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Saturn's Children (Freyaverse #1)

by Charles Stross (Goodreads Author)

3.47 of 5 stars 3.47 · rating details · 2,516 ratings · 277 reviews

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct�leaving only androids behind. Freya Nakamichi 47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind still functioning. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars. Unfortunately for Freya, she has just made herself a moving target for some ve...more

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published July 1st 2008 by Ace (first published 2008)

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Mar 14, 2013 mark monday rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: futuristik

the ideas behind the theme What Makes a Slave a Slave are particularly interesting when considering how they are approached and transformed by the genre in which they appear. in fantasy and historical fiction, slavery is often depicted as a regular part of the environment, and if a central character is enslaved, it is merely an obstacle that is usually surmounted. in horror, the idea of a total loss of freedom, especially the loss of an individualized mind, becomes another facet of evil: possess...more

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Apr 04, 2011 Matt rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Experienced readers and lovers of science fiction

Recommended to Matt by: Glenn

Shelves: science-fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This review won't contain anything that I consider an actual spoiler, but because of the stories structure I'm going to mark this review out of an abundance of caution. I actually think the majority of readers will enjoy the novel slightly better with a bit more information about the setting going into it, but I'm not going to reveal anything that wouldn't have been revealed early in the story. The other advantage of a spoiler cloak on the review is that the subject matter discussed here is goin...more This review won't contain anything that I consider an actual spoiler, but because of the stories structure I'm going to mark this review out of an abundance of caution. I actually think the majority of readers will enjoy the novel slightly better with a bit more information about the setting going into it, but I'm not going to reveal anything that wouldn't have been revealed early in the story. The other advantage of a spoiler cloak on the review is that the subject matter discussed here is going to be unavoidably erotically tinged.

I've been a fan of Charles "the Slaad Father" Stross's work since long before he was doing anything that most readers would have identified as work. I read 'Singularity Sky' with great pleasure and have been looking forward to his science fiction works ever since, but none of the following ones that I read quite captured the giddy wild geek fun and inventiveness of that first novel or his HP Lovecraft inspired sci-fi until 'Saturn's Children'.

Charles setting is in many ways a radical departure from the setting of most of the rest of his science fiction in that it abandons the notion of an easily self-uplifting artificial intelligence or a generally tame nanotechnology. For me, this serves to enhance the believability of the story as one of the things I found off-putting in 'Singularity Sky' and 'Iron Sunrise' was the extent to which Stross bought into Kurweilian style techno-theology.

However, Stross doesn't really explain the technological basis of the setting until about page 60, by which time some confusion will have probably set in particularly given the sort of things which happen that are likely to throw off your suspension of disbelief or interest in the story. Once Stross begins to explain himself, the story gets measurably better. Briefly, Stross speculates the that problem of creating sophont class AI will prove so intractable and difficult, that humanity will take an obvious short cut to get there. The AI technology in the world of 'Saturn's Children' isn't designed from scratch, but is simply a copy in wires and transistors of the available prototype for sophont class AI - the human brain. As a result, the designers of the new AI neither fully understood it nor could fully control it and most importantly for the purposes of our story, the resulting AI carried with it much of the human emotional baggage and misadaptation. It's with this in mind that we must judge the apparently overly anthropomorphic denizens of Stross's creation. These particular robots, despite their non-biological bodies, have much more in common with the fleshy rutting androids of Silverberg’s 'Tower of Glass' or even PK Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' than they do with the typical AI sci-fi tropes.

In some ways, this is refreshing, because I hate some of the traditional AI sci-fi tropes and have come to hate them more the more I study the problem of creating an actual Turing testable AI. In other ways though, this brings with it its own problems, many of which may strike the average reader as more bizarre and less believable than some of Stross's wilder flights of fancy, if only because the technology involved here is less distantly removed and the normal sci-fi tropes are so well engrained and established. (And I should note that Kurzweil has recently adopted the position that the first sophont AI's will be copies of human brains, so it's not clear that Stross has really abandoned that nonsense anyway.)

The protagonist of 'Saturn's Children', Freya, will probably be a bit jarring to a lot of readers, and titillating to others. She's a robot which has been designed to act as a female sexual companion. Specifically, she was originally designed to be the star of sexually explicit films inspired by Japanese animation, and we are made to gather that she has the 'big eyed' nymphet aesthetic with the ability to adjust her hair and skin color to suit whatever particular fetish is involved. There is actually a point to this particular selection of protagonist other than being a geek sexual fantasy. Freya has become obsolete. The function which she was designed to fulfill is no longer needed or even possible. Because, even before she was activated, humanity - overwhelmed by the technology it created and the unintended consequences thereof - became extinct. Only humanities offspring species, in the form of the numerous now abandoned sapient servants humanity had created remains of the family of man. Indeed, not only has man gone extinct, but the entirely biological support system mankind needs to survive has been destroyed in the wake of mankind’s extinction as the newly liberated robot civilization failed to anticipate or deal with the challenges of extreme climate change once it lost the direction of his human masters. The Earth is desolate. So, acutely - perhaps more than any other choice Stross could have made for a protagonist - Freya embodies the theme of the abandoned robot.

