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    The Family Trade: A Fantasy Novel
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    The Family Trade: A Fantasy Novel
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    The Family Trade: A Fantasy Novel
    Ebook373 pages5 hours

    The Family Trade: A Fantasy Novel

    By Charles Stross

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A bold fantasy in the tradition of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber, The Merchant Princes is a sweeping new series from the hottest new writer in science fiction!

    Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She's a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme, Miriam thinks she's found the story of the year. But when she takes it to her editor, she's fired on the spot and gets a death threat from the criminals she has uncovered.

    Before the day is over, she's received a locket left by the mother she never knew-the mother who was murdered when she was an infant. Within is a knotwork pattern, which has a hypnotic effect on her. Before she knows it, she's transported herself to a parallel Earth, a world where knights on horseback chase their prey with automatic weapons, and where world-skipping assassins lurk just on the other side of reality - a world where her true family runs things.

    The six families of the Clan rule the kingdom of Gruinmarkt from behind the scenes, a mixture of nobility and criminal conspirators whose power to walk between the worlds makes them rich in both. Braids of family loyalty and intermarriage provide a fragile guarantee of peace, but a recently-ended civil war has left the families shaken and suspicious.

    Taken in by her mother's people, she becomes the star of the story of the century-as Cinderella without a fairy godmother. As her mother's heir, Miriam is hailed as the prodigal countess Helge Thorold-Hjorth, and feted and feasted. Caught up in schemes and plots centuries in the making, Miriam is surrounded by unlikely allies, forbidden loves, lethal contraband, and, most dangerous of all, her family. Her unexpected return will supercede the claims of other clan members to her mother's fortune and power, and whoever killed her mother will be happy to see her dead, too.

    Behind all this lie deeper secrets still, which threaten everyone and everything she has ever known. Patterns of deception and interlocking lies, as intricate as the knotwork between the universes. But Miriam is no one's pawn, and is determined to conquer her new home on her own terms.

    Blending the creativity and humor of Roger Zelazny, the adventure of H. Beam Piper and Philip Jose Farmer, and the rigor and scope of a science-fiction writer on the grandest scale, Charles Stross has set a new standard for fantasy epics.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateApr 1, 2010
    ISBN9781429914871
    Author

    Charles Stross

    Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. To date, Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. He is the author of the popular Merchant Princes and Empire Games series, set in the same world. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages. Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

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    Reviews for The Family Trade

    3.5/5

    37 ratings35 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I went in hoping to like this, and I got more and more demoralised as I kept reading. I at least liked the protagonist, but found the plot and premise increasingly wearying. About halfway through, much was redeemed when a second female character was rounded out, showing that the protagonist had been relying on stereotypes and not thinking things through very much. And this second(ary) character, Olga, was very much my favourite by the end of the book. The story itself runs straight in to a brick wall, with clear indication that there will be more machinations in the second and subsequent books, but I don't think that I'm going to bother. Yes, it was a nice conceit for how to put a self-aware, somewhat empowered modern woman in a feudal fantasy setting, but it really didn't work for me. What it felt like was an allegory of my life -- this isn't fantasy/prediction, this is the life that people (women. powerless minorities. other oppressed groups) are living Right Now, it has just been written by someone who isn't living it*. Which isn't to say that I think Stross is ignorant of the way that life can be oppressive even for educated white women, but that the contrast fell so flat for me, because it didn't feel like a contrast at all, other than in how blatant the control and manipulation was. Characterisation was good, although depressing. World-building was good, but depressing. Writing was good. Plotting was murky.* I don't know enough about Stross to say whether he is/isn't a member of any of the groups that struggle against oppression/discrimination/etc. What I am saying is that the book *read* as if he hasn't experienced these things.
    • 2/5
      The best thing I can say about this book is that the protagonist is smart. She prepares, she thinks things through, and she doesn't act rashly. That being said, we never exactly get a payoff for all of her preparations. I barely understood the non-ending in which someone (still not quite sure who) tries to murder her. I also didn't enjoy the flat and disjointed story. It was alternately a journalist exposé gone wrong, a fantastical exploration of another world, an introduction to royal/mafia life, a romance, a discovery of royal life, and then I think a mystery. The author overuses certain phrases, and none of the characters offered more than one dimension. Not my favorite.
    • 3/5
      Plot: Interesting take on the lost family heir plot, with a good combination of fantasy, sci-fi and conspiracy. A little too predictable and too easily solved at times.Characters: It's a good collection of characters, and they're well drawn especially in dialogue. What is missing, however, is motive, in far too many cases. Why they do the things they do is a mystery in too many cases, and so it's hard to identify with them or understand them.Style: The worldbuilding is too big for the book, which is a major issue. It's a great underlying idea, but it never quite takes shape because the book is too short for it, and so it never gets to shine. Prose is nothing extremely bad or extremely good, pacing is a little off balance at times but tends to work. Plus: The underlying business principles actually make sense. Minus: Too many things don't get fleshed out. The story lacks depth, as do the characters. It's too fast.Summary: A quick and fun read, but it lacks actual content.
    • 4/5
      Fist off I'll say that I'm a Charles Stross fan, albeit his SF titles to date. So when a friend of mine who REALLY reads fantasy recommended this title I decided to pick it up. I trul;y enjoyed this book and plan to read the other titles in the series. NOT what I would consider hard-core fantasy (witches, warlocks and the sort); rather a delightful and intriguing plot with the "worl-walker" concept able to fit into an SF plot just as readily.
    • 2/5
      There's something uniquely frustrating about a great idea poorly executed. This book is based on an exciting premise -- A family Clan who are able to move between our world and an unindustrialized parallel -- but devotes too much of its energy to a poorly introduced conspiracy populated by a cast of characters we are barely introduced for. The result is a frustrating mess. I'll probably read the next book, but only because am so terribly confused, and am foolishly intrigued by the potential of a world such as this.
    • 2/5
      Start with a good premise. Then fill it with so many holes that you can drive Mack trucks through it... I found that reading this story only had me thinking that for a heroine who was so smart so often, and able to predict life threatening situations with such great ability, she was certainly unable to see how many ways she could have been eliminated so as to make this story a non-starter. Oh, there it is, it dawns on me that if the other characters could see how easily I do that our protagonist could be snuffed out, then the book would have ended. And that is what should have happened. This book should have died in the slush pile.
    • 2/5
      Grrrrrrrrrrrrr, someone with MS only needs an oncologist if they also have cancer!
    • 2/5
      I'm a big fan of Chuck Stross's science fiction -- SINGULARITY SKY, ACCELERANDO. But this one left me cold. Why?

