About this title: Freya Nakamichi-47 is a femmebot, one of the last of her kind. With no humans left to pay for the pleasures she provides, she agrees to transport a mysterious package from Mercury to Mars. Unfortunately, there are some humanoids who will stop at nothing to possess the contents of the package.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. 0441015948 Fast Shipping. Cover is torn, wrinkled, missing or book is otherwise damaged. Customer Service is our #1 priority. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. 0441017312 Mass Market Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: The Berkley Publishing Group
ISBN-13:9780739499344ISBN:0739499343
Description: Used-Good. Tight with clean pages, does not appear to have been read. All books are boxed and ship via USPS with delivery confirmation. read more
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ace Hardcover
Date Published: 2008-07-01
ISBN-13:9780441015948ISBN:0441015948
Description: New in New jacket. New, unread copy with remainder mark. We ship 6 days a week, generally within 24 hours; single CDs and DVDs upgraded to 1st class! read more
Edition: Book Club (BCE/BOMC)
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Science Fiction Book Club, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780739499344ISBN:0739499343
Description: Fine in Near Fine jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. No edition or printing stated. The jacket has a faint crease to the spine. read more
Edition: First Ed
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ace
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780441015948ISBN:0441015948
Description: Very Good in Near Fine jacket. Frist ed. Very good/Near fine condtion, slight over all wear to book and dustjacket, remainder mark to bottom of page edges. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ace Books
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780441015948ISBN:0441015948
Description: New in new dust jacket. perfect shape; not read. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 323 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
"This book filled me with deja-vu. At times it was Heinlein's Friday, at others it was Varley's whole solar system. It was predictable, the sex was non-descript (but still all over the place) and the premise did not hold together.
In spite of all of that (or, in the case of Varley, maybe because of it) I liked the novel, and devoured it quickly. In this case it was the science part of the SF, including the whole future presentation, even the many non-serious parts, the details, what kept me mesmerized. The wild jumps of speculation that make sense (small chibi-like robots, to reduce mass to transport), and those common sense details of how may be space colonization.
The "flashbacks" were overused, but still it gave the right effect to advance the plot. I was half tempted to label it as humour, but as it is more focused in parts rather than the whole work, I avoid it. Be warned however that it is a non-serious book that takes science seriously."
"I had heard this was a Heinleinesque story about a sexbot. That's true but wildly misleading. The homage to Heinlein's Friday isn't overpowering, and the sex is neither graphic nor even easy for a human to identify with. It reads more like Accelerando than anything else, and the story is really about robots designed to serve humans but having to get along without them. Although I appreciated how Freya's diction changed gradually (as a matter of some significance), I didn't actually like either slant on her, and there was too much "Who is really whom and who really wants what?" going on without enough build-up of the secondary characters for me to really care who they were or to sort out their motives. By the time most of it (not all, I think) was revealed, the story had been battered by so many reversals and coincidences it couldn't really matter to me anymore."
"I return again and again to Charlie Stross because he is a playful author:
1) He plays with all kinds of fascinating concepts. His books are like the FAO Schwartz of ideas. 2) He uses the SF genre to play with storytelling techniques.
In Saturn's Children, his lead character is a completely sympathetic and pleasure-giving fembot named Freya whose original purpose is made obsolete by the extinction of the human race who created her. The entire solar system is populated by humanity's sentient creations, and he plays with the idea that flesh and blood was never meant to go out into a hostile vacuum (or methane or low density atmospheres). She also has the ability to swap in and out the persona chips of her sister-bots, and this impacts the viewpoint, since the story is told from her first person perspective.
All in all, good (well, slightly naughty) SF storytelling fun."
"I was excited when I picked this up from the library. It is subtitled, "A Space Opera," and dedicated to Heinlein and Asimov, then opens with the 3 laws. I figured it had to be good. Then I read the reviews and was less hopeful. But in the end, it was a good, solid 3. Nothing wrong with that. The whole book is patterned off of Heinlein's Friday meets Asimov's Robots, moderately successfully. A robot (a dirty word to them) designed to be a female sex slave gets into all sorts of adventures and troubles at a time in our future where humans have somehow completely died out and left the machines to run things independently.
It was slow for me getting into it and some of the adventures felt random. But after a while I could see that they were building to something similar to but not equal to Friday's big surprise. What I liked best about the book was the foundational concept of seeing what kind of society machines would create without their Creators there anymore. These robots were closely patterned on people, as that was the only way to make them intelligent. The hardware was different, but the mental pathways the same. But they had been complete slaves to humanity via their programming, until humanity began to dwindle. Then certain close companions or secretaries were given powers of attorney or proxies, and therefore a chance to have power over other machines. And because they so resembled us, many of them wanted power and control, too. Therefore, a society evolved that had aristocrats and workers and slaves, and interactions very similar to ours. Their big debate was still Evolution vs. Creation, but the meaning of those things changed. Evolution is a religious movement.
Anyway, I liked the concepts better than the story, but I liked both. I did not like his overly frequent use of unusual words, it just distracted from the story. Sure, it's nice to establish that future feel and robot society, but it was just too too much. It wasn't quite the tribute to the Masters that the author hoped for, in my opinion, but it was enjoyable, occasionally thoughtful, and a moderately good adventure."
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