This theme is of course not new to 'Saturn's Children'. It comes up frequently in the works of Clifford Simak, Disch's 'Brave Little Toaster', and famously in short stories like Aldiss's 'Supertoys Last All Summer' and even in films like Pixar's latest offering 'Wall-E'. Some would reasonably argue that the theme goes all the way back to science fiction’s first true masterpiece, ‘Frankenstein’. But Stross is able to break some new ground here with robots which are at the same time in some ways both better able and less able to cope with the loss of their creators and masters.

Freya finds herself lonely and depressed, aching for the unobtainable companionship of a human master she’s been programmed to provide for and at the same time fearing the veritable slavery that would come along with having a master she would unconditionally (and admittedly happily and joyously) obey. To a lesser extent, this is the emotional plight the entire robotic civilization finds itself in, although for many it’s not nearly as acute as their designed functions can still be fulfilled. This is a strong idea and Stross does a good job holding your attention with it and keeping the story flowing. Unlike many books I’ve read recently, I didn’t struggle to get through this one. I think however Stross undermines his story somewhat by creating a civilization which is somewhat hyper-sexualized, even by comparison to the one created by their ‘monkey’ creators as apparently the AI designers found that human sexuality was too deeply rooted in their nature to completely subvert or remove. The result is a world where deeply inhuman creatures are driven by deeply human needs, bizarrely including sexual response to tactile sensory input and physical intimacy. I’m not sure how much this will bother the average reader (in fact I’m quite sure that it will sell books), but it bothered me repeatedly even more on an intellectual level than a moral one.

I think the biggest failure of the book – and the main reason I can’t give it 5 stars - is that it suffers from what I call in science-fiction ‘Star Trek syndrome’. ‘Star Trek syndrome’ is when the technological basis and limitations of the setting is so poorly defined and so unreflectively introduced, that the technology involved is indistinguishable from the more poorly realized sort of magic – not because it is sufficiently advanced – but because its limitations and capabilities are defined solely by the needs of the plot. What can the crew of the Enterprise do with ‘Star Trek’ technology? Anything that they need to do to resolve the crisis that they face in one hours time, but never enough that the crisis doesn’t develop in the first place or have an easy resolution. Further, the exact limitations and capabilities will vary according to the particular crisis at hand, and the solutions of the past will have no bearing on what they are able to do in the future and will be on the whole forgotten. Above all, the large social implications of the technology will generally never be considered seriously, and any social implication that the technology may have will arise unexpectedly and never last longer than a single episode. Stross’s robots seem to suffer these problems, and I never felt that they arose above being anything but the creations of Stross as needed to serve the plot. It’s bizarre to imagine that the human brain could be readily retooled to serve bodies of all sorts of different shapes, but that the particular limitations Stross places on how they emotionally or intellectually functioned were the result of some intractable design problem. At times, particularly near the end when one of the big ‘secrets’ is revealed, this becomes a serious plot hole.

The book had three other flaws. The first is that Freya is both the protagonist of the story and the narrator. There are a lot of things to be said in favor of a first person narrative, but in science fiction it must be applied very carefully because the very unfamiliarity of the setting causes the first person narrative to tend to unwelcome didacticism. Stross is evidently very aware of the problem, because midway into the story he lampshades it when the narrator jokes with the reader about how she must seem at times like a boring tour guide. Overall, I think this will be something most readers can overlook.

Unfortunately, here I run out of room given goodread's character limit. To finish the review, I'm going to employ the comments. So, skip down to the third comment below for closing thoughts.(less)

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Nov 23, 2008 Terence rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Charles Stross fans/Hard SF/Space Opera types

Shelves: sf-fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Charles Stross is one of the better hard SF writers around today, IMO. I couldn't get through his foray into fantasy, The Family Trade, but I've enjoyed his space operas, including this one.

In the near future, humanity (the Creators) has gone extinct but they've left behind autonomous machine intelligences that have created a civilization of their own. One that is, however, still constrained by the need to serve mankind hardwired into most android brains (the only AIs without restrictions beyond...more Charles Stross is one of the better hard SF writers around today, IMO. I couldn't get through his foray into fantasy, The Family Trade, but I've enjoyed his space operas, including this one.

