By Charles Stross
After reading the excellent first two books in this series, The Family Trade and The Hidden Family I was pleased as punch when The Clan Corporate, third instalment of this continuing saga, dropped onto the doormat.
Following the shenanigans at the end of the last book, savvy technology journalist and erstwhile cross-world entrepreneur, Miriam Beckstein, finds herself trapped in Gruinmarkt, ostensibly for her own safety, but in reality because she has ruffled too many feathers within the Clan elite. Isolated and unable to travel – in this world or any other – she has no choice but to toe-the-line until she can find a way to escape.
Her chance seems to present itself when she is asked to courier some documents on behalf of the Clan. Being a journalist and inquisitive by nature she cannot resist the opportunity to read what she is carrying and she stumbles upon a plot to increase the world-walking population through genetic engineering. Immediately she begins to investigate but she has been set-up, and her meddling, once uncovered, leaves her at the mercy of Clan security. Imprisoned in a strange house, in a strange part of the city with no allies and with a threat to her mother’s life hanging over her should she refuse to co-operate is bad enough, but the clan has plans to marry her off to the idiot son of the king in order to produce a world-walking heir and solidify once and for all their stranglehold on the monarchy, and thus, the country.
I’ll say right off the bat that this book is the weak link in the chain. I don’t know what Mr. Stross has planned for the future of the series but The Clan Corporate feels very definitely like a middle book. Almost all of the action, such as it is, takes place in small rooms or offices and while these things are necessary for the arc of the story, it gives the whole book a very claustrophobic feel and you are, at times, desperate to break out. Given his phenomenal output, and the delivery deadlines he must have in place, it may be that Charles Stross just couldn’t spend the necessary time to develop this part of the story further but I, for one, would rather have waited longer and had a richer story to enjoy.
It’s not that it’s badly written, far from it, but it retreads the same ground over and over with little forward motion until the end which, while definitely worth waiting for, takes an awfully long time to arrive although it does set things up beautifully for the next couple of books in the series.
While the main thread of the book still centres around Miriam, there is an interesting second thread involving a US government black-ops department that, following the defection of Matthias, the former Clan security chief, is investigating his claims about parallel worlds, not from a drug-running point of view, but with a national security remit that makes things much more interesting. The fact that one of the DEA agents seconded into this department is an ex-boyfriend of Miriam’s is stretching things a bit, but somewhere in the back of my mind I can’t help thinking he came up in conversation in a previous book, so I’m prepared to let it slide.
For fans of the series The Clan Corporate is a definite must-read, if only to establish the power-plays that will open up in the forthcoming ‘The Merchant’s War’ when it finally arrives. For newcomers, I’d start at the beginning because this book is not the place to get going with this story and without the background politics and intrigue you’ll struggle to understand what’s going on.
Having said that, having a terrific three book series to get stuck into, knowing that there is more to come, is no bad thing.
The Clan Corporate is published by Tor through Pan MacMillan and is available from Play.com, Blackwell and all good book stores.
Charles Stross maintains a blog which you can find here.