      For one thing, the conceit is heavily purloined from Narnia: the hero is a boring person here, but a crucial person Over (or Under) There. Neil
      Gaiman found a way to take the curse off it in NEVERWHERE: his restless, mundane hero makes the mistake of helping a runaway girl from Under There, and soon starts to become a nonentity Over Here. Stross goes another way: his heroine simply makes a series of logical decisions that she is in more danger Over Here and therefore ought to scamper Over There. You hardly want to be transported to a land of magic and wonder because it is the most sensible thing to do.

      I wonder if the problem is the great yawning divide between SF and F. Star Wars is Fantasy; the Force is magic. Star Trek is Science Fiction: the science is balderdash but it is still science. When Star Wars tried to explain Annakin Skywalker's talent for the Force -- he had a high midichlorian count? -- it felt like a betrayal of the genre. Stross has created a fantasy premise - magic locket transports those of the Blood -- but then approaches the story rationally, like an SF author. What sort of things would you do if you could walk between the worlds? Open a courier service, natch. You can Fedex things in this world that would take a long tme to travel in that world. You can smuggle huge quantities of drugs, slowly but surely, across the Other World.

      Who cares?

      This, I think, was my big problem. I felt there was no real emotional issue. Nothing that could only be solved by the heart; nothing without whose solving the heart would remain forever restless.

      Dorothy wants to get home.


      THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE was about kids who were unimportant in this world feeling terribly important in this world. (Oh, and it's an allegory for the last days of Jesus Christ. Sorry.)

      I did not know what the main character wanted. Or rather, she wanted too many sensible things. She wants safety. She wants a guy. She wants to liberate the peasants.