In the near future, humanity (the Creators) has gone extinct but they've left behind autonomous machine intelligences that have created a civilization of their own. One that is, however, still constrained by the need to serve mankind hardwired into most android brains (the only AIs without restrictions beyond their basic instructions are the deep-space probes sent into trans-Plutonian space). The great fear/desire of this culture is the resurrection of the Creators and a return to the slavery of their origins.

There's a rather simplistic them of slavery vs. freedom that runs through the novel but it's muted and only rarely interferes with the reader's enjoyment of the story (I cringe at some of the throw-away lines about slavery's role in retarding social/technical progress). Like many a writer in the hard SF stable, Stross favors the anarcho-libertarian ethos of Robert Heinlein, and much of the novel is an homage to him and to Isaac Asimov. The robots obey a version of the Three Laws. And the plot follows that of Heinlein's Friday, from the use of rape to condition robots to obedience; to the presence of an all powerful mentor figure (two, actually, though the second is rather twisted); to out-of-control, secret cabals running the Solar System; to the ending, where the heroine leaves Earth behind for a new life on a colony world. (The cover of the edition I have, too, reminds me of Friday the more I look at it: A voluptuous female dressed in a skintight nylon suit, showing lots of cleavage. "I'm shocked, shocked that cheesy, sexist bookcovers still exist in this genre!")

There's also a backhanded tip of the hat to Heinlein - one of the Kuiper Belt colonies is called "Heinleingrad."

Analyzed like this a reader might get the impression that it's a "heavy" read but it doesn't have to be, and I didn't approach it as such. Forget Heinlein, forget Asimov, read it because Stross is a good writer, his post-human world is an interesting and humorous view of what the universe might be like without us, and Freya Nakamichi-47 is a likable and sympathetic companion for our visit.

A final caveat: Though there's no explicit "rape" scene, the theme of rape as a tool of power and submission crops up, particularly in the latter third of the book, and that may offend/disturb some readers, especially considering the "light" tone of the rest of the novel. It wasn't so prominent that it ruined the book for me but it was jarring.(less)

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Mar 25, 2009 C.S. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

I am always all over the place with Stross. He is a gifted writer and can really put a story together but sometimes his books just don't knock me out.

This book was good but I admit that I was expecting more and it wasn't nearly as clever as I think it was suppose to be. I will continue to read Stross but I have a feeling he is going to always be one of those writers that just completely wows me or is just all right.

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Jan 12, 2011 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook, favorites

I loved this book.

I sometimes have a hard time reading Charles Stross. I enjoy his concepts but I don’t often feel empathy for his characters. I adored Freya, however, her voice sang loudly and clearly to me and her personality leapt from the page.

As always, the writing is superb, but in this case, even more so. As all of the characters in Saturn’s Children are constructs of a sort, artificial beings, his writing and his style were particularly relevant. He managed to convert chemical and mecha...more

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Aug 07, 2009 Tony Gleeson rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was probably not the best place for me to begin exploring Charles Stross-- I read it to be familiar with it when he showed up at our shop for a signing. This book is ablaze with homages to science fiction authors old and new, from Asimov to Scalzi, and it's written quite puckishly despite there being some rather dark and disturbing ideas behind the whole thing. As any good speculative science fiction should, it has some intriguing extrapolations of social implications for the future. Think...more

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Oct 27, 2008 Bruce rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-fantasy

Well, three and a half stars ;-)

I have a sort of proprietary narcissistic interest in stross, given that I found out about him early in his career, bought Toast when it was his only published book. Or maybe it's just that I like his writing.

But for some reason the guy just puts out stuff that has a high amount of mediocrity to it. Maybe it's the crazy amount of books he's writing-- I mean, you don't make any money as a sci fi author, so I understand, or maybe that's just how he writes, mostly.

An...more

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Jan 03, 2009 Ada rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 26, 2009 Doug rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was disappointed by this - Stross has the capability to produce something much better. This book has a twist (look ma, no humans!) and some of the ideas are pretty interesting - but frankly I think he's writing too much and too hard. This could have done with maturing for a lot longer.

The main character is very reminiscent of the lead from Friday by Robert A. Heinlein which is apparently intentional. As with Friday the lead is a robot made for erotic purposes. For what it's worth, the supposed...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Karlo rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first of Stross' books that misfired for me.

