The Family Trade by Charles Stross

Initially slow going, then picks up...

I came across this series as a recommendation on Amazon's plog. It sounded interesting so I decided to give the series a try via my public library. I won't go too much into the plot summary as that's been discussed in various reviews here and is on the book jacket.

As others have mentioned, the premise of parallel worlds is not new, but the way in which each series deals with such worlds and how they operate are certainly a continual source of creativity. Then, of course, there are the colorful characters and how they interact.

The Family Trade certainly brings an interesting variation to the alternate universe story. Rather than another world in which the technologic advances are far beyond present-day Earth and the protoganist has to catch up, it is Earth which has advanced much further than the other world, or world(s), as the case may be, and the inhabitants that need to catch up. Throw in one world that appears based on medieval society with uses for the modern world and a giant dash of Mafia politics, then another world in which history deviates from present Earth since the mid 1700s on, and you have the makings of an intriguing story verse indeed.

Unfortunately, in this first of Mr Stross's The Merchant Princes series, the book really doesn't hit its stride till midway, after which the story flow moves much more swiftly and smoothly. The first half deals essentially with Miriam trying to understand and absorb the new world she's discovered. Aside from Miriam's annoying tendency to talk to herself about almost every little thing, this part is serviceable, if a bit flat. There's a great deal of information for both Miriam and the reader to absorb as well.

The pace picks up once Miriam has gotten some of the basics of this new world down and then has to survive pretty much by the seat of her pants. She's intelligent and thwarts multiple assassination attempts without being some sort of superhero caricature. She uses her brains and what weapons she has available to her; these in themselves make Miriam stand out from many other books in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. On the other hand, I do have to cavil at the fact that though she is an investigative journalist, she clearly forgot that data should always be backed up, and if it's hot, as in life-threatening data, always have multiple copies stashed in various places.

The romance element of this story is weak. I think the story could have been made stronger by not including this element at this time or by making it more plausible at least. The author made an attempt to provide a rationale, essentially 2 outsiders who are lonely and understand their isolation come together, but there wasn't really much chemistry between them, for this reader at least, and their relationship went from nil to 60 in virtually no time.

I gave 3 stars for the slow first half, the weak romantic thread that would have been better served to be cut, and the very, very abrupt ending.

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