Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
373rd out of 988 books
—
4,969 voters
The Family Trade (The Merchant Princes #1)
by
Charles Stross (Goodreads Author)
A bold fantasy in the tradition of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, The Merchant Princes is a sweeping new series from the hottest new writer in science fiction!
Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She's a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-launderi...more
Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She's a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-launderi...more
Paperback, 308 pages
Published
May 1st 2005
by Tor Fantasy
(first published 2004)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
This was just okay. Oddly, it had exactly the opposite problem as the last (and only other, so far) Charles Stross novel I've read so far. Neither are enough to put me off reading more. When I read Singularity Sky, I found the writing very dense, and was often at sea, with no real idea what was going on. In The Family Trade, I initially found the writing style too simplistic. Whether that changed, or I finally got into the rhythm of the book, it's hard to say. But either way, this isn't a classi...more
21 likes · like · see review
view all 4 comments
Friends have been trying very hard to get me to love Stross. I liked (but didn't love) Halting State enough. This was a poor choice for a second. It may have put me off Stross all together.
The setup is simple enough:
0. Start with an interesting criminal investigation plot and abandon it in three chapters
1. Take Amber, but with only two worlds to jump between
2. Give the protagonist an almost Heinleinesque array of skills to perfectly prepare her for whatever comes up, but take away any prete...more
The setup is simple enough:
0. Start with an interesting criminal investigation plot and abandon it in three chapters
1. Take Amber, but with only two worlds to jump between
2. Give the protagonist an almost Heinleinesque array of skills to perfectly prepare her for whatever comes up, but take away any prete...more
10 likes · like · see review
This is an unusual one for me. I'm not normally to be found reading a straight 'this happened, then this happened' story written with such up front language.
In one way, I feel that writing like this - general, popular fiction-style writing - is a waste of the format: why bother just writing down EVENTS HAPPENED in the most basic language you can, when you have the entire dictionary at your fingertips, just waiting to be twisted and pulled and wrangled into all kinds of contorted shapes that can...more
In one way, I feel that writing like this - general, popular fiction-style writing - is a waste of the format: why bother just writing down EVENTS HAPPENED in the most basic language you can, when you have the entire dictionary at your fingertips, just waiting to be twisted and pulled and wrangled into all kinds of contorted shapes that can...more
Meh. Nothing objectively wrong, but not much right either.
For The Win or Reamde are both more interesting in terms of people having double lives in a fantasy world and in "the real world". Amber is a lot more interesting as grand fantasy a long-lost cousin getting reintroduced to a highly political family.
Amber is the obvious comparison. In the first book of the (original) 6 book Amber series, we get a bit of noir amnesia-chase, a battle storming heaven and the protagonist blinded and thrown in...more
For The Win or Reamde are both more interesting in terms of people having double lives in a fantasy world and in "the real world". Amber is a lot more interesting as grand fantasy a long-lost cousin getting reintroduced to a highly political family.
Amber is the obvious comparison. In the first book of the (original) 6 book Amber series, we get a bit of noir amnesia-chase, a battle storming heaven and the protagonist blinded and thrown in...more
Damn you, Charlie Stross! I was just getting into this when it ended inconclusively and thereby forcing me to immediately order the second one in the series. Yes, it's that good!
When Miriam, an investigative journalist, uncovers something dirty and takes the scoop of the century to her boss, she's immediately sacked along with the analyst whose done some of the research with her. Later, at a loose end, she visits her adoptive mother only to be given a family heirloom, a locket with a strange pat...more
When Miriam, an investigative journalist, uncovers something dirty and takes the scoop of the century to her boss, she's immediately sacked along with the analyst whose done some of the research with her. Later, at a loose end, she visits her adoptive mother only to be given a family heirloom, a locket with a strange pat...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
May 19, 2011
***Dave Hill
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Zelazny fans, Stross fans, magic-as-science fans
Shelves:
text
It's cliche to suggest this book bears a strong inspiration to Zelazny's Amber (albeit with a bit more economics and a bit less drugs). A woman who discovers she has a blood heritage embodied in a "pattern" on a broach that allows her to travel to another world of medieval lords and feuding families ... yeah, hard to argue the basic similarity there.
