The Family Trade

Locations
Call Number: Fantasy
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fantasy	4-week checkout	On Shelf

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

It's OK submitted by Jen Chapin-Smith on August 23, 2012, 3:53pm While this first book in the Merchant Princes series is a good read, the series started to bore me after awhile, so I stopped reading the second one. The books are funny, but not nearly as interesting or hilarious as Charles Stross' "The Laundry" series.

Good first book, but the series crashes submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 12, 2018, 11:06am I'm all the way to Book 4 of this series, and I'm really sad that I'm so hooked on the storyline, because I'm just not really enjoying the reading experience.

On the good side, the basic concept is interesting: There are multiple worlds out there where history diverged, and a few people with a recessive trait are "world walkers" who can travel between them. Miriam is the lost child of one of these families, and (re)discovers them, her skill, and this other world.

On the down side.... (1) The whole thing in this first novel feels forced. Stross just seems to be trying too hard. ("Here! I am writing a woman main character! Here! This is how a woman main character would react!") (2) Miriam's career as an investigative reporter is just a little too convenient, with *way* too many occasions of her pulling out her dictaphone and explaining what's going on, because apparently the reader isn't picking it up from the actual reading. (3) Stross has clearly thought out the larger/longer story line way into the future and is setting up a ton for future novels. That, in itself, is great, but it means that he's packing way more into this story than it can hold. (4) This first novel ends with absolutely nothing resolved. It might as well have been in the middle of a sentence. No thanks on that style!