The story of the worldwalkers just got stranger in Charles Stross's The Merchants' War. More worlds, more surprises. And there's a war going on ... Miriam Beckstein is a young, hip, business journalist in Boston. She discovered in TheFamily Trade and The Hidden Family that her family came from an alternate reality, that she was very well-connected, and that her family was too much like the mafia for comfort. She found herself caught in a family trap in The Clan Corporate and betrothed to a brain-damaged prince, and then all hell broke loose. Now, in The Merchants' War, Miriam has escaped to yet another world and remains in hiding from both the Clan and their opponents. There is a nasty shooting war going on in the Gruinmarkt world of the Clan, and we know something that Miriam does not; something that she's really going to hateâ??if she lives long enough to find out.… (más)
hmmm... I think this series would be less confusing for me if I hadn't started with book 3 and then book 4... although there are bits I do like in this, overall it felt disjointed, not a standalone book... would give it 2.5 - it was OK
re-read in 2015 - could not remember that I'd read it before... it suffers a little from the frantically changing locations and cast ( )
Book 4 of the Merchant Princes series, in recovery from the mess that is Book 3. Miriam and her Leveler go on the lam via luxury transcontinental train, civil war between the Pretender and the worldwalker merchants ensues in the Auld Country, and the government task force in this world closes in on the worldwalkers, casting them as enemy alien terrorists based on the nuclear threat Matthias engineered when he defected. in short, somewhat of a return to form (though the first two books in the series, with Miriam making her mark on two new worlds with mad skillz and considerable aplomb, remain the best). ( )
Finally! I'm sensing a heartbeat again. Stross is breathing some life back into the patient.
The series was starting to feel like it would fizzle out. This book had better pacing and a good twine of plot lines. Like the other books, we have to keep reading to see where the story goes.
I am noticing he does a good job of reminding us what came before without too much offending infodump. The reminders are not enough to bring a new reader into the series at this point but they make perfect sense to feed a reader who hasn't read the last book recently, as when these books were originally published.
There were fewer points in this book where I was frustrated because a character did not do something I thought was a better and obvious solution. Mirriam begins to pick up the reins of her own destiny again. Yay! ( )
Oscar head-butted him again, then made a noise like a dying electric shaver. Mike figured his bowl was empty. ... He reached up to stroke the tomcat, who was clearly intent on exercising his feline right to bear a grudge against his human whenever it suited him, and not a moment longer. (Chapter 10 "Interaction", pp.220-221)
"I think we might be able to deal with the enemy without mounting a frontal attack on those guns: and in the process, inconvenience the pretender mightily . . . ."
The story of the worldwalkers just got stranger in Charles Stross's The Merchants' War. More worlds, more surprises. And there's a war going on ... Miriam Beckstein is a young, hip, business journalist in Boston. She discovered in TheFamily Trade and The Hidden Family that her family came from an alternate reality, that she was very well-connected, and that her family was too much like the mafia for comfort. She found herself caught in a family trap in The Clan Corporate and betrothed to a brain-damaged prince, and then all hell broke loose. Now, in The Merchants' War, Miriam has escaped to yet another world and remains in hiding from both the Clan and their opponents. There is a nasty shooting war going on in the Gruinmarkt world of the Clan, and we know something that Miriam does not; something that she's really going to hateâ??if she lives long enough to find out.
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