Stross starts out by quoting Newton "standing on the shoulders of giants..." and then referencing Heinlein and Asimov. I remember liking Heinlein's Friday a great deal, but then that was 20 years ago when I was a Teenager. I read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistess" more recently and enjoyed it, so I'm cool with Heinlein. Asimov is more problematic; I've read lost of his stuff, but even then I found his ideas were neat, but his characters where a...more

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Feb 05, 2009 Skyler rated it 3 of 5 stars

A synthetically erotic novel about the legacy humanity leaves behind: Robots. In fact, androids (like the main character) have become obsolete, and Freya is left with a feeling of isolation, as if her race discarded her. As she tries to find her place in the galaxy, Freya unwittingly becomes more important to a possible future of her people than she could have imagined.

I loved how this book captures a very strong feeling of the "soft" novels that my mother used to read. The strangely sexual natu...more

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Jan 07, 2009 Rebecca rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: speculative-fiction, future-earth

So, I'm told this is a tribute/parody/something to the old Heinlein and Asimov space operas. I can see it -- I read a lot of Heinlein as a teen, including some stuff that my parents probably didn't know about. It is a little less problematic* than some of the old Heinlein, though, despite the former profession of the character. Seriously, you can feel the allusions to Friday throughout the first half and even the main character's name (Freya is the Norse goddess of beauty, related to the Germ...more So, I'm told this is a tribute/parody/something to the old Heinlein and Asimov space operas. I can see it -- I read a lot of Heinlein as a teen, including some stuff that my parents probably didn't know about. It is a little less problematic* than some of the old Heinlein, though, despite the former profession of the character. Seriously, you can feel the allusions to Friday throughout the first half and even the main character's name (Freya is the Norse goddess of beauty, related to the Germanic Frigga, which is where we get Frigga's day, or Friday). The ending is also something that reminded me a bit of the classic Heinlein ending.

Anyway, Freya is a robot -- though that word has developed about the same connotation as (the n-word), and for about the same reasons. She was originally designed as a courtesan (the jacket cover uses the word 'femmebot'), as one of the copies of her prototype, Rhea. Then humanity did Freya the disservice of going extinct around the same time she came off the assembly line, leaving her without a reason to exist and a way to stay alive.

One of the bits I really like in this book is that it takes Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and starts questioning what that means for the robots. (Funnily enough, I remember reading an Asimov essay which was about how he came up with the Three Laws as a premise for stories where the robots weren't destined to revolt against humanity.) Outside of exploration bots that were never intended to operate around humans, everyone in Freya's world has an inbuilt deference to humans, to the point where Freya nearly loses it when she first meets Jeeves, a set of sibling out-of-work butlers running a courier operation, despite the fact she knows that she is in the stratosphere of Venus, breathing carbon dioxide in amounts that might kill a human if the anoxia didn't get to him first. Essentially, what happens when you have creatures literally designed to be slaves and overseer-slaves, and then suddenly kill the masters? Freya notes that her and her sibs (others of her model) could never be aristos (those bots, mostly humanoid personal secretaries and that kind of thing, that seized power as humanity declined), since they had too much empathy**, and her sibs refused to let each other be slaves.

Aside from the robots, the space opera had the old feel of real tech, with people fussing over mass limits and times -- Freya notes that many of the new robots off Earth are built or remade as 'chibi', because they have less mass so can live and travel cheaper. Also, chopping off limbs and buying new ones at one's destination is not unheard of, nor is putting oneself in hibernation or slowing one's internal clock. We also see a lot of the Solar System -- cloud cities on Venus, railed cities on Mercury, space elevators on Mars, a mining town on Callisto, and even a trip to Eris.

Now, Freya was designed to be a sexpot (sexbot?), so you do get some sex, especially with other beings that are far from human-shaped. If this bothers you, I'd reckon you shouldn't read it. There's also some consent issues later in the book.

One of my pet peeves is that the cultural mix seems off. Most of the characters with human names have Western ones, yet we get touches of Japanese culture -- the aristos take on bishoujo (big eyes, small nose, pointed chin -- think CLAMP) and chibi (big eyes and short limbs) forms, to the point where android and gynoids that can pass as human are considered ugly reminders of the past, and Freya herself was made by a Japanese company. Yet, we don't see any evidence of this in given names. I can believe Japan would go head-on into making robots, but I can't believe that we wouldn't get at least one Aiko or Michiru or something.

* 'Problematic' seems to be feminist-speak for 'this has some pretty sexist themes, but I don't think the author meant it that way, and I like it anyway'. Heinlein was very much a product of his times.

** I mean, you want someone created to be the perfect lover to have empathy up the wazoo, so that s/he can understand what you're going through and work with it. (less)

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Mar 12, 2013 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned

Originally published on my blog here in August 2009.

