Rating: 
Summary: choppy
Review: This book was fairly good. It delves into some great hard science (specifically FTL and its casual effects on time) however it meanders through some cold war soviet political crap that is mind-numbing. The author also strives to make the space battles as realistic as possible. Usually this would be a good thing, however in this case the author puits all his energy into getting the naval jargon correct instead of actually explaining/describing what is going on to the reader. It was confusing at times. The author obviously has a solid understanding of physics but he lacks in ability to explain it to the reader and the reader is left to simply accept it or get boggled down in the sparce explanation. This author could learn a thing or two about explaining physics to a layman from Steven Baxter. All in all, it has some excellent elements that lend itself to sequels.
Rating: 
Summary: Space opera for the sophisticated geek
Review: This is a fantastic read. Charles Stross, along with John Scalzi, Cory Doctorow and Wil McCarthy are part of a new generation of hard SF writers who attack the genre with imagination and wit. Stross' debut combines a well-imagined and thought out universe, engaging characters, and humor in a fast paced package. The universe of the Eschaton is one you'll want to return to.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Beginning
Review: This is a good novel. Stross has written a interesting and mostly involving novel of the post-Singularity future where nanotechnology and AI rules.
If you haven't been reading up on Singularity theory (not Black Hole type singularities, this is the type described in Damien Broderick's non-fiction book "The Spike") and nanotech (Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation) then you will likely have problems following major parts of the plot. Singularity theory is the latest piece of "furniture" that is assumed prior-knowledge for much of the current wave of hard SF, particularly writers like Stross and Doctorow, et al. Probably also useful to know why FTL travel/signalling in Einstein's universe requires violations of causality and something about the EPR paradox in quantum mechanics and recent work on particle entanglement... Hey, this is SCIENCE FICTION not some bonnet drama from an arts/history dweeb!
Stross has fleshed out an interesting interstellar future-history scenario based around all this with a lot of humour thrown in for good measure. As a first novel it's very good overall and excellent in parts, but it's let down by too many pages of too detailed description of space battles and technologies and a rather let-down/watered-down ending. Still, I enjoyed it and I'm hopeful the writer will develop in his future work and overcome the rough patches in this one. I'm looking forward to the sequel Iron Sunrise where I hope to see this improvement happening. Three and a half stars.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent style, delightful ideas
Review: To build a story, Stross typically chooses a set of weird ideas--e.g., Cthulhu, nanotech and the Iran-Contra scandals--and rams them all together into one bizarre plot. He then attempts to hold the resulting story together through sheer style and momentum.
When Stross's technique works, it produces addictive, brain-melting concoctions. When his technique fails, it produces unmemorable, middle-of-the-road science fiction. Fortunately, Stross is blessed with enough style and momentum for any five writers, so he gets away with it pretty often.
"Singularity Sky" is my favorite Stross novel to date. He's written other novels with tighter plots and better-developed characters, but few of them pack as much delightful, twisted content into such a small space. "Singularity Sky" includes, among other things, a libertarian People's Soviet, genetically-engineered hive-dwelling art critics, and "laws" of physics enforced by pre-emptive asteroid bombardment. And some of the individual sentences are nearly worth the price of the book--who couldn't love "the brightly colored sporks of revolution"?
If you're looking for a carefully-paced plot and nuanced characters, you may or may not care for "Singularity Sky". But if you like gonzo style and a dense conceptual background, it's a treat.
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly Overrated
Review: Which means it deserves a 3.5, but I'm feeling merciful...Began well (great opening line) but pretty quickly lost momentum and novelty. Stross may be good at writing action but not so good at characterization or plot pacing. There were some novel ideas in the book, but they were mostly in the background (like the idea of the Eschaton) and never fully explored, and the foreground plot was less compelling.Plus, as others have pointed out, the book had too much of a contemporary feel to it, and then there was the horrid bit with the mimes...shudder... Not sure why this is nominated for a Hugo - if you want far better-written and original space opera, or just a plain good read, try Alastair Reynolds or John Wright,
Rating:
Summary: none
Review: With his long awaited and eagerly anticipated debut novel, (Stross) joins the upper echelon of new SF writers. 'Singularity Sky' has everything an SF fan could want: Human colonies scattered across the length and breadth of the universe, sophisticated technology, mystery and intrigue, conflict and revolt, and it's a damn good read! Leaves the reader wanting more.