That said, Stross focuses more on the pragmatic than the phantasmagoric. His protagonist, Miriam Beckstein, finds herself at the center of the plott...more
That said, Stross focuses more on the pragmatic than the phantasmagoric. His protagonist, Miriam Beckstein, finds herself at the center of the plott...more
I'm a big fan of Chuck Stross's science fiction -- SINGULARITY SKY, ACCELERANDO. But this one left me cold. Why?
For one thing, the conceit is heavily purloined from Narnia: the hero is a boring person here, but a crucial person Over (or Under) There. Neil
Gaiman found a way to take the curse off it in NEVERWHERE: his restless, mundane hero makes the mistake of helping a runaway girl from Under There, and soon starts to become a nonentity Over Here. Stross goes another way: his heroine simply mak...more
For one thing, the conceit is heavily purloined from Narnia: the hero is a boring person here, but a crucial person Over (or Under) There. Neil
Gaiman found a way to take the curse off it in NEVERWHERE: his restless, mundane hero makes the mistake of helping a runaway girl from Under There, and soon starts to become a nonentity Over Here. Stross goes another way: his heroine simply mak...more
1 like · like · see review
I'm all the way to Book 4 of this series, and I'm really sad that I'm so hooked on the storyline, because I'm just not really enjoying the reading experience.
On the good side, the basic concept is interesting: There are multiple worlds out there where history diverged, and a few people with a recessive trait are "world walkers" who can travel between them. Miriam is the lost child of one of these families, and (re)discovers them, her skill, and this other world.
On the down side.... (1) The whole...more
On the good side, the basic concept is interesting: There are multiple worlds out there where history diverged, and a few people with a recessive trait are "world walkers" who can travel between them. Miriam is the lost child of one of these families, and (re)discovers them, her skill, and this other world.
On the down side.... (1) The whole...more
I found this disappointing. As with most genre novels, plot is all; the writing style and characterizations are rarely memorable. In this case, the writing is a notch above pedestrian, but the storytelling, while adequately compelling, is confusing.
The Family Trade is the first in a series of fantasy novels which attempts to combine traditional sword and sorcery fantasy with modern reality and economic theory. It's at best only partially successful. Truth to tell, I found the economic basis for...more
The Family Trade is the first in a series of fantasy novels which attempts to combine traditional sword and sorcery fantasy with modern reality and economic theory. It's at best only partially successful. Truth to tell, I found the economic basis for...more
Oh man, what a page-turner. (And what an ending! I need to get my hands on the second one. In a hurry.) I loved this one.
This book takes a single otherworldly premise -- what if there were a genetic ability to move between our Earth and a parallel world with different history? -- and develops it in fascinating, plausible ways that depend on real history, real economics, and real human politicking. Labyrinthine schemes and adventures! Shifting allegiances! Smart, adaptable characters! It's good s...more
This book takes a single otherworldly premise -- what if there were a genetic ability to move between our Earth and a parallel world with different history? -- and develops it in fascinating, plausible ways that depend on real history, real economics, and real human politicking. Labyrinthine schemes and adventures! Shifting allegiances! Smart, adaptable characters! It's good s...more
British science fiction author Stross (Singularity Sky *** Jan/Feb 2004) has written "a solid page-turner and an uncommonly promising series launcher," writes Michael Berry in the San Francisco Chronicle. Some readers, however, may be put off by the book's lengthy backstory and a few of the smaller roles read "like stock characters from a historical romance" (Austin American-Statesman). Though Family Trade does not boast the most original premise, Stross pulls off the first of this series with w
...more
Big Fan of Charles Stross , particularly his "laundry" series , & his Edinburgh techno-thrillers , but hadn't read any of his "merchant princes" stuff : big mistake on my part....
The story concerns Miriam , who starts the book as a business journalist in Cambridge, Mass: however , when her & her colleague Pauline uncover a massive money-laundering scandal they are escorted from the building. Miriam then receives some family heirlooms from her adoptive mother , 1 of which is a locket.
Pret...more
The story concerns Miriam , who starts the book as a business journalist in Cambridge, Mass: however , when her & her colleague Pauline uncover a massive money-laundering scandal they are escorted from the building. Miriam then receives some family heirlooms from her adoptive mother , 1 of which is a locket.
Pret...more
This story covers three genre of books, Science Fiction, suspense and historical. In the SciFic its an alternate world then our on, with cross time travel. As a suspense the main character Miriam who is an investigative journalist for a techical trade magazine has in an investigation found a chain of major corporation laundring money.
