of the same model do not really have a purpose.

But they have found ways to keep themselves occupied! From one end of the solar system to the other, in search of their “One right Like!” But don’t get me incorrect, This is not a “ROMANCE” tale. There is a lot going on in this book. Plot twists and surprises.

This is the only book I have read by Charles Stross. I like his style and his prose flows well. He has a excellent sense of humor. If your looking for somthing a small “OUT OF THE ORDINARY” (Really “WAY OUT!”) then I recommend it!!!!
Rating: 4 / 5