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Fantasy. Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: The third book (after The Family Trade and The Hidden Family) in the saga of the Merchant Princes by Charles Stross, in which Miriam gets into deadly trouble. Miriam Beckstein has gotten in touch with her roots and they have nearly strangled her. A young, hip, business journalist in Boston, she discovered (in The Family Trade ) that her family comes from an alternate reality, that she is very well-connected, and that her family is a lot too much like the mafia for comfort. In addition, starting with the fact that women are family property and required to breed more family members with the unique talent to walk between worlds, she has tried to remain an outsider and her own woman. And start a profitable business in a third world she has discovered, outside the family reach (recounted in The Hidden Family). She fell in love with a distant relative but he's dead, killed saving her life. There have been murders, betrayals. Now, however, in The Clan Corporate, she may be overreaching. And if she gets caught, death or a fate worse is around the bend. There is for instance the brain-damaged son of the local king who needs a wife. But they'd never make her do that, would they?.… (more)
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Miriam's rather foolish, headstrong decisions help propel the plot along
WHen I am able to get past Mariam's faults I really do still enjoy this series and will continue on.
This book is, for me, somewhat unsatisfying. The formerly cautious Mirriam takes unnecessary risks, even when warned not to and gets into deep shit. It seems more than a little out of character for her.
There's an,
I also understand the reasons why, but find that I miss time in New Britain, the victorian police state, it's more interesting than either of the others, particularly when Mirriam spends a lot of her time in Gruinmarkt basically under house arrest, actual or otherwise.
I'll get the next one in the series, but I'm hoping it improves more than a little.
Back on our side Matt has defected taking his knowledge of the second world and it's cross world drug smuggling to the DEA in return for witness protection. Of course that doesn't go quite to plan.
Stross is a sharp, witty writer with a wonderful imagination, creating new twists on the staples of fantasy, a feudal system & royal plots, blending with post 9/11 terror conscious America.
He mires his wonderful protagonist character down in so much muck that she doesn't have room to breathe as a character. He goes further and begins to betray the confident woman he created. She is now continuously weak, lacks foresight, and has a child's sense of consequences.
The ending of this book is a three ring circus, an Irwin Allen-sized disaster movie. The coincidences pile on far too high for me to suspend my disbelief. Mike's first assignment in the middle world happens to be with Mirriam (who he dated in the past) and the wedding announcement party is crashed by the prince at exactly the same time Mike is there to see her. Stop! Just... no. There are other similar issues but the ending was most egregious. This is the sort of plotting a teenage boy writes, not one of my favorite authors.
Going back, there was the whole episode with Matthias trying to escape. That sequence was so stupid it hurt. A smart security-conscious type does WHAT? The nuclear threat alone would have been enough to get closer to the front door than he got.
I'm invested enough in the story to continue but I'm hoping this is the lowest point in the crafting of this series.
I probably will buy the next book, but not a new hardcover.