Singularity Sky (Singularity, #1) (Singularity Sky)

by Charles Stross

In the twenty-first century man created the Eschaton, a sentient artificial intelligence. It pushed Earth through the greatest technological evolution ever known, while warning that time travel is forbidden, and transgressors will be eliminated.

Distant descendants of this ultra high-tech Earth live in parochial simplicity on the far-flung worlds of the New Republic. Their way of life is threatened by the arrival of an alien information plague known as the Festival. As forbidden technologies are literally dropped from the sky, suppressed political factions descend into revolutionary turmoil.

A battle fleet is sent from Earth to destroy the Festival, but Spaceship engineer Martin Springfield and U.N. diplomat Rachel Mansour have been assigned rather different tasks. Their orders are to diffuse the crisis or to sabotage the New Republic's war-fleet, whatever the cost, before the Eschaton takes hostile action on a galactic scale.

• ISBN10: 1841493341
• ISBN13: 9781841493343
• Publish Date: 3 February 2005 (first published 5 August 2003)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Orbit
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[adastra]

I just couldn't really get into this book, which probably explains why I needed almost a year to finish it. It's got a very interesting premise and a very interesting universe, but I found the plot rather lacking. It just all seemed a bit too random for me and it took the entire book to recognize a connection.

[wyvernfriend]

an interesting book that took a while to get into. What would happen in a world where knowledge is repressed when a more technologically advanced civilizaton offers them unlimited knowledge, provided they entertain them? Chaos ensues and when the planet in charge decides to try to intervene the UN inspector finds herself fighting sexism and attitude. Everyone has an agenda and everything is going to change.

Not exactly to my taste but Mac is going to try it, he's more of the space opera fan.