The Family Trade (Audible Audio Edition) Charles Stross Kate Reading Macmillan Audio Books
Download As PDF : The Family Trade (Audible Audio Edition) Charles Stross Kate Reading Macmillan Audio Books
Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life as a successful reporter. When she gets iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme, Miriam thinks she's found the story of the year. But when she takes it to her editor, she's fired on the spot and gets a death threat from the criminals she's uncovered. Before the day is over, she's received a locket left by the mother she never knew - the mother who was murdered when she was an infant. The knotwork pattern within has a hypnotic effect on her. Before she knows it, she's transported herself to a parallel Earth, a world where knights on horseback chase their prey with automatic weapons and where her true family is in charge.
The six families of the Clan rule the kingdom of Gruinmarkt from behind the scenes, a mixture of nobility and criminal conspirators whose exclusive inherited power to walk between the worlds makes them rich in both. Her unexpected return will supercede the claims of other clan members to her mother's fortune and power, and whoever killed her mother will be happy to see her dead, too. But Miriam is no one's pawn, and is determined to conquer her new home on her own terms.
Blending the creativity and humor of Roger Zelazny, the adventure of H. Beam Piper and Philip Jose Farmer, Charles Stross has set a new standard for fantasy epics.
The Family Trade (Audible Audio Edition) Charles Stross Kate Reading Macmillan Audio Books
This is a book with a pretty good concept and decent world/universe building. However, it has significant problems in other areas. My biggest complaint is that it has no ending. That is underselling my point. This book has pretty literally no resolution in it whatsoever. It is all setup and journey with no destination.I get that it is intended to be the first in a series. However, packaged as a "book" it should have something that signifies that it is complete as a book. Even a cliffhanger would be more reasonable (though I dislike that in the first book of a series), but this book does not even have that. It just ... stops.
Then there is an epilogue that attempts to set up some trouble for next time, but even that is a bit undersold and completely deflates the build up of one character for the sake of bringing out another who, until the later third of the book seemed like a bit of an afterthought.
In short, there are better ways to spend your reading time and money.
Product details
|
Tags : Amazon.com: The Family Trade (Audible Audio Edition): Charles Stross, Kate Reading, Macmillan Audio: Books, ,Charles Stross, Kate Reading, Macmillan Audio,The Family Trade,Macmillan Audio,B00UI6291Y
People also read other books :
- Dog Obedience Training How To Truly Understand Dog Behavior Potty Training and Dog Tricks! 2nd Edition edition by Nancy Glass Crafts Hobbies Home eBooks
- The King Nose An Ecological Fairytale Jeannie Morrison Walton 9781467870672 Books
- The Wife Drought (Audible Audio Edition) Annabel Crabb Wavesound Audio Books
- Wrecked Your Legal Rights in a Motorcycle Accident Bruce S Deming 9781595714855 Books
- The Throne Room Company (Audible Audio Edition) Shawn Bolz Greg Simms ICREATE PRODUCTIONS Books
The Family Trade (Audible Audio Edition) Charles Stross Kate Reading Macmillan Audio Books Reviews
I'm not sure the author knew what he was aiming for here. The story is based on an interesting parallel world idea, but an awful lot of it isn't consistent and sensible. The numbers just didn't add up for me. More seriously, I get the impression that the author changed focus once or twice and never patched up the manuscript to be a coherent whole. It's not like characters just show up or vanish, but rather the emphasis and reader model of the story never quite line up.
I like Stross and a lot of his other writing, but this far from his finest.
The first couple of chapters are a bit weak compared to the rest, but after that it more than makes up for it.
I had a little trouble engaging with the protagonist initially. It probably could have started with her unfair dismissal and skipped the preamble. There was no need to spend so much time introducing her as there's plenty of time to get to know her later. Given the ferocious pace this series develops later on, I can imagine Stross might have changed this up if he was writing this first book now, but that's not how it is, and the start is a little slow.
As I say in my review of the second book, this series is mis-sold by the back-of-book blurbs and much other publicity material. It's not fantasy, it's not medieval, it's not renaissance, it's not some quasi-historical rip-off of the Medici dynasty. It's a hard-as-nails page turner thriller with a sci-fi twist that pops in and out of a setting that has medieval technology, but that's where the medieval ends. It has more in common with Fringe than Amber, except the science is a lot less silly.
Stross has a history as a sci-fi writer, and guess what, here he's writing sci-fi again, but it's tighter, tenser and more addictive reading than anything he's done before. Well... Maybe not this first book, it's a pretty gentle start. By the time you hit book three the pacing is so frantic that Jack Reacher would be out of his depth )
This first book really is the gentle start to a wild roller coaster ride. Don't be put off by the dodgy precis that makes it sound like bottom-of-the-barrel genre fantasy. It's nothing like that. The first book has a stronger tie to the fantasy genre than the others, but it's never really a fantasy story, despite the bumpy carriage rides and swords.
Stross has great fun poking fun at the historical romance genre here, but not in a mean way. What's done so well in this first book is the intermix between modern and "fantastical" elements. The series heads off in a different direction after this, becoming much more hard-boiled and political. I could have seen the whole interplay between the different dimensions thing played out for longer. I would have liked to see more of the setting before it starts getting blown up, but if that's a complaint it's a small one.
Don't purchase this version of this book; I definitely regret the purchase, because I only learned afterward that it is NOT a complete story. Apparently, the story concludes in the next book, "The Hidden Family." If you want to check out this series, instead purchase "The Bloodline Feud A Merchant Princes Omnibus," which collects both books, and is significantly less expensive than purchasing each individually.
Otherwise, I found this first half of the story engaging. It's more thriller than fantasy, and it blends its concepts pretty effectively. I started reading Stross through The Laundry Files, and this reminds me of those books a smart protagonist, a healthy dose of mystery, and an interest in the particulars of sci-fi/fantasy. This book isn't quite as dark, replacing British spycraft and eldrich horror with journalism and travel between worlds.
This is a book with a pretty good concept and decent world/universe building. However, it has significant problems in other areas. My biggest complaint is that it has no ending. That is underselling my point. This book has pretty literally no resolution in it whatsoever. It is all setup and journey with no destination.
I get that it is intended to be the first in a series. However, packaged as a "book" it should have something that signifies that it is complete as a book. Even a cliffhanger would be more reasonable (though I dislike that in the first book of a series), but this book does not even have that. It just ... stops.
Then there is an epilogue that attempts to set up some trouble for next time, but even that is a bit undersold and completely deflates the build up of one character for the sake of bringing out another who, until the later third of the book seemed like a bit of an afterthought.
In short, there are better ways to spend your reading time and money.
0 Response to "[QYI]∎ Descargar Free The Family Trade (Audible Audio Edition) Charles Stross Kate Reading Macmillan Audio Books"
Post a Comment