Then while going throuh documents her mother gave to her she find a locket that enable her to travel between worlds. The world she ends up in is the results of chr...more
Then while going throuh documents her mother gave to her she find a locket that enable her to travel between worlds. The world she ends up in is the results of chr...more
I was disappointed that I didn't like Charles Stross's "Singularity Sky," because I've enjoyed his writing since Charlie Stross was a regular poster to alt.peeves. Critics said it was "dense" - to me it to me it had far too many interesting but distracting ideas on each page to be readable, which I guess is what "dense" can mean.
Since I have high hopes for Charlie's writing, I thought I'd try again, and I wasn't disappointed. "The Family Trade" is a very promising introduction to a contemporary...more
Since I have high hopes for Charlie's writing, I thought I'd try again, and I wasn't disappointed. "The Family Trade" is a very promising introduction to a contemporary...more
The initial reaction to the premise, a family that can travel to alternate Earths, rightly makes you think of Zelazny's Amber series. You would be doing yourself, and the author, a disservice, though, to think that it's a rip-off, or "homage" as today's vernacular would have it.
Stross says right up front that he was inspired by Zelazny, and Piper for that matter and that's pretty much where it begins and ends. The Family Trade doesn't go beyond giving the family members the ability to change wor...more
Stross says right up front that he was inspired by Zelazny, and Piper for that matter and that's pretty much where it begins and ends. The Family Trade doesn't go beyond giving the family members the ability to change wor...more
One of my flatmates only really reads science fiction. His complaint about most mainstream 'literary' fiction is that it is devoid of ideas and 'nothing much happens'. I might counter that a lot of science fiction and fantasy suffers for having characters who feel like perfunctory cardboard cutouts and writing that is formulaic to the point it interferes with my ability to suspend disbelief and forget that its only a story...but he does have a point when he says that science fiction is where the...more
This book will not be for everyone, but Stross should get a lot of credit for writing a "two worlds" book that doesn't deal with a lot of the typical Narnia type magic. in this book the people, Clan members, who can walk through worlds transport goods back and forth: antibiotics and a few luxury items to their medieval world, while moving drugs and contraband within our world. What better way to transport illicit goods than to hide it in another world while when the DEA shows up, or ride a few h...more
Mar 02, 2011
Steve Wales
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Steve by:
Stokesley library
I didn't know this series, but I've read other books by Stross, so I picked it up when I found it in my local library and I enjoyed it, meaning I guess I'll have to get the next, um, five ordered in since they're not in my library's stock...
Adoptee Miriam Beckstein discovers that her biological family actually comes from a parallel world and that she has the rare gift of being able to travel between the worlds. Her family is part of a clan with this ability, powerful and incredibly rich from the...more
Adoptee Miriam Beckstein discovers that her biological family actually comes from a parallel world and that she has the rare gift of being able to travel between the worlds. Her family is part of a clan with this ability, powerful and incredibly rich from the...more
Unlike most of Charles Stross's work, this is neither a collection of short stories, nor a novel length pastiche or humor-related work. Its a fairly solid cross-worlds novel, built so far around an alternative reality/Parallel world premise.
The main character is a journalist who finds out in her mid thirties that her mysterious long-dead birth mother did leave something behind that her adopted mother had been hiding that leads to a genetic heritage that transitions her from one version of Earth...more
The main character is a journalist who finds out in her mid thirties that her mysterious long-dead birth mother did leave something behind that her adopted mother had been hiding that leads to a genetic heritage that transitions her from one version of Earth...more
This is the weakest of Stross's books I've read to date. There are a number of reasons for this, most speculation on my part: his tentative beginnings at writing in a genre he was uncomfortable with (he implicitly indicates himself), the presumed cutting imposed by the editors at the publishing hosue (Stross's novel _Iron Sunrise_ was published just previous to this book and is much longer; this book shows signs of editorial trimming, which leaves a lot of the plot details truncated or incompreh...more
Miriam's mother gives her a box of her birth mother's effects, which include a locket with a strange pattern inside. When she looks at the locket, she is taken to a strange alternate world, that is somehow stuck in a feudal, pre-industrial age. Except that some of the nobility wear Armani and watch Dallas reruns on flat-screens.