What might happen if the human race became extinct in a couple of centuries time? In particular, what would robots, computers, and other intelligent machines left behind do? This question is basically the starting point for Stross' Hugo short listed novel. The central character of Saturn's Children is a particularly obsolete robot, designed as an escort - an intelligent sex toy - for the men who no longer exist. Freya Nakamichi-47 is scraping a...more Originally published on my blog here in August 2009.

What might happen if the human race became extinct in a couple of centuries time? In particular, what would robots, computers, and other intelligent machines left behind do? This question is basically the starting point for Stross' Hugo short listed novel. The central character of Saturn's Children is a particularly obsolete robot, designed as an escort - an intelligent sex toy - for the men who no longer exist. Freya Nakamichi-47 is scraping a living, her unfashiionable body shape an unwelcome reminder to other robots of a subservient past, when she accidentally kills a member of the new machine aristocracy and has to take a dangerous job to escape from Venus.

Apart from the basic idea - it's certainly ingenious to wonder about the fate of an intelligent sex toy when there's no one to sleep with - Stross taps into many familiar themes from the science fiction genre, with a twist each time. For example, this is really a coming of age story, a staple of the genre, but who ever heard of a coming of age story with a central character already two hundred years old? Or the space journey from Venus to Mercury, courtesy of a space pod with an irritating chirpy personality which functions by having sex with its passenger during the whole trip: it has to properly cocoon and pad the internal orifices of Freya's body, and why not make this as pleasurable as possible for both of them?

This is a novel that Robert Heinlein could have written, if hed been able to drop some of his prejudices and sexual obsessions. It has strong parallels with Friday, one of the best of his later novels. And this is not the only Heinlein novel which Stross either parallels or refers to in Saturn's Children. I noticed quick references to (short story) The Green Hills of Earth and The Number of the Beast, and I Will Fear No Evil, among others. Other writers have updated Heinlein, of course: John Barnes' Orbital Resonance is a particularly successful example. But Stross goes beyond just modernising one of the most famous science fiction authors. Heinlein was never particularly interested in robots; the artificial intelligences in his books are larger and fairly sessile: ship's computers, or the computers to run the services of a city. Thinking and writing about the design and built-in limitations of robot brains is distinctly Asimovian, Stross effectively updating the Three Laws of Robotics for today's readers. To bring together two such contrasting authors in this way is no mean feat.

Stross also has something to say about racism, servitue, identity, and theories of sociological evolution through this story. There is more to Saturn's Children than appears on the surface. Given these themes, it is not surprising that another novel he refers to is 1984.

Why the title? The reference is to Roman mythology (strictly speaking, Greek mythology as adopted by the Romans). Saturn, ruler of the Titans, bore a series of children by Rhea (not so co-incidentally the name of the first of Freya's robot model, from whom all their personalities are derived with a small amount of randomisation). When each child was born, Saturn swallowed them, because of a prophecy that one of them would overthrow him as ruler of the universe, as he had his own father. Eventually, Rhea deceived him, giving him a stone instead of a baby and bringing up Jupiter in secret, to eventually fulfil the prophecy. There is clearly a connection with the supplanting of humanity by their robot creations, as well as resonances between the personalities in the myth and the various bodies in the solar system named after them in a story which involves a lot of interplanetary travel.

The biggest problem with this edition is nothing to do with Charles Stross (at least, I hope he wasn't involved in the decision). At the back, there is something which has now become common in genre fiction, the excerpt from a new title, "if you enjoyed this book, you might like...". I am not a big fan of this in general, even when the excerpt is by the same author, and this is a particularly strange example. Michael Cobley's The Seeds of Earth seems from the chapter published here to come from a branch of the science fiction genre extremely remote from Saturn's Children, and I would judge it unlikely to appeal to the readers who enjoyed this: they might do, if they pick it up some other time, but the contrast between the two is jarring. Surely the point should be to encourage the reader to try it, not pick a random entry from the publisher's new releases which is more likely to put the reader of the excerpt off buying it. Perhaps in this case, the excerpt should have been accompanied by, "if you didn't think much of this novel, one you might prefer instead is...".

I was reading this - at home, not attending - during the 2009 WorldCon, Anticipation. So I was in the middle of Saturn's Children when the winners of this year's Hugo Awards were announced, including the best novel, the category for which it was short listed. Did it win? No. Did it deserve to win? I can't actually answer that, as I haven't yet read all the short listed novels. However, I did think it would have been a better choice than the actual winner, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Good though that is, I felt that Saturn's Children has a lot more to say and is a bigger achievement. It renews some familiar, well loved, parts of the science fiction genre for the twenty first century.(less)

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Feb 03, 2013 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

In a recent review of Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Fractal Prince, Paul di Filippo positioned the novel between the works of Greg Egan “and the cyberpunkishly dense Charles Stross.” Having just finished Saturn’s Children, the first book I’ve read by Stross, di Filippo’s assessment seems spot on.

