From Publishers Weekly

Miriam Beckstein, aka Countess Helge Thorold-Hjorth of the Clan, finds her own world to conquer in this fast-moving sequel to The Family Trade (2004)—a neo-Victorian America ruled by an English king in exile. Determined to show her uncle, Duke Angmar, that a hidden branch of the Clan is responsible for past assassinations and present attempts on her life, Miriam tracks them to the world of New Britain. There, she connects with a pawnbroker-cum-revolutionary and begins her own revolution to demonstrate the higher profits found in intellectual property smuggling. Before long, Miriam is battling suspicious royal security and the hidden family's hit team at the same time. Stross continues to mix high and low tech in amusing and surprising ways. However, while giving a gritty SF portrait of the marvels of modern market economics and correcting the too pretty portrait of too many medieval fantasy lands, he sometimes overlooks the realities that constrain both. Still, less historically minded readers can lose themselves in Miriam's attempts to survive the Clan's equally dangerous high-stakes business and social games. Stross weaves a tale worthy of Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown. Agent, Caitlin Blasdell at Liza Dawson Associates. (June 9)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The sequel to The Family Trade (2004) continues the adventures of Miriam, the high-tech journalist flung into a fantasy world that really does recall the early volumes of Roger Zelazny's Amber series. Miriam is now Lady Helge, and her family resembles one of the Mafia variety too closely for her own peace of mind. Meanwhile, she is the equivalent of a local capo. The locality in which she functions, at several levels of technology and ethics, is a well-drawn avatar of the Victorian era, whose people are, however, anything but helpless victims, and wouldn't be even if Lady Helge had far fewer scruples than she does have. Indeed, she is already showing enough scruples that, sooner or later, the family may notice--and being nice to clients is a big taboo for members of the hidden family. Laugh your way to an ending that clearly promises further enjoyable volumes. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Publishers Weekly

Stross's lively third volume in his Merchant Princes SF series (after 2005's The Hidden Family) finds 33-year-old Boston journalist Miriam Beckstein still caught in a "barely post-feudal" alternate world where she's part of a mafiosa-like family called "the Clan." The Clan is holding Miriam's mother hostage in an effort to force the reluctant, thoroughly modern Miriam to make a politically advantageous marriage. Also dragged into deadly Clan politics is Miriam's ex-boyfriend, Mike Fleming, a DEA agent who has infiltrated Miriam's world on the orders of Homeland Security. Miriam's foolish, headstrong decisions help propel the fast-paced plot. Mike's discovery that the Clan may have planted nuclear weapons on our world raises the ante. While Miriam can be frustratingly dense, playing right into her captors' hands, the book gallops along to a cliffhanger ending that will leave readers eagerly awaiting future installments. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the third volume (after The Family Trade, 2004, and The Hidden Family, 2005) of The Merchant Princes, Miriam Beckstein's situation continues to resemble an alternate-worlds version of The Perils of Pauline. Having escaped immediate reduction to the status of breeding stock for her Mafia-like kinsmen, she lands in a third world, one in which, unfortunately, the local king has no brains. No heir, either. Ulp! Miriam suspects she has jumped from the frying pan into the fire, and also that her relatives may still be pursuing her to a probably gruesome death for defying their will. Persons in our world discovering that they have ties to others is a classic sf and fantasy theme; just see Roger Zelazny's two Chronicles of Amber series. Stross and his feisty heroine are currently about the best practitioner and heroine the old motif boasts, and many are and will be the readers hoping for more than the three volumes they've given us so far. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From Publishers Weekly

Readers unfamiliar with Stross's Clan Corporate (2006) and its predecessors should hunt them down before diving into this breakneck fourth Merchant Princes episode. The clan, a Machiavellian trading dynasty whose members can cross among parallel universes, are losing control of their own affairs, embroiled in a shooting war with local royalty on the Gruinmarkt world and racing modern American black-ops agencies to unravel the secrets behind their world-walking ability. The latter subplot adds science-fictional flavor to a series already rich with economic and political themes and dense action scenes. The cost comes in characterization: familiar figures appear only briefly, and new players acquire little depth. Miriam Beckstein, journalist turned mercantile heiress, is still the nominal protagonist, but she spends most of this episode stuck one universe sideways from the main action. For sheer inventiveness and energy, this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“For sheer inventiveness and energy, this cliffhanger-riddled serial remains difficult to top.”
--*Publishers Weekly

“The world-building in this series is simply superb, in other words—it is engaging, crystal-clear and disturbingly real….. The Merchants' War* is fast-paced and engrossing and will leave readers ravenous for the next installment.”
--SciFi.com

"Charlie Stross' latest is a brilliant, amusing, and challenging piece of mestizo fiction -- recklessly cross-breeding fantasy and SF tropes, and using the resulting bonfire to say interesting things about culture, economics, politics, and really cool battles with chain-mail and MP5's and horses  and hang-gliders.  Very real people with very different backgrounds meet and collide and strike lovely sparks. This series is great and getting better all the time!"
--S.M. Stirling

“The action shifts rapidly among the three worlds in the fourth successive thriller in a fantastically thrilling series.”
--Booklist

Pressestimmen

»Charles Stross ist der neue Superstar der amerikanischen Science-Fiction!« (SF Chronicle )

"'Dämonentor" ist ein echter Ausnahmetitel [...]: intelligent, böse, und stellenweise sogar komisch." (Der Tagesspiegel )

Kurzbeschreibung

„Akte X“ meets „Buffy, die Vampirjägerin“ – die Fantasy-Okkult-Serie aus Großbritannien

London, Sonderabteilung des Geheimdienstes zum Schutz der unwissenden Menschheit vor okkulten Übergriffen: Bob Howard ist ein einfacher Angestellter – da wird er überraschend zum Agenten befördert. Nun liegt es an ihm, die Welt vor dunklen Mächten zu retten, die durch Dimensionstore in unsere Welt gekommen sind und deren Machenschaften weit in die Vergangenheit zurückreichen.

Pressestimmen

»Charles Stross ist der neue Superstar der amerikanischen Science-Fiction!« (SF Chronicle )

Kurzbeschreibung

Ein Genuss für alle Leser von Peter F. Hamilton und Stephen Baxter!

Ein Riesenerfolg in den USA, ein Roman, wie er zeitgemäßer nicht sein kann: Mit „Singularität“ knüpft Charles Stross nicht nur an die großen Klassiker wie Isaac Asimov und Arthur C. Clarke an, sondern stellt sich auf Anhieb in eine Reihe mit den heutigen Größen des Genres. Was immer Sie von einem SF-Abenteuerroman erwarten, Sie finden es in diesem Buch!