Rating: 
Summary: The Chippy Bombers are back!
Review: (Brits of a certain age will get that...)
Anyway, I really enjoyed this book. More than 'Singularity Sky,' in that it didn't have a draggy middle. That said, this book and 'Singularity Sky' were the best reading I had all Christmas.
Anyway, there's a great back story here, that's partially revealed in bits and pieces as the book progresses. I hope we'll see a book about it sometime in the future.
I don't want to say anything about the plot, because I don't want to spoil the surprises. Suffice it that the action takes place in a universe like 'Star Trek,' with lots of plot twists, turns, infighting, scullduggery, and the occasional blown-up solar system. And email is still the killer app.
Very satisfying.
Rating:
Summary: post-singularity intrigue
Review: As noted by others, a different feel from Singularity Sky, Stross's first book. Less of the random weirdness of The Festival. Great characters, surprising ending. Stross may be settling in to the novel as a format. I look forward to reading more of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Complex, imaginative, action-packed plot
Review: I got the feeling this sequel would be a lot easier to follow if I had read Stross's well-received debut, "Singularity Sky." Nevertheless, the quirky, believable characters - particularly adolescent Wednesday with her moods and her talented invisible friend - the immediate suspense, and the imaginatively diverse cultures of backwater McWorlds, rogue planets and luxury starships, kept me going until I could piece together the complex plot.
It begins with murder and secret orders, which Wednesday happens to stumble on, thanks to the clever voice in her head, as she and her family escape their doomed world ahead of the cosmic storm caused by the exploding star that annihilated the planet Moscow. The prime suspect in the destruction of Moscow is a trade rival, New Dresden, which vehemently denies the charge. Unfortunately, Moscow's response ships are already enroute to retaliate and only a handful of diplomats can countermand the order.
Enter Old Earth Agent Rachel Mansour, first introduced in "Singularity Sky." The Moscow diplomats are being murdered one by one and it's up to her to find out who and why and save New Dresden. There's also the Eschaton, the godlike artificial intelligence (from "Singularity Sky"), who keeps humanity within certain strict limits. Why didn't it save Moscow?
The narrative moves from view to view, giving the reader a bigger picture than any of the characters. The ReMastered, a Nazi-type cult culture, are responsible for considerable murder and mayhem, for unknown motives; Frank the Nose, a cantankerous roving journalist, comes to Wednesday's aid; Rachel jumps from the frying pan into the fire and the Eschaton is maybe not the omniscient arbiter humanity thinks it is.
Stross' writing is evocative and colorful; his sense of humor is dry and sly; and the plot lines converge actively for a satisfying, nail-biting conclusion.
Rating:
Summary: Reading it now and loving it.
Review: I'm not in the habit of writing reviews of books I'm still reading but Iron Sunrise appeared on my "plog" so I decided to wade in with a "Wow!". Stross has more going on in the 98 pages I have read than many authors manage in an entire book (or two...). I'd previously read Singularity Sky and loved it. This book is in the same universe but feels a bit different. Stross seems more deft and comfortable with his characters or maybe I thought Singularity Sky was just a bit on the silly side. I have the feeling that after Iron Sunrise we'll be waiting anxiously for the next Stross volume. Stross is in my mind a first class member of the UK SF luminaries that includes Asher, Morgan Reynolds, and Banks.
Rating:
Summary: Reading it now and loving it.
Review: I'm not in the habit of writing reviews of books I'm still reading but Iron Sunrise appeared on my "plog" so I decided to wade in with a "Wow!". Stross has more going on in the 98 pages I have read than many authors manage in an entire book (or two...). I'd previously read Singularity Sky and loved it. This book is in the same universe but feels a bit different. Stross seems more deft and comfortable with his characters or maybe I thought Singularity Sky was just a bit on the silly side. I have the feeling that after Iron Sunrise we'll be waiting anxiously for the next Stross volume. Stross is in my mind a first class member of the UK SF luminaries that includes Asher, Morgan Reynolds, and Banks.
Rating:
Summary: Another strong effort! *minor spoilers below*
Review: Ok, I am a bit biased. I have been reading sci-fi voraciously for 30 years now - so I am well-prepared to and accept the laws of an author's universe and hold them as the framework within which the plot executes. I can see how a new-ish SciFi fan could get overwhelmed by this book - since there's some heavy stuff here.
With that said, I found myself really getting into Stross' universe. I love the idea of light cones, causal channels/pairs for instant communications, the coupling of these ideas to economics and corporate motives and the all-around coolness of the gadgets (I want a Cornucopia!). Less so than in Singularity Sky, all of this stuff is in your face without too much reasoning behind the science - but the ideas are credible enough for me to rate this as "hard sf".
The social context of the book was fascinating to me as well - I think Stross did a great job of getting inside a disaffected and unusual teenager's head and sharing her motivations with the reader (I want to know what happens next?). The Eschaton is still sort of deus-ex-machina yet had realistic and believable weaknesses. The ReMastered were perfectly villainous - with a blend of fascism, ruthlessness and logic reminiscent of Nazis.
My only criticisms of Iron Sunrise are the sometime too-quick tying off of loose threads. For example - ***SPOILER ALERT*** the Military Grade Cornucopia in introduced and praised by the characters at such a high value - produces interesting items for one of the characters but left me feeling flat about what it ended up being used for and what it REALLY could have produced.