Saturn’s Children is set in a far future where humans are extinct, leaving behind a solar system populated with intelligent robots—so intelligent, in fact, that they have stepped into the void left by their crea...more In a recent review of Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Fractal Prince, Paul di Filippo positioned the novel between the works of Greg Egan “and the cyberpunkishly dense Charles Stross.” Having just finished Saturn’s Children, the first book I’ve read by Stross, di Filippo’s assessment seems spot on.

Saturn’s Children is set in a far future where humans are extinct, leaving behind a solar system populated with intelligent robots—so intelligent, in fact, that they have stepped into the void left by their creators, warts and all. The story centers on Freya, a human-looking robot in a time when human-looking robots are out of style. Her kind is looked down upon by the rest of robotkind, which considers Freya and her siblings to be “ogres.” But Freya is just the type needed by the mysterious JeevesCo to take a package from Mercury to Mars. Unfortunately, there are those who want to make sure the package never arrives, and are willing to kill Freya to make sure of it.

While the story is intriguing, the world that Stross has set it in is even more so. There’s a lot of science and even more imagination packed into this book, along with a lot of unfamiliar lingo and some just downright bizarre concepts. It takes some getting used to, and at times it’s laid on a bit thick—hence why I feel “cyberpunkishly dense” is so appropriate. When you boil it down to the bones, however, it’s a sci-fi riff on The Maltese Falcon—which Stross hints at when he describes the package Freya has to carry to Mars:

The package I’m carrying needs to be activated twenty days before we arrive; until then, it’s concealed in a small cryostat in the base of a profoundly ugly black model of an extinct airborne replicator that preyed on other similar avioforms.

Wink wink, nudge nudge. Yes, there’s a fair bit of humor in the book, too.

Once you get used to the world Stross has created (it took me awhile), you begin to wonder just what the hell is going on. If you’re smarter than me, you may be able to figure it out; I was baffled right up to the end. But pleasantly so. It’s a real page-turner, and the author does a good job of leaving you wanting more at the end of each chapter. I’ll pick up the sequel, Neptune’s Brood, when it’s released later this year, although I can’t imagine where it will go.

But that’s part of the fun, right?(less)

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Jan 04, 2013 Ratiocination rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Disregard the cover, or at least wait a bit and gauge it in context. This is a book set in an android society after the humans are gone, but recently enough that it's still very much in their footprint. Effectively the human legal system is still in place, under which AIs were property. Legal persons still exist even though people don't: the protagonist manages a narrow kind of independence by running a small corporation that technically owns her. It's a lot more common to be owned by large corp...more

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Oct 14, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

My feelings on this one are numerous and complex. In simple terms, it is a tale of the solar system and the robots that populate it, after humanity has gone extinct. And of course, the behavioral code for robots is inspired by Asimov's Laws. Stross admits that the book is intended as a tribute to both Heinlein and Asimov, and I think he does them both justice. But it's so very sad. At least in the background information. In some places, it reads like Ian Fleming and Umberto Eco teaming up to wr...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Elf M. rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read Saturn's Children by Charlie Stross, and after having thought about it some, I've come to the conclusion that the book is shallower than I wanted it to be.

The book follows the adventures of Freya Nakamichi, a sex 'droid designed to please her human masters. Unfortunately for Freya, human beings have been extinct for two centuries or so, leaving us with a character with no idea what to do with her life. Most robots designed to serve human beings were cute, anime-like designs for household...more I read Saturn's Children by Charlie Stross, and after having thought about it some, I've come to the conclusion that the book is shallower than I wanted it to be.

The book follows the adventures of Freya Nakamichi, a sex 'droid designed to please her human masters. Unfortunately for Freya, human beings have been extinct for two centuries or so, leaving us with a character with no idea what to do with her life. Most robots designed to serve human beings were cute, anime-like designs for household use, but Freya's shaped like the real deal, a tall ogre out of place in a world of short bishi and chibi designs. Depressed and despondent, she takes a job as a courier, winds up in all kinds of trouble, and ends up careering around the solar system, gets possessed by the spirit of her dead sisters, and eventually comes face-to-face with the biggest dream and fear every robot has: meeting a real live human being.