Rating:
Summary: Good solid novel that doesn't quite make it
Review: _Singularity Sky_ is hot new author Charles Stross's first novel for a major publisher. (His first novel, "The Atrocity Archive", was serialized in Spectrum SF ending in 2002, and is due in book form with an appended novella, from Golden Gryphon, in 2004.) _Singularity Sky_ is set several hundred years in the future, in a somewhat backward part of the human-colonized Galaxy, the New Republic. The New Republic clings to an autocratic form of government (complete with secret police), and outlaws most post-20th Century tech, including life-extension. One day something called the Festival arrives at one world of the New Republic, and drops a bunch of phones -- and if you answer the phone, you can get pretty much anything you want in exchange for a story. Which quickly puts paid to the local economy. Back at the capitol world, an expedition is put together to reclaim this world from the Festival. They plan to use the time travel properties of FTL to arrive early enough to surprise the Festival. The problem is, fooling around with causality violation is dangerous -- an entity called the Eschaton enforces a "law" against causality violation rather harshly. And two folks from Earth, a spaceship engineer (and mysterious spy) named Martin Springfield and a beautiful diplomat named Rachel Mansour end up coming along on this expedition. They fall in love, complicating their missions, which turn out to be pretty much the same -- stop the New Republic from doing something really stupid that will get the Eschaton mad. It's a fun novel with some pretty nice ideas (particularly the Eschaton). I'm glad I read it, and I'll certainly read the sequel (_The Iron Sunrise_). But it's not really as good to my mind as most of Stross's recent short fiction -- the idea density is much lower, the New Republic is kind of an unconvincing political entity, the plot itself is OK but not particularly special.
Rating:
Summary: Good solid novel that doesn't quite make it
Review: _Singularity Sky_ is hot new author Charles Stross's first novel for a major publisher. (His first novel, "The Atrocity Archive", was serialized in Spectrum SF ending in 2002, and is due in book form with an appended novella, from Golden Gryphon, in 2004.) _Singularity Sky_ is set several hundred years in the future, in a somewhat backward part of the human-colonized Galaxy, the New Republic. The New Republic clings to an autocratic form of government (complete with secret police), and outlaws most post-20th Century tech, including life-extension. One day something called the Festival arrives at one world of the New Republic, and drops a bunch of phones -- and if you answer the phone, you can get pretty much anything you want in exchange for a story. Which quickly puts paid to the local economy. Back at the capitol world, an expedition is put together to reclaim this world from the Festival. They plan to use the time travel properties of FTL to arrive early enough to surprise the Festival. The problem is, fooling around with causality violation is dangerous -- an entity called the Eschaton enforces a "law" against causality violation rather harshly. And two folks from Earth, a spaceship engineer (and mysterious spy) named Martin Springfield and a beautiful diplomat named Rachel Mansour end up coming along on this expedition. They fall in love, complicating their missions, which turn out to be pretty much the same -- stop the New Republic from doing something really stupid that will get the Eschaton mad. It's a fun novel with some pretty nice ideas (particularly the Eschaton). I'm glad I read it, and I'll certainly read the sequel (_The Iron Sunrise_). But it's not really as good to my mind as most of Stross's recent short fiction -- the idea density is much lower, the New Republic is kind of an unconvincing political entity, the plot itself is OK but not particularly special.
Rating:
Summary: Tasty, fun, fast & furious--with a few 1st-novel rough spots
Review: ______________________________________________
Although he doesn't manage quite the density of invention as in a Typical Manic Stross Short-story(TMSSS, tm), there's a lot going on here, and I definitely plan a reread down the road a bit to pick up on the bits I missed.
The Festival, a spaceborn, free-floating gaggle of posthumans, is appropriately inscrutable. The culture shock from their visit to backward Rochard's World might be a bit overdone, but the shower of free cellphones that announced their visit turns out to be a nice foreshadowing of the Festival's Secret...
I really liked both Rachel Mansour and Martin Springfield, the dual stars and [minor SPOILER] . . . . lovers of the book. Stross does a really nice job of sketching the personalities of these two fundamentally-decent people, stuck in a Really Dumb world, as they cope and fall in love. It's a pretty believable portrait of post-Singularity people, I thought. A well-done evocation of oldfolks with Full Medical, acting young. Springfield is a classic sfnal Engineer as Reluctant Hero, and Mansour a fine Toughgrrl-in-Black secret agent. Nice.
Stross doesn't f*ck around in the backstory, and he's done his homework. FTL travel = time travel = the death of history, barring a very tough Time Cop. Here it's the Eschaton, the transcended AI who is very, very protective of the historical thread that brought it into existence. And carries a *very* big stick.
The plot is a nice reprise of countless 50s/60s "Earthman's Burden" stories, nicely done, and certainly topical for 2004. Stross does set the threshold for regime change somewhat lower than did GW Bush....
Cool throwaway: the Marxist-Gilderist Manifesto! (p. 133, US ed.) A nice nod to Comrade KenMac...
Bottom line: First-rate first novel. 4+ stars
Happy reading--
Pete Tillman
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