      So what?
    • 3/5
      I didn't hate it--I even read the second one--but I agree with other reviewers that the characters were one-dimensional and too numerous.
      And it's also one of those kind of books where you have to remember this whole complicated political situation from book to book, which I think is irritating.
    • 3/5
      It's popcorn. Maybe even kettle corn. Tasty, nice, not a meal. Not like some of Stross's other stuff. It does seem like our ubercool protagonist just handles everything thrown at her a little too well. Maybe we could see her face some challenges she's less prepared for?Overall, a fun time.
    • 3/5
      One of Mr. Stross's earlier novels, and that does shine through somewhat. Also, I'm sure Tor can afford better editors than that. Having said that, it was an enjoyable read ending on what you could call a bit of a cliff hanger, and I've already ordered the next three volumes in the series.
    • 4/5
      Miriam Beckstein works as a journalist and she's found evidence of money laundering, however instead of being a good thing it costs her her job. Then she receives a locket that she had when she was orphaned. Suddenly she finds herself in another world and she's part of the family who run things. However the family are quite murderous and she's a target and she doesn't have the skills the rest of the family have to keep herself alive.It's interesting but the family are just so powerful, it would appeal to people who are interested in mafia style stories.
    • 4/5
      Easy to read and pulled me in pretty quickly. I found this to be really original but on the other hand I haven't read much fantasy. I didn't find this to be focussed on the 'fantastic' stuff too much but rather was interesting because of the political situation into which the main character is landed. She has to make alliances and sort out who her enemies are pretty quickly as well as come to terms with a new culture. It ends on a bit of a cliff hanger so you have to get the next book straight away. You can get some idea as to where it's headed but not too much is given away so it's pretty exciting.
    • 4/5
      I've come at least moderately late to this, I know Charles Stross as a moderately hard SF writer.He's brought some of that hard SF skill to his fantasy too. There's a "our world" heroine who's a princess in the other world... but she's a smart, talented and trained working journalist over here with a skill set that puts her both at odds and in some ways at an advantage over there...There's huge, complex, fantasy intrigue with some hard economics in there too. Hard fantasy... maybe. Good fantasy, yes sure.
    • 3/5
      He does a good job of taking the world-jumping/'oh, i'm a princess in an alternate dimension' thing and saying 'no, this is what really happens (hint: they're scummy)' but his prose style is pedestrian with a touch of off. He's clever but not consistently or thoroughly enough. Fun, not awesome.
    • 5/5
      Fantasy - Time Travel - Inter dimensional travel - Alternate Reality/parallel world... A little bit of everything here.I'm not sure what really works here for me because I didn't particularly care for the lead characters. The story line though is original enough to keep me reading.
    • 2/5
      After totally loving "The Atrocity Archives" and "Rogue Farm" I was really disappointed in this book, I listened to the first 4 hours and it just felt really dated and wasn't very exciting and didn't seem to have any of the originality exhibited in the two books from Stross I had already read. I have given up on this series, but not on the author. Will still be trying some of his other stuff whenever I get a chance.
    • 2/5
      I really liked the concept behind this book, but the execution of it frustrated me overall.
    • 3/5
      I don't like it. It's well-written, excellent characterization, fascinating universe and "magic" - but I have the same headache as Miriam does trying to work out who's doing what why. The manipulation, plotting, tricks, and flat lies that make up the storyline are overwhelming. Now I've finished it, I still have very little idea what's going on; the new enemy is reasonably clear, but the older one is still obscure to me - is it Angbard, Miriam's direct relatives, someone else? Honestly, at this point I don't even care. And the fact that the sample of the next book has an entirely new set of characters (well, almost entirely new) and portentously announces that the rather boring meeting that's described is very important some way doesn't particularly appeal. Not for me, I think - someone who enjoys this kind of double- and triple-thinking would love it, but I won't bother to get the next one.
    • 4/5
      Good start to the series. The books don't stand alone early as well as they work as a series.
    • 3/5
      This book was ok. As a fan of Roger Zelazny, I think I should note that although the premise of this series is similar to the Chronicles of Amber, the writing is not as clear and engaging. However, I enjoyed the story enough to keep reading the series, and I'll hope that the story evens out as we go along.
    • 3/5
      I read the third in this series first, and wasn't greatly impressed; but this opener really explains a lot of the things I didn't understand in the later book. It took time to set the scenes, although the to-and-fro nature of Miriam's newly discovered life is still confusing, and her complete acceptance of the next world seems a little blasé
    • 4/5
      When Miriam Beckstein's story got spiked little did she realise what a world of hurt she was going to find herself in - indeed Miriam would soon find that she had a whole slew of relative out of this world an with powers that were the envy of rulers in a world still mired in the depths of middle ages. This isn't a typical Charles Stross story (whatever that might be!) but it is an exciting story.
    • 3/5
      I liked how one other reviewer here put it. To paraphrase, starts with a nice premise and then adds too many holes. I loved the protagonist set-up. Mirriam comes across smart, modern, and capable. I enjoyed the build-up leading to meeting her birth family but then the book gets sloppy. I waited until I was into the second book before writing this review on the first.The end of this first book is a near-literal 'Perils of Pauline' ending, and would not be a satisfying read for someone unwilling to continue the series.I love most of Charlie Stross' other works. He has a way of sucking me in and blowing my mind. This is a departure for him, in terms of genre, being closer to fantasy than SF and closer to steam-punk than cyber-punk. So I come to this series as a huge fan of his. I claim him as one of my very favorite authors and some of his work as best-of-breed pieces of modern SF (along with some works of Vernor Vinge, Neal Stephenson, and other rare contemporary luminaries).I am feeling slightly bothered because he set up a magnificent situation and a character with staying power yet I am sensing it diminishing into a common 'summer read.' He may yet pull it out of the ordinary and finish with some mind-blowing but as the first book ends it is losing steam, not gathering it. Sure it has a faint ring of Zelazny's Amber series but in no way does it feel like a rip-off, just an inspiration.I agree with some other reviewers that Mirriam rises to challenge the family too swiftly and loses the composed tactics I expected from her. She is not even trying to learn the language, a huge weakness for someone in her shoes. Now the counter argument is probably that someone is trying to kill her (more than one someone) on totally alien soil and she's forced into reactionary behavior. True. But it still feels out of character. She starts pulling on Angbard's tail too early.To me the set-up of the book is 4-star at least but by the end I'm feeling only a 3 star rating. I will continue the series and I still love Stross' works but this may not be counted among his finest. Too early to say until I finish the series, lol.
    • 4/5
      An interesting start to a series. I think that I figured out what was going on about halfway through... I'll continue to read just to see if I'm right. Characters are kind of so-so, Miriam is kind of Stephanie Plum-ish, i.e can't wait to jump in the sack with the first good looking guy to come along, but that's ok; I like Stephanie Plum.
    • 2/5
      I wanted to like this book, as I love all of the rest of Charles Stross' books... But on the whole I would say that I didn't like it. Although the heroine did grow on me, I just didn't care enough!

