Rating: 
Summary: Hard SF
Review: I read this book with absolutely no knowledge of its contents other than it was hard science fiction and was recommended to me by Amazon based on me previously buying books by Iain M Banks and Richard Morgan. After reading about 100 pages I came to the conclusion that it must be a part of a series so I set out to find the earlier books. Of course I never found them because this book is, hopefully, the first in a series. The reason for my confusion is that the backstory is only hinted at throughout most of the book and is almost grudgingly revealed piecemeal. With hindsight, this made the book a real page-turner for me and, despite a few rough edges and a less than satisfactory ending, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I won’t spoil the plot and recommend reading it, as I did, with no foreknowledge, so I’ll content myself with saying that it contains a lot of high technology but viewed from the point of view of a society that seems almost Victorian that makes it far more accessible and understandable than it may otherwise have been.
I highly recommend this book to anyone that likes hard science fiction.
Rating: 
Summary: An author from my own generation
Review: I was amazed and excited by "Toast: And Other Rusted Futures" Stross' collection of short stories. (I highly recommend this book). So, I was hoping for more of the same from his first novel.The other reviews are pretty accurate. Pluses:
+ He's from my generation - a programmer, avid Slashdot reader, etc. Much shared "mindspace"
+ Lots of jokes. Different than Stephenson's humor in Snowcrash, but still funny. My favorite was the one about the IETF taking over the UN (must see context)
+ Great exploration of clashing worldviews
+ Good technology substrate - this is a space opera for the post cyberpunk era. Nano tech, quantum mechanics, AI, bioengineering. Minuses
- Pace. he describes action almost in terms of RPG "melee rounds" of a few seconds each, but the description of those rounds takes a whole paragraph of dense military-technical jargon. If it is supposed to be fast, it should *read* fast.
- Certain sections (esp the end) are more monologues on his perception of the world and the future than really part of the story. Maybe this was targeted more at a larger fan base or something, but it didn't have the edge or wild ride feeling of his short stories which I loved so much. My reaction to those was "finally a new, original, exciting sci-fi author", but this is more "space opera formula with a twist". I will certainly read his next book and hope for something more. cheers
Rating: 
Summary: A bit rough edged, but good
Review: I've been reading Charles Stross's "Accellerando" cycle of short stories in Asimov and have been much impressed. As such, I've been looking forward to reading Singularity Sky.
This is a first novel and much be judged accordingly. It does have its rough edges. Like many hard SF authors, Stross has a love of technical jargon that does, sometimes, get in the way of the story. I must also note that I found the ending to be less than satisfactory and something of a cheat given the events of the story.
That said, the book is brimming with fresh ideas. Stross appears to be one of the few authors who takes the notion of a Vingean Singularity seriously and that comes through in this story to its benefit. He's also better at characterization than most hard SF authors manage (which isn't to say that it couldn't stand some improvement).
It is a book filled with ideas and brimming with a sense of wonder. I don't doubt that as he hones his skills, he will be an author to reckon with.
Rating:
Summary: Worth picking up
Review: Maybe not the novel of the year, but well worth picking up for an enjoyable, fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: So much squandered potential: Dissapointment Galore
Review: Okay, in all fairness Singularity Sky could have been much worse. Although it sports well defined characters and the plot is held together nicely -- mostly by repetative rambling rapsodies of unadulterated psycho/pseudo techno bable; I was (for the first half of the book) utterly lost in my attempts to understand the technologies, mechanics, and fictionalilties (including some beings) in this book. To be honest, I did enjoyed the work; but only after making myself threat through the first half. If the author's intention was to rely on the curiosity level of the reader to carry the story through: BRAVO -- brilliant work. Otherwise... it was just too darn confussing -- to the point where the reader is almost required to obtain a PhD in Physics to make heads or tails of the space travel/faster than light/casualities/etc, etc. -- just give me the equation, please.
