Promotional Information

* Online advertising at key SF blogs and social networking sites * Review copies mailed to the online, print and blogging press * Featured on www.orbitbooks.net and in the Orbit ezine

About the Author

Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full time.

Reviews

Sex oozes from every page of this erotic futuristic thriller. In a far-future class-driven android society, most of the populace are slave-chipped and owned by wealthy "aristos." When low-caste but unenslaved android Freya offends an aristo and needs to get off-world, she takes a courier position with the mysterious Jeeves Corporation, but the job turns out to have dangers of its own. Designed as a pleasure-module, Freya isn't quite as obsolete as she could be, as androids have sex with each other incessantly. Hugo-winner Stross (Halting State) has a deep message of how android slavery recapitulates humanity's past mistakes, but he struggles to make it heard over the moans and gunshots. Readers nostalgic for the SF of the '60s will find much that's familiar (including Freya's jumpsuit-clad form on the cover), but that doesn't quite compensate for the flaws. (July) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

After the extinction of the human race in the 23rd century, robots and androids continue to function, forming their own stratified society to carry out their creators' dreams of space colonization. Freya Nakamichi 47--a femmebot designed as a concubine for a race that no longer exists--occupies a place in society midway between the elite Aristos and the slave-chipped worker robots. Having to make her own way, she accepts a commission to deliver a small package from Mercury to Mars, unaware of the trouble that awaits her as humanoid factions vie for the contents of the package. The author of Singularity Sky and The Atrocity Archives always brings a fresh perspective to the genre, reinventing the future in bold new ways. Part space opera, part homage to late sf Grand Masters Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, this tale of a very "human" android belongs in most sf collections. Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.