      I am going to read the second to see if it improves (hopefully).
    • 2/5
      Miriam Beckstein discovers an old locket among her birth mother's effects, and realizes that by gazing at it she can transport herself to a parallel world. Physically, the worlds are nearly identical, but her world has developed technologically far beyond the parallel world. Her long lost biological family quickly finds her and explains that she is the heir to a large fortune and, because she has the rare world-walking ability, must be part of the family business. Miriam goes along with it because A)they have guns and B)so do all of her newfound enemies, who want her inheritance. But even as she starts working in the family business, teleporting in between the worlds with trade goods in hand, she's working out ways to modernize the system and maybe even break herself free.

      There's a whole subgenre of stories about setting up a typical fantasy scenario (You're the only person left on earth! You've travelled through time! You have stumbled across a vampire conspiracy!) and then having the main character act as sensibly as possible, generally by collecting various gadgets, enlisting helpful friends, and talking everything out. This belongs solidly in that genre. Long stretches are just Miriam buying camping&computer equipment, or Miriam recording her thoughts and theories on the events of the scene before. I found it bland and uninteresting, so I doubt I'll continue with this series.
    • 5/5
      Great series about alternative universes, medieval families, smuggling and a strong female lead.
    • 3/5
      I finished this book last night, and while it has its moments, it seems to be lacking in a few spots, namely, the lead character Miriam.I liked the world, I liked the background. It is definitely a creative take on the old plot of parallel universes, and people jumping back and forth between them.What I didn't like is the main character. Miriam is a successful reporter who understands how business works. After receiving an amulet from her adoptive mother that was once her Birth Mothers, she manages to transport into an a non-technology, still feudal alternate universe. Initially, her reactions were right - investigate, do it slowly, and consistently. But, once she meets her birth-mothers family, her character doesn't act believably. She manages to understand her families business in a matter of days. After a few more days, she's already scheming on how to change the world. After initial concern for her adoptive mother, Miriam doesn't mention Iris for the rest of the book. She falls in love too fast with the leading man, who may or may not be what he seems.The end of the book was lacking. It doesn't complete the story and feels very unfinished. The end action scene was all over the place, and hard to follow.I enjoy this world, and I suspect, will enjoy reading the next two volumes in this trilogy, but unless I encounter the book in a Library or find them on BookMooch, I will not be finishing the series.
    • 2/5
      I enjoyed the idea of a clan of merchants able to move anything they can carry between worlds, but that they cannot move enough of anything to bring the people of this world out of the middle ages. I also liked the doppelganger idea, where protecting a home on one world means protecting it on both worlds at once.However, in spite of the thought provoking ideas I did not like this book. The story itself was weighted down by seemingly one dimensional characters and heavy handed dialogue to advance the plot. I have trouble understanding this author - half his books I love, half I hate.