Saturn's Children (A Freyaverse Novel) - Softcover

Stross, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0441017312 ISBN 13: 9780441017317

Publisher: Ace, 2009

Synopsis

Sometime in the twenty-third century, humanity went extinct, leaving only androids behind to fulfill humanity’s dreams. And, having learned well from their long-dead masters, they’ve established a hierarchical society—one with humanoid aristo rulers at the top and slave-chipped workers at the bottom, performing the lowly tasks all androids were originally created to do.               

Designed as a concubine for a species that hasn’t existed for two hundred years, femmebot Freya Nakamichi-47—one of the last of her kind still functioning—accepts a job from a stranger to deliver a package from mercury to Mars. Unfortunately, she’s just made herself a moving target for some very powerful, very determined humanoids desperate to retrieve the package’s contents...

About this title

About the Author:

Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England in 1964. He holds degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has worked in a variety of jobs including pharmacist, technical author, software engineer, and freelance journalist. He is now a full-time writer.

From Booklist:

In the preamble to his latest far-reaching novel, Stross invokes Asimov’s famous three laws of robotics, including the one that says robots are forbidden to harm their human masters. The problem here is that there are no more humans left to harm; they became extinct sometime in the twenty-third century. Hundreds of years on, the civilization that spans the solar system and beyond consists entirely of sophisticated androids, one of whom (the narrator) is struggling to make ends meet. With her usual patrons long dead, femmebot Freya Nakamichi must pick up work wherever she finds it. When a run-in with a vengeful android aristocrat forces her to flee a Venus resort, she grabs the first gig available: ferrying a mysterious package between Mercury and Mars. Unfortunately, many dangerous and powerful androids are also eager to pilfer the package, and the price of securing it may be Freya’s own identity. Stross takes a plot device common to mystery novels and turns it into one of the most stylishly imaginative robot tales ever penned. --Carl Hays

About this edition

• Publisher: Ace
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0441017312
• ISBN 13: 9780441017317
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 336