mass market paperback, 312 pages
English language
Published Aug. 28, 2005 by Tor Books.
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 …
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.
Horrendous. Like The Room of books, but that's too good for this.
This is somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. It was very readable, kept me interested and reading till the end; but also, not extremely memorable characters or details, so I doubt I'll have much memory of anything I read in a year or two. There's really only one character you get to know well, which is Miriam, the high-powered journalist who discovers she has the inherited ability to step between worlds into an alternate dimension. This ability comes to her from her family - who she has never known, being an orphan - but once on the other side, her ability identifies to her to her relatives, who turn out to be the equivalent of a massively powerful and corrupt mafia family. Now Miriam finds herself trapped in the "family business" - whether or not she wants any part of it, her ability to travel makes her highly …
This is somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for me. It was very readable, kept me interested and reading till the end; but also, not extremely memorable characters or details, so I doubt I'll have much memory of anything I read in a year or two. There's really only one character you get to know well, which is Miriam, the high-powered journalist who discovers she has the inherited ability to step between worlds into an alternate dimension. This ability comes to her from her family - who she has never known, being an orphan - but once on the other side, her ability identifies to her to her relatives, who turn out to be the equivalent of a massively powerful and corrupt mafia family. Now Miriam finds herself trapped in the "family business" - whether or not she wants any part of it, her ability to travel makes her highly valuable and her position in the family inheritance paints a target on her back. She spends the rest of the book trying to find a way to evade those trying to kill her and find a morally more acceptable alternative to simply joining the family business.
I think at some point in their lives every girl has wanted to be a princess. Unfortunately after while you realise that most princesses, don't really get to do very much cool stuff. In fact was quite often the prince, the knight, the x male hero that did all the exciting stuff and the princess is a bit disappointing in comparison.
I think this is the first book in about 20 years about princesses that hasn't induced optic nerve damaging levels of eye rolling.
This book follows Miriam. Miriam is a tech journalist, or at least she is before rapidly getting fired at the start of the book, who discovers that she is a member of an Ruling Class of a world that she can travel to buy staring at a locket that used to belong to her mother (think the Long Earth, but sort of mediaeval). Of course in …
I think at some point in their lives every girl has wanted to be a princess. Unfortunately after while you realise that most princesses, don't really get to do very much cool stuff. In fact was quite often the prince, the knight, the x male hero that did all the exciting stuff and the princess is a bit disappointing in comparison.
I think this is the first book in about 20 years about princesses that hasn't induced optic nerve damaging levels of eye rolling.
This book follows Miriam. Miriam is a tech journalist, or at least she is before rapidly getting fired at the start of the book, who discovers that she is a member of an Ruling Class of a world that she can travel to buy staring at a locket that used to belong to her mother (think the Long Earth, but sort of mediaeval). Of course in Keeping with all good princess stories our protagonist doesn't know she it is a princess at the start her mother having been stabbed in mysterious circumstances, resulting in her being adopted as an orphan.
The story follows her trying to get to grips with this new world and the political intrigue but is within it and also trying to stay alive from Assassin's bombs, swords, and guns all sort of other danger in this new world.
I liked this a lot. You should read it.
This is the first book in a series called the Merchant Princes. I'd say it was frothy entertainment, done pretty well. A few people have the genetic ability to move back and forth between the present day and an alternate universe set on what appears to be the same planet, but to what looks like a period about 200 years earlier, and where history is a bit different. They use this remarkable ability to run a business that exploits the differences. A woman with this ability is orphaned as an infant, raised as a middle class American, and discovers her ability when she's 32. Consternation ensues.