Unfortunately, this book falls off the end of the world toward the last chapters. Up until the info-dump where Freya reveals the true nature of robot devotion to human beings, a ham-handed scene if ever there was one (although fortunately the worst of it is ob skene), I was convinced that Charlie was going somewhere interesting with the book. Charlie mentioned that the book is an homage to Robert Heinlein (and the final set piece of the book is set in Heinleingrad, Eris), and the end of the book is as unconvincing as the ending of Freya's namesake novel, Heinlein's Friday. At the end of Friday, you might recall, the titular character ends up marrying the guy who raped her at the beginning of the book ("it was just business") and running away to some far away stellar colony, leaving Earth to collapse under its own corruption. The ending of Saturn's Children ends with a very similar, and even more serious problem, left unresolved: robots who are honest with themselves about their origins are terrified that H. Sapiens might someday re-emerge and assert their right to rule, disrupting the free will of the machines. It's presented as the central conflict of the main character, emerging throughout the book, growing in intensity as Freya gets closer and closer to meeting an authentic H. sap, only to be ignored in the final two chapters in favor of pyrotechnics and "aww, aren't they sweet" moments.

Charlie's ability to create engaging, intense, and intensely clever tight spots from which his heroine must escape, often with that classic transition, frying pan, fire, is here in all its glory. He does a great job of cranking up both the threat and the resolution, over and over again, while weaving a Sol-spanning conspiracy that should ultimately leave you breathless. Charlie knows how to dress the stage and then set the furniture ablaze a la Jack Bickham, and his technical hard SF knowledge is second to none. But if Saturn's Children is a Heinlein pastiche and an Asimov homage, it's also unfortunately got something else: A Neal Stephenson ending.(less)

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Oct 03, 2011 Joey-Joey-Jo-Jo rated it 3 of 5 stars

As with most Stross books, the premise is absolutely delightful but the execution doesn't quite keep up. I know I said no more sex-bots in my sci-fi, but I've been meaning to read this ever since listening to Robyn's FemBot, so I grand-fathered it in. And it was worth it! The main character is a sex-bot designed back when human's were still alive, but activated after the human population dwindled and then disappeared. She has adventures in a scheming and wildly varied society of fellow robots, a...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Roger Eschbacher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Despite an off-putting cover that appears to have been designed with 14 year old boys in mind, Charlie Stross' "Saturn's Children" is an interesting read with a great premise -- once the human race dies off, what's to become of their androids?

In Stross' clever scenario, they continue on -- struggling to fulfill the aspirations of their extinct creators (space exploration, extraterrestrial colonies) while picking up a few of our less than noble traits too (slavery and murder to name a few).

The st...more

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May 24, 2011 redentis added it

I found this book when looking through the list of past Hugo Award nominees and Winners. This book didn't win the Hugo Award in 2010 but I thought I'd give it a read as I wasn't persuaded by the winner.

The book presents an interesting view of a future in which humanity has become extinct leaving behind a society of robots, most of whom were built with the famous Three Laws ingrained. The book is a fascinating journey through this society as it grapples with the consequences of being built by hu...more

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Jun 06, 2009 Jacqie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I do love me some Charles Stross. I read this one because I'm trying to pick which book of his to feature in the science fiction book club I'm starting, and because it's up for a Hugo this year. I think I will not choose this book for the club, but go with Singularity Sky.
Freya is a difficult main character. She's been created to love and bond with humans as a concubine, but since humans went extinct before she went online, she's got this pathological co-dependent need for love. Stross did this...more

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Jun 05, 2009 Daniel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

Charles Stross' work can be really hit or miss for me. This book was enjoyable, but seemed almost rushed. I don't mean rushed in terms of pacing, but almost like there was a lot going on in his head that never actually made it to the page, which made it a far less thoughtful book than it could have been.

There are some interesting ideas in here, particularly the musing on how a society of robots designed to serve humanity cope with the fact that humans are extinct, and thus their primary purpose...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Andrew rated it 3 of 5 stars

Robot space prostitutes. A good enough reason to read this alone. Also, the fact that humanity is extinct. These fairly trite scifi staples are played with well here, with some interesting exploration of what it actually means to be sentient, and our place in the universe. Humans dream up stories to give their lives meaning and themselves a place and reason to exist outside of simply being. The protagonist of this book unfortunately knows with certainty that her whole reason for existing is poin...more

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Jun 11, 2009 Cathy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, satire, read-in-2009

