Saturn's Children

by Charles Stross Narrated by Bianca Amato

Overview

The Hugo Award-winning author of numerous best-sellers, Charles Stross crafts tales that push the limits of the genre. In Saturn's Children, Freya is an obsolete android concubine in a society where humans haven't existed for hundreds of years. A rigid caste system keeps the Aristos, a vindictive group of humanoids, well in control of the lower, slave-chipped classes. So when Freya offends one particularly nasty Aristo, she's forced to take a dangerous courier job off-planet.

Editorial Reviews

New York Times

The act of creation seems to come easily to Charles Stross...He is peerless at dreaming up devices that could conceivably exist in 6, 60, or 600 years' time.

Gardner Dozois

Where Charles Stross goes today, the rest of science fiction will follow tomorrow. (Gardner Dozois, Editor, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine)

Denver Post

Stross sizzles with ideas.

SF Revu

Charles Stross may be the science fiction field's most exciting writer.

Publishers Weekly

Sex oozes from every page of this erotic futuristic thriller. In a far-future class-driven android society, most of the populace are slave-chipped and owned by wealthy "aristos." When low-caste but unenslaved android Freya offends an aristo and needs to get off-world, she takes a courier position with the mysterious Jeeves Corporation, but the job turns out to have dangers of its own. Designed as a pleasure-module, Freya isn't quite as obsolete as she could be, as androids have sex with each other incessantly. Hugo-winner Stross (Halting State) has a deep message of how android slavery recapitulates humanity's past mistakes, but he struggles to make it heard over the moans and gunshots. Readers nostalgic for the SF of the '60s will find much that's familiar (including Freya's jumpsuit-clad form on the cover), but that doesn't quite compensate for the flaws. (July)

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Library Journal

After the extinction of the human race in the 23rd century, robots and androids continue to function, forming their own stratified society to carry out their creators' dreams of space colonization. Freya Nakamichi 47-a femmebot designed as a concubine for a race that no longer exists-occupies a place in society midway between the elite Aristos and the slave-chipped worker robots. Having to make her own way, she accepts a commission to deliver a small package from Mercury to Mars, unaware of the trouble that awaits her as humanoid factions vie for the contents of the package. The author of Singularity Sky and The Atrocity Archives always brings a fresh perspective to the genre, reinventing the future in bold new ways. Part space opera, part homage to late sf Grand Masters Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, this tale of a very "human" android belongs in most sf collections.
—Jackie Cassada

From the Publisher

"Good fun... Heinlein himself would've liked this."-San Diego Union Tribune

"Sex oozes from every page of this erotic futuristic thriller."-Publishers Weekly

"One of the most stylishly imaginative robot tales ever penned." -Booklist

"A smart and playful romp." -Times (London)

“A tightly plotted, Maltese Falcon-esque thriller with reversals and surprises galore…This is a fabulous book, a witty and deep critique of the field’s shibboleths.” – Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169504736
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	08/28/2009
Series:	Saturn's Children
Edition description:	Unabridged

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