One particular item which I found extremely dissapointing was the end of the story, which I found rushed and too open-ended. Another, was that the book seem to be written exclusively for the ultra-technical gicky populance, with a general dismissal of the low-tech/non-MIT graduate/software engineering segments.
In closing; I would had enjoyed it much more (and would have purchased the subsequent books in the series) had the author taken the time to "paint" a less detailed picture of the mechanics and just gotten to the business of telling what could had been a fab story.
Rating: 
Summary: DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME
Review: The concept of the Eschaton is interesting but never explored.. This is the first book that I know of that has used Chardin's Noosphere as a noun... sort of neat... but otherwise a terrible piece of work... speed read through most of this dreadful book and threw in the trash afterwords.... I would not recommend another sentient being waste their precious time on this beautiful world...
Rating:
Summary: Singularly Boring
Review: The novel is set far in the future after a forced Diaspora of humans across the universe by an artificial intelligence run amok, the Eschaton. Unfortunately, we find out very, very little about the motivations or activities of the AI - other than its prime goal is to keep humans from messing around with faster than light travel (FTL) and the possibilities of time travel it implies. The Eschaton doesn't want anybody going back in time and changing the conditions that brought it into existence. Other than that, the Eschaton is just background. The bulk of the novel is about a planetary system, the New Republic, run by a militaristic authoritarian regime that prohibits high technology and is intentionally isolated form the rest of the humanity. A Marxist (yes, Marxist) revolutionary cadre has sprung up on one of it's backwater colony planets - which explodes unpredictably when a mysterious starship calling itself the Festival arrives offering the inhabitants anything they want in exchange for information (stories, theories, what have you). They suddenly find themselves will all the material and technological goods they could have ever wanted, with some unintended consequences. Sound boring yet? It was. In the meantime, two agents of differing groups but with similar outlooks - Rachael Mansour and Martin Springfield - meet and fall in love, as they continue on their missions aboard a New Republic starship dispatched to crush the rebellion. And so the story goes... There are three primary problems with this novel. First, the characters are poorly drawn, except for Rachael and Martin. Second, the story is not well developed and the deeper motivations of various actors are poorly explained. And third, there is far too much filler type writing such as the tedious military jargon and aimless political maneuverings aboard the star ship that do absolutely nothing to advance the story and are tedious to read. Unless you want to read all the Hugo nominees for the sake of it, I'd recommend skipping this one.
Rating:
Summary: Hardly Satisfying
Review: The novelty and imagery of the book's opening line "The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones from the skies...," was perhaps what most caught my interest, besides the fact that the book was recommended by a panel of authors and critics at last year's (2002) PhilCon. Unfortunately, the book does not follow through consistently on the promise of the absurdly fantastic that is implied by its opening sequence. Although the author does throw some very bizarre and fantastic moments in again later on in the book, they do not end up seeming to mesh very well with the plot that involves the book's main characters.
The worst part of it has to be that the author didn't resist making space travel and battle feel like you are on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, not something I was expecting or enjoyed at all in the book.
Between the book's disjointed bizarre creativity, the Treky scenes, and, oh yeah, the story involving the main characters, which somehow gets lost several times along the way, I wound up feeling alternately disappointed and frustrated.
Rating:
Summary: Imaginative and entertaining
Review: Think Ken Macleod meets Cory Doctorow. Has a well thought out post-singularity future of the former with the offbeat situations of the latter. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but might have been better as a short story.
Review: This book felt rather like a short story padded out (mostly with irrelevant space opera scenes) to novel-length. I found parts of it quite thought-provoking, though, particularly the question of what happens to a society in which everyone is suddenly given everything they ask for. I love the way the prologue is written--it grabs you with its clever ideas and high speed--made me wish the whole story was written that way instead of bogging down in tiresome military drama, clunky romance scenes, etc... Not really a book to buy--I'd recommend getting this one from the library and reading it quickly, skimming through the filler.
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