egardless of what you see in movies, stars don’t just explode, not without long years of warning. Which is why when the G2 star warming the planet Moscow just blows, sweeping everyone away, certain people (and AIs) take notice. And the worst thing? Moscow didn’t trust it’s neighbor New Dresden. And so its own failsafe devices (slow speed missiles that will take decades to reach their target but are now on the way) make this a true double-whammy.

Iron Sunrise is a follow up book (I figure) to Accelerando, and interesting universe we see played out here. It seems that AI’s achieved the singularity, meaning they became hyper-intelligent. When they did, somehow they teleported most of Earth’s population to different planets and let them rebuild from scratch. And now there is a true universe of mankind, one we really didn’t plan on but we’ve now got. Interesting.

So these book follows a number of different characters (my favorite, Wednesday, the angry Goth girl carrying a big secret about that big bang), who all slowly gather together (as literary characters will) to solve the mystery of who killed Moscow. It’s a very clever book, witty and keen and sharp, filled with the sorts of technologies I would expect in the distant future (such as guns and bullets that make combat very short and very lethal).

The book had some great concepts – Stross’s description of the dangers of going into disused sectors of a space station caused me to add a number of encounters to my Solar Trader game. And the skill of the writer, to make me shiver or laugh, was well up there. I’ll be looking for his other works.

So check out your library or used bookstores. This one’s a real find. I mean, just the title alone. Clever.

>>>HEY, “FIRE AND BRONZE” WAS NOT MY FIRST CHOICE. BUT YOU GOTTA ADMIT “EARLY RETYREMENT” IS A NICE PUN. CHECK MY BOOKS OUT HERE!<<<