“They’ve given me a Priority One tasking to look at the state of geological and paleontological research and confirm that BLACK RAIN [timeline 2] was created in the Year of Our Lord 4004 B.C., just like our own time line.” [p. 269]
The first of a trilogy set in the same universe as Stross' six-volume Merchant Princes series, of which I've only read the first volume (The Family Trade). I picked up the essentials very quickly in Empire Games, which is set some time after the Merchant Princes series, but shares the concept of 'world-walkers' who can move between Earths on different timelines. In the Merchant Princes books, it turns out, the USA (not quite our USA, but recognisable) behaved very badly. Refugees from a devastated timeline (referred to as 'timeline 1' in Empire Games' useful preface) are now working hard to bring technological innovation to timeline 3, where the North American Commonwealth confronts the French Empire. Timeline 2, very similar to our world but heavier on surveillance and policing, is the initial setting of Empire Games, introducing Gen Z slacker Rita Douglas. Rita was educated by her grandfather, a former Cold War spy, in all manner of tradecraft, but she's working as a 'booth babe' at a tech show when she's recruited by the Department of Homeland Security. Apparently Rita is an inactive carrier of the world-walking gene, and the DHS believes they can activate her ability and send her to spy on timeline 3 ...
This was great fun, and I'm keen to read the rest of the trilogy when the TBR pile has gone down a bit -- especially as Empire Games does feel like the first third of a larger work, rather than a self-contained novel. Stross' humour chimes with my own, and his characters, even stereotypes like 'bad cop' Agent Gomez, are credible and rounded. I'm intrigued by the ruins in timeline 4, and by the genetics of the Clan: I applaud the cultural references ('they canceled the War on Drugs and replaced it with the Crisis on Infinite Earths'), and I look forward to watching Rita come into her full power.
For Shop Your Shelves Bingo, Summer 2023: purchased 01 AUG 2018, prompt 'games'.
No comments:
Post a Comment