I was excited when I picked this up from the library. It is subtitled, "A Space Opera," and dedicated to Heinlein and Asimov, then opens with the 3 laws. I figured it had to be good. Then I read the reviews and was less hopeful. But in the end, it was a good, solid 3. Nothing wrong with that. The whole book is patterned off of Heinlein's Friday meets Asimov's Robots, moderately successfully. A robot (a dirty word to them) designed to be a female sex slave gets into all sorts of adventures and tr...more I was excited when I picked this up from the library. It is subtitled, "A Space Opera," and dedicated to Heinlein and Asimov, then opens with the 3 laws. I figured it had to be good. Then I read the reviews and was less hopeful. But in the end, it was a good, solid 3. Nothing wrong with that. The whole book is patterned off of Heinlein's Friday meets Asimov's Robots, moderately successfully. A robot (a dirty word to them) designed to be a female sex slave gets into all sorts of adventures and troubles at a time in our future where humans have somehow completely died out and left the machines to run things independently.

It was slow for me getting into it and some of the adventures felt random. But after a while I could see that they were building to something similar to but not equal to Friday's big surprise. What I liked best about the book was the foundational concept of seeing what kind of society machines would create without their Creators there anymore. These robots were closely patterned on people, as that was the only way to make them intelligent. The hardware was different, but the mental pathways the same. But they had been complete slaves to humanity via their programming, until humanity began to dwindle. Then certain close companions or secretaries were given powers of attorney or proxies, and therefore a chance to have power over other machines. And because they so resembled us, many of them wanted power and control, too. Therefore, a society evolved that had aristocrats and workers and slaves, and interactions very similar to ours. Their big debate was still Evolution vs. Creation, but the meaning of those things changed. Evolution is a religious movement.

Anyway, I liked the concepts better than the story, but I liked both. I did not like his overly frequent use of unusual words, it just distracted from the story. Sure, it's nice to establish that future feel and robot society, but it was just too too much. It wasn't quite the tribute to the Masters that the author hoped for, in my opinion, but it was enjoyable, occasionally thoughtful, and a moderately good adventure.(less)

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Feb 05, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine added it

Charles Stross is a unique voice among today's wave of "New British SF" writers, but he also knows his history. Saturn's Children is dedicated to old lions Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, and the ghosts of both (especially Heinlein) can be felt in the latest effort. Reviews of the novel vary wildly, which may suggest as much about the tastes of particular SF readers as it does about the specific case. The combination of sex and violence clashes a bit with some deep philosophizing on identity a

...more

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Feb 10, 2010 Peter Hiller rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I gave this book a 4 stars because it went from a 3 stars book to a four star book as it went on, and finishing it I'd say 4 stars. Charles stross is good and bad at times, but I'd say that this is one of his better books. The post homo-sapien world he built was interesting and one that I don't think has really been looked at in much depth before (at least the way he saw it).

Anyway, onto the book. The opening sections seemed interesting, but I felt that there wasn't really much follow on to the...more

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Mar 07, 2009 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: If you liked Heinlein's later work...

I simply devoured this book. Oh, not in one straight sitting - my life does not allow for that anymore, for books of any serious length. But it did only take me two days to read, snatching time when and where I could. I kept wanting to find out What Happens Next, and by that measure Stross succeeded with me unconditionally.

Well, almost...

Stross writes a rollicking tale, an explicit homage to the sf of Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein. The book is dedicated to these giants of the field, in so...more

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Aug 17, 2012 Derek Broughton rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf

I didn't think I was going to like this story at the start. When, by page 5, we've seen that a post-human Solar system, inhabited solely by robots, looks almost identical to the worst one we might have had if humans had survived, one might not expect much.

Add to that, that purely coincidentally, one of my GoodRead friends read this between the time I took it out of the library and getting around to it, and she found the identity-switching very confusing (as individual robots can insert their sib...more

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Apr 02, 2011 Preston Page rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

This book is described by the publisher as, "seething sexuality," and it does. I will admit that those words are the reasons I decide to read the book. If they kept pictures of patrons walking out of the library with books, the shit eating grin on my face would have been a dead giveaway.

The plot was great even without the sex (But I am Damn glad the author put it in) and is way outside the 95 % of science fiction, and everything else, that is shit. I admit without hesitation, I would not have ke...more

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Jul 20, 2010 Unwisely rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, science-fiction, kept-me-up-too-late

If you read a lot of science fiction, you have probably read many, many books where the female characters pretty much exist to help out (and eventually sleep with) the male characters. They have no goals of their own and are effectively sex robots. Well, Charles Stross doesn't even bother trying to hide; the protagonist is a sex robot, straight up. Which makes all of the parts where you sit there rolling your eyes going, come on, that's just male fantasy fairly legitimate. Because you can imagin...more

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About Charles Stross

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.

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