Neptune's Brood / Charles Stross

Neptune's Brood

category: science fiction, author:

Charles Stross

original copyright 2013

read in February 2014

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10 (well worth reading)

You and I -- with our limited imaginations -- would believe that finance and banking would be very, very boring. Even in the context of an entertaining, space opera romp through a future robot civilisation... Stross, however, sees the comic potential of banking and finance.

You and I would be right.

The economic basis of robot life is fine: clever, occasionally funny. The regular Heinlein-esque discussions of the underlying principles of banking and finance -- as applied in this future world -- are... dead... boring. My eyes glazed over.

That aside:

A few chapters in and I did have to check the cover comments: Yes, this book is space opera and yes, it is intended to be funny... Sometimes it's hard to tell with science fiction: Is this an over-the-top extreme of hard science, or is the author just having fun...?! So -- having settled in my mind that Brood is humorous space opera -- I sat back and enjoyed the book... (Except for the boring explanations of interstellar banking and finance.)

With the correct expectations -- and having learnt to skim quickly over the boring bits -- I enjoyed this book !

And yet...

The title, "Neptune's Brood". Okay, Neptune was a Roman god, the equivalent of the Greek Poseidon. Poseidon did a lot of construction work on the island of Atlantis -- and the Atlantis star settlement is central to this book. Poseidon also had ten (at least ten) children --  a "brood" ?! The central villain of this book had a brood of offspring, at least 114. The villain was also a founder of the Atlantis settlement. Is that the link to the title ?

Then there's the water world which the heroine finally reaches, towards the end of the book. Water world ? Another possible link to Neptune ? That was my first thought, since it is Poseidon -- not Neptune -- with the links to Atlantis and to broods of children.

But wait -- there's more:

These people (robots of the robot civilisation) travel by having their minds transmitted to a new body at the destination location. So why did the heroine have to have her body transformed for her own journey to the water world ?? Why not: Click, mind sucked out of unsuitable body. Followed by, Click, mind transferred into suitable body already waiting at destination ?! Oh, of course... the author wants to detail the changes needed for the new environment. Hmmm.

Oh... and on the cover of the book...

We -- the readers -- are given a detailed account of the changes made to the heroine's body. And yet... On the cover of the book those changes have been -- mostly -- ignored. Why ?! Oh, wait... It's because the changes made her look less attractive, less human. And the cover looks better with a rather attractive, human-based mermaid... So that's okay :-)

Look, I'm being picky ! I skimmed over the boring bits and -- on the whole -- enjoyed the book. It's set in an interesting, clever, imaginative universe. With some entertaining pokes at life as we know it. (The regular lack of success, for example, of the Church's stated central purpose.)

Read it, enjoy it. And if you are turned on by banking and finance -- and science fiction -- then this book will really get you excited.

..o0o..

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