β Scribed by Charles Stross
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Readers unfamiliar with Stross's Clan Corporate (2006) and its predecessors should hunt them down before diving into this breakneck fourth Merchant Princes episode. The clan, a Machiavellian trading dynasty whose members can cross among parallel universes, are losing control of their own affairs, embroiled in a shooting war with local royalty on the Gruinmarkt world and racing modern American black-ops agencies to unravel the secrets behind their world-walking ability. The latter subplot adds science-fictional flavor to a series already rich with economic and political themes and dense action scenes. The cost comes in characterization: familiar figures appear only briefly, and new players acquire little depth. Miriam Beckstein, journalist turned mercantile heiress, is still the nominal protagonist, but she spends most of this episode stuck one universe sideways from the main action. For sheer inventiveness and energy, this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top. (Oct.)
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βFor sheer inventiveness and energy, this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top.β
--*Publishers Weekly
βThe world-building in this series is simply superb, in other wordsβit is engaging, crystal-clear and disturbingly realβ¦.. The Merchants' War* is fast-paced and engrossing and will leave readers ravenous for the next installment.β
--SciFi.com
"Charlie Stross' latest is a brilliant, amusing, and challenging piece of mestizo fiction -- recklessly cross-breeding fantasy and SF tropes, and using the resulting bonfire to say interesting things about culture, economics, politics, and really cool battles with chain-mail and MP5's and horses and hang-gliders. Very real people with very different backgrounds meet and collide and strike lovely sparks. This series is great and getting better all the time!"
--S.M. Stirling
βThe action shifts rapidly among the three worlds in the fourth successive thriller in a fantastically thrilling series.β
--Booklist
π SIMILAR VOLUMES
### Readers unfamiliar with Stross's *Clan Corporate* (2006) and its predecessors should hunt them down before diving into this breakneck fourth Merchant Princes episode. The clan, a Machiavellian trading dynasty whose members can cross among parallel universes, are losing control of their own affai
### From Publishers Weekly Readers unfamiliar with Stross's *Clan Corporate* (2006) and its predecessors should hunt them down before diving into this breakneck fourth Merchant Princes episode. The clan, a Machiavellian trading dynasty whose members can cross among parallel universes, are losing co
### Miriam Beckstein has gotten in touch with her roots and they have nearly strangled her. A young, hip, business journalist in Boston, she discovered (in The Family Trade ) that her family comes from an alternate reality, that she is very well-connected, and that her family is a lot too much like