Tor, 316 pages
Review: Noel Chidwick
Empire Games continues the Merchant Princes series, which we left in 2010 with the Trade of Queens.
The Merchant Princes is an alternative Earth saga, featuring the Clan, who world-walk between their own timeline still stuck in the Middle Ages and ‘our’ timeline. They trade between the two lines to make their fortune, where trade is, as Stross describes it, “paperwork-free shipping.” Drugs trafficking is their currency: the obvious choice when you can flick from one world to another in the blink of an eye. The upshot is knights with machine guns.
If you haven’t read the Merchant Princes books, off you pop. They’re a riveting read and you’ll be turning pages so fast you’ll risk finger blisters.
The bulk of Empire Games is set in 2020, with a President Rumsfeld in the big chair. We follow in the footsteps of Rita, who is the daughter of Miriam, the protagonist of the original series. Rita is adopted, and initially is unaware of the identity of her “DNA Donors”, just as her mother was before her at the start of the original series.
We’re quickly drawn into a shadowy world where the USA is developing a defence program to protect itself, as it sees, from the terrorism of the Clan, using technology and not-so-nice means to create ways to world-hop with big machinery and weapons of war.
Meanwhile, the Clan, after having to move to a third timeline are also building up their power in a once vaguely Victorian timeline. Miriam seems to have a lot of say, and this timeline quickly develops technologies to help better the lives of the Clan and its host world, and to protect itself against the looming US threat.
Rita is the pivot in this tale, as she is trained and persuaded to help in the US’s desire for intelligence on the whereabouts of the Clan, and ways to destroy it.
The section of Rita’s training is the one area where Stross strays to cliché a tad, and you can almost hear the pulsing music-backed montage in the film version, but in this case it serves as a vehicle for Rita to begin to question herself and ask what the heck is really going on.
Stross is a master of world weaving and narrative time hopping. To reach 2020 we leapfrog from the present day, skipping across timelines as we go. As we jump around we neatly revisit the backstory of the previous series, popping in useful reminders as we go. This viewpoint movement helps build the tension and at the same time helps grow that sense of unease. I read this book on a short visit to Gothenburg; finding myself in a country with a language I had no handle on (French or Spanish yes, Swedish—not a chance), probably enhanced that feeling of discombobulation.
Stross is good at writing strong female characters, especially in his recent books, and Empire Games is no different. Rita’s passage from ignorance to awareness, and eventually to a real sense of what’s she getting into is handled believably. Miriam meanwhile, in her timeline is strong-willed and determined, but with a sense of what is right. Her self-doubt, however, acts as a check and balance for her actions. Rita’s uncle plays a large role in the backroom of the story; an immigrant to the US from a pre-wall East Germany.
From time to time Stross takes a wander off the path of the furiously building story to enjoy his many worlds and to give us tantalising glimpses of ideas he’s brewing. There’s a world with a hole in it that really does need looking into; no doubt the rest of the series will give Stross the space to explore that and other worlds he’s hinted at.
Watch those blistering fingers as you turn the pages. Empire Games is fast-paced, intricate and thoroughly captivating. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
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Multiverse
Russell Jones
What better way to forget the past than to imagine the future? The poems in this issue of Shoreline of Infinity explore (amongst other things) memory, and a desire to build, reconstruct or break links with the past.
Grahaeme Barrasford Young kicks us off with “War species”, in which the speaker asks “what makes breakers of worlds believe / their galaxy will want them near”. A haunting prediction for human-kind’s future relationship with the universe and the species within it, perhaps? This poem can’t help but resonate with anyone who’s concerned with current political and ecological struggles, ending with an approaching (human) darkness: “new neighbours ask // why black holes suddenly seem so bright”.
“the inevitable victory of attraction” also deals with human (im)perception and (lack of) self awareness, asking, “how can we watch ourselves // individually if rods and stems / are made of what they see”, and implies that adaptation is key to our progress: “unusually, particles suggest / imbalanced elements will combine”. Here, then, blindly longing for the status quo of the past is what leads us to doom. Make of that what you will, British and American politicians!
J.S. Watt’s “Returnings” offers a more personal slant on the nature and purpose of memory. The speaker attempts to compromise their two distinct emotions: belonging to the past is balanced against the excitement and trepidation of the future. This can be read as a poem about love, or a dismantled relationship, but also about the way we balance our sense of self with our personal history and desire to evolve as individuals.
“Starscape” considers the importance of personal reflection and humanity within art: “My poetry is starscapes, black expanse of emptiness … All the same. / Infinity is relentless without / life’s gravity to anchor it.” Yet the individual also seems lost amongst the vastness and emptiness of a universe which doesn’t speak back: “The universal ellipse reflects only itself”. The devil’s in the detail, then. What is life without those specific moments of joy? Vast emptiness which cannot be tamed or understood.
Like us, our ancestors have looked on the stars and wondered. Those distant flickering lights link us to that past, but they also remind us of our potential futures: as individuals, members of a nation and a species. These poems use the metaphors of space to remind us that self-reflection is vital to our progress and continued survival, or damnation.
War species
when we have finished with our system
do you think we can wander freely
what makes breakers of worlds believe
their galaxy will want them near