The premise could have been interesting, but the author always seemed to be one step ahead of me (and not in a good way), and wasn't always good about explaining the conc...more
The premise could have been interesting, but the author always seemed to be one step ahead of me (and not in a good way), and wasn't always good about explaining the conc...more
Dear Mr. Stross: Since political and economic analysis is clearly your main interest, perhaps you should shift into the non-fiction market. If you wish to continue writing fiction, please bear in mind that readers are expecting a story, preferably one in which something happens. Page after page of exposition does not make an interesting novel.
Adult fiction (of a sort).
Adult fiction (of a sort).
I wasn’t able to make it past page 40 of this book because I found it awkwardly paced and unoriginal.
Miriam is a tech journalist who gets fired for uncovering money laundering, and according to the dust jacket she eventually finds out that she’s a member of a crime family spanning multiple dimensions. I wanted to be interested in the story, but it was hard for me when the author spent the first three pages describing Miriam getting dressed and driving to work.
(Also, one of my biggest pet peeves...more
Miriam is a tech journalist who gets fired for uncovering money laundering, and according to the dust jacket she eventually finds out that she’s a member of a crime family spanning multiple dimensions. I wanted to be interested in the story, but it was hard for me when the author spent the first three pages describing Miriam getting dressed and driving to work.
(Also, one of my biggest pet peeves...more
Un elcteur est une chose étrange : quand c'est long, c'est trop long, et quand c'est court, c'est trop court.
Et pour ce premier tome, c'est "heureusement", le second cas.
En effet, si on y découvre une journaliste plongée par le hasard des réalités parallèles dans des conflits dynastiques dignes des Borgia, la fin du tome nous fait arriver à un point de l'intrigue situé à peine quzine jours après le début.
Et en quinze jours, elle a le temps de se transformer d'une journaliste encore sous el choc...more
Et pour ce premier tome, c'est "heureusement", le second cas.
En effet, si on y découvre une journaliste plongée par le hasard des réalités parallèles dans des conflits dynastiques dignes des Borgia, la fin du tome nous fait arriver à un point de l'intrigue situé à peine quzine jours après le début.
Et en quinze jours, elle a le temps de se transformer d'une journaliste encore sous el choc...more
This is the first book in a trilogy and the premise is interesting. The main character is the long lost relative of a powerful family that can travel between two worlds. She doesn't know anything of these relatives or her special abilities until her adopted mother gives her a locket found on the body of her murdered mother and she opens it and finds herself somewhere else. Unfortunately the dialog is awkward and unnatural. The characters display emotion through their conversation that seem inapp...more
This is another "Chronicles of Amber"ish story involving a protagonist in the real world who's really from an alternate reality where they are rich, powerful and cool. I picked this book up initially because it mentioned knights with guns and the title suggested warring merchant houes, which made me think "awesome sweeping multi-volume epic". Instead the story (at least in this first volume) feels rather small and the knights with guns angle is minimal. There's no Battle of Stirling Bridge with...more
I was under the impression that this was a science fiction book set in the far future, with a family that controlled merchant interests across a far-flung, loosely-connected human civilization. I was completely off the mark on that … and I couldn’t be happier. The word for this book, I think, is romp. Specifically, it’s a low-tech/hi-fi political and corporate intrigue and espionage romp. I love heist movies. I live for that moment where the protagonist gets a bunch of people together and says,...more
Props for having a female protagonist who has actual conversations with other women but other than that the book left me feeling a little something was lacking. Now I don't know what would happen if I were thrown into a quasi medieval other world with drug smuggling relatives making me a countess but somehow Miriam's reactions didn't quite seem right. Although, luckily, Miriam has done pre med and journalism (and she lives in the US) which has equipped her to deal with most situations by shootin...more
Well, I'm not exactly how to put my thoughts down for this book. I got it by find it and the second book left at a bus stop in SF. I figured, whats the harm in taking them and making an attempt at reading them.
Overall, I found it enjoyable but something is lacking that I can't quite put my finger on. The reading of the book took me a few days, and it is a good, enjoyable and quick read. Nothing to dense or heavy about it but the book does make an attempt to be that. It did make me feel connected...more
Overall, I found it enjoyable but something is lacking that I can't quite put my finger on. The reading of the book took me a few days, and it is a good, enjoyable and quick read. Nothing to dense or heavy about it but the book does make an attempt to be that. It did make me feel connected...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF...more
More about Charles Stross...
Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.
SF...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