Also - what happened to Wednesday afterwards?? There are a couple other examples of this - but hey, I will take too many cool ideas thrown out by an author over too few any day! :)
It's clear that Stross has a lot going on in his head - and Iron Sunrise was one of those books that sucks you in completely - Stross' ideas are big, his gritty characters have depth and the storyline moves along at a good pace. It's my favorite premise since Dan Simmons' incredible Hyperion series. Read it!
Rating: 
Summary: Good start, cliffhanger ending, what's in between is lacking
Review: Stross seems to be able to start books off really well and introduce some very intriguing concepts, but doesn't go too far with them. My criticisms of this book are the same I had for Singularity Sky - extremely slow middle portion of the book, characters are a bit 2-dimensional, especially the villains. Stross does have an occasionally witty style of writing, but he seems to be trying too hard to cram in as many dry puns as he can and I found it a bit forced after a while. And he really, really needs to use his imagination better at what kind of technical terms and words people a few centuries hence would be using - this book is far too obviously written "now" from the contemporary slang and nerdy lingo he uses to narrate and the characters speak, and I 'd dock this book at least 1/2 a star for calling a chapter "Somebody set us up the bomb".
Positives include the first few chapters which are very good, and his description of the nova which destroys the Moscow system is very well written, but after that it fizzles until the last few pages of the Epilogue, which are actually much more exciting than the putative resolution of the book a few pages earlier. At least the Eschaton was expanded a bit in this one, and the idea of the ReMastered's unborn god, while never fully explored, is intriguing, even though a little derivative of the Ultimate Intelligence from the Hyperion books. Still, I'll probably be back for the next one and give Stross one more chance to show his potential.
I'd really give it a 3.5 like I gave Singularity Sky, but since I gave that one a 4 I'll give this one a 3 to balance out the numbers.
Rating:
Summary: Science is Back in Science Fiction!
Review: Thank You! Charles Stross. For someone who has grown up with some of the greats, Isacc Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, I have sorely missed new authors that keep the science in the science fiction.
I'm hooked. I'll be buying his other works, now.
Rating:
Summary: innovative science fiction
Review: The Escheton, an artificial intelligence, caused the human disappearance on Earth, sending the nine billion people to different planets by opening macroscopic wormholes in space-time. People were warned not to violate causality (time travel) or they would suffer the consequences by the Escheton or its agents. Five years ago, weapons of mass destruction destroyed the planetary system of Moscow though nobody knows who caused it. Moscow had in orbit four ships that were sent to destroy the 800 million inhabitants of New Dresden who they believed caused the destruction of their planet. There are people who know the codes to abort the attack but an enemy who seems invisible and invinciple is killing them one by one. Rachel Mansour, a black ops agent is sent to New Dresden where two of the people with the codes are staying and hopes to bait a trap to catch the assassin and find out who is behind this tragedy. On New Dresden is Wednesday, a Goth teenage, who works with the Escheton to learn who the enemy is and destroy it. The teen has knowledge that she is not aware of that could solve everyone's dilemma if only if she can figure out what it is. IRON SUNRISE is innovative science fiction with many subplots leading seamlessly back to the main storyline. The characters are well developed and feel realistic especially Wednesday, whose parents were killed by the same group that was involved in destroying her home world Moscow. Although she is emotionally a mess, she has the brains to be an agent of Escheton even though for much of the book she does not know what its' plans for her are. Charles Stross is a great storyteller and an author who is superstar bound in the science fiction galaxy. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Dancing On The Event Horizon
Review: The first volume in this series - Singularity Sky - read a bit unevenly, because Stross had a lot of explaining to do to get the reader in synch with his reality. After all, a possible future with has mankind spread throughout the galaxy not by his own ingenuity but by an irate being called the Eschaton, which was someone else's god, but took exception to the way we were learning how to abuse time travel in the process of learning how to exceed the speed of light. Since the Eschaton was not about to let itself be erased by the modification of history it seized the moment and moved nine tenths of the Earth elsewhere.
Since space travel is time travel, the far flung groups moved not just huge distances, but large amounts of time as well. Thus, just as the Earth was recovering from the mass exodus, humans from distant worlds made it back to the solar system, and the universe started to get smaller again. And stranger. There was a lot to explain, and Charles Stross does like to expound on the 'science' of his works.
With that work behind him, the stage is set for this volume, which is a lot more space opera and a lot less explanation. Once again a series of events points to an attack on the Eschaton, and Rachel Mansour and her husband Martin are recalled from their day jobs to investigate the destruction of one world and the immanent obliteration of another.
The the real star of the book is Wednesday Shadowmist, who first saw her entire world destroyed by an intentional supernova, and then her saw her family destroyed by agents from the ReMastered, a dangerous and effective cult intent on building an empire. Wednesday is erratically aided by an invisible friend - Herman, whom readers may remember from Singularity Sky, and Frank the Nose, a warblogger with his own issues with the ReMastered. If this is beginning to sound complicated, trust me, it gets worse. Wait until you get to meet the ReMastered.
This book is an excellent example of Stross's writing skill, moving forward with a steadily increasing pace. Stross thrives on detail, and can bring unnerving vista into perfect focus. He has a light touch with an ironic sense of humor. Characterization is equally deep, with the net result that the reader jogs along with considerable delight. I found this a strong entry, perhaps the best of his novels so far.
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