Neptune's Brood

Written by Charles Stross

Narrated by Emily Gray

Krina Alizond-114 is a bookish historian of accountancy practices and a metahuman in a universe where the last natural humans went extinct 5000 years ago. When a letter from her sister goes missing Krina embarks on a dangerous journey across galaxies and

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781470380090

Charles Stross

Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England, in 1964. He has worked as a pharmacist, software engineer and freelance journalist, but now writes full-time. To date, Stross has won two Hugo awards and been nominated twelve times. He has also won the Locus Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best Novella and has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke and Nebula Awards. He is the author of the popular Merchant Princes and Empire Games series, set in the same world. In addition, his fiction has been translated into around a dozen languages. Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife Feorag, a couple of cats, several thousand books, and an ever-changing herd of obsolescent computers.

Reviews for Neptune's Brood

[Stacey Hoffer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Historian Accountant Krina is a space robot academic looking for her sister. She and her siblings (fellow bio-mech clones) have cracked an intergalactic con and everyone wants a piece of the action. Highly recommend the audiobook!

[andrew_c-909692 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Who knew forensic accounting could be so exciting?

I do have two quibbles with this book though. Stross has an annoying habit of namechecking flavour of the month techs, so a type of financial instrument central to the plot is rather incongruously called bitcoin. Which it has no resemblence to apart from involving blockchains. The other is there is too much telling when most of it could be shown, in my opinion.

Despite this it's a fun and slightly silly romp which I thoroughly enjoyed. A better book in my opinion than than Saturn's Children. It's up there with the Laundry Series. Just don't go looking for meanings.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Posthumanity, thousands of years in the future, has colonized many worlds at sublight speeds, financing it through a variation of blockchain lending and debt that is paid off by launching new colonies (that is, a Ponzi scheme of sorts). Our hero is the clone of a prominent financier whose hobby of investigating lightspeed frauds ends up threatening to expose a dangerous secret. A lot of shenanigans, financial and otherwise, ensue; one funny note is that Stross likes “abyssal” and “Cherenkov radiation” as much in his sf as in his Bob Howard fantasy.

[rmagahiz · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

(I received this audiobook through the Early Reviewers program on LibraryThing.)

This book is heavy on the worldbuilding more than the other conventional attributes of good storytelling, but I enjoyed its vision of the far distant future. There are pivotal scenes which take place largely offstage, large numbers of characters whom we take the effort to get to know who end up being abandoned long before the end, and crucial plot points which are simply stated in a non-dramatic fashion to the point where they seem like offhand remarks. Yet the characters which work do work quite well, in my opinion, and the otherworldly settings work well as convincingly strange, and even if the central plot conceit (inhabited space dominated by the forces of economics) ends up giving impression of being the author's pet hobby-horse, it just kind of works for me in a way.

By the end, I didn't know what the fate of the flying cathedral or the status of the undersea room stuffed with books actually was. Still, I'll remember the spacegoing piratical capitalist bats lead by Count Rudi, the pathologically self-absorbed Gravid Mother, and sweep of conspiracies thousands of years in the making for a while. Do I wish that Krina were more of an active agent in her own story instead of simply reacting to what happened to her? Yes, of course, but I am willing to give her a pass given the interesting way she describes what it was like to be given benthic mermaid form in an ocean hundreds of kilometers deep. The book is too long to make a goo film, yet I would be pleased to witness some of these spectacles if someone were to try.

The audiobook narrated by Emily Gray brought out the rather old-fashioned nature of the main character's viewpoint on things and lightened up what might have been a heavy infodump-prone read. I suspect that if I'd experienced this in written form instead of through this narration I would have given it only three stars, but that's the way this subjective matter of reviewing works.

[count_zero-837732 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'd say that if I had had the money to register for the Hugo Awards this year, I would have had a dead heat between this book and Ancillary Justice. Both books are impressive SF investigative thrillers, and both have gripping stories with interesting characters and equally interesting ideas. In the case of Neptune's Brood, the idea is basically building a Space Opera thriller around the old investigative axiom of "Follow the money," and it works incredibly well. It's got adventure, pirates, mermaids, zombies, and transhumanism, all wrapped up in one glorious adventure.

I'm almost glad that I didn't have the ability to vote for the Hugo Awards this year, as I wouldn't know which one to choose.

[haloedrain · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book seems like Charles Stross couldn't decide whether he was writing a space opera or a Space Econ 101 textbook, so he wrote both and spliced them together, ruining the pacing of both. I might have liked it better if I were at all interested in economics, but as is I felt like he could have left a lot of that detail out and let the reader infer, then add detailed appendices like the Lord of the Rings if he really must show off all the worldbuilding. I guess it's supposed to be that the narrator really thinks of absolutely everything (including biology) in terms of economics and will happily explain at length, but that just makes it extra jarring when she breaks character and explains something in terms of "Fragiles" (unmodified genetic humans, which basically don't exist anymore) or distances from Earth (which she probably hasn't been to and neither she or her intended audience has any reason to know much about).

[tldegray-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I marked this as "didn't finish" because I read the Hugos Excerpt only. I didn't enjoy it enough to seek out the full book, mostly because whenever it hit upon something that did interest me, it would skip to another plot point.

[dlmorrese · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This already has many reviews, and I have little to add. I'll just say that the far future setting, the not-quite-human characters, and what I thought an unlikely economic system made it difficult for me to relate to the story. It's not bad. In fact, it's interesting. The protagonist is likeable. There are some witty bits. It's just that it I saw little of relevance to me personally or to humanity in general. The future it paints seems unlikely to me and does not tie back strongly to the present or past.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A bit meh. While the characters were interesting, a book describing…in detail…interstellar finance and banking machinations was about as interesting as it sounds. Stross is either hit or miss for me and this was readable but a miss.

[carsonkicklighter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I do so love it when life insurance salesmen masquerading as space pirates apprehend an interstellar cathedral in an attempt to untangle a galactic accounting conspiracy

[gregandlarry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Strange and different world.

[karlstar_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book - despite the subject. This is a novel entirely about interstellar finance in a universe with no FTL. If you want to read a whole book about 'realistic' space travel and a plausible monetary system and how it works and how it could be defrauded, this could be the book for you! However, if you aren't interested in interstellar finance and fraud schemes that sound a lot like what is currently being perpetrated by international banks, then you may find this long and not very interesting. The characters were good though I found them a bit weak - if 'fragile' true humans don't exist and instead all of the inhabitants are really intelligent machines, why are they so biological? Why are they humanoid at all?I like Stross' work, but this one was more an exercise in curiousity than a really great book.

[macha_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3 and a half stars. space opera set in a far future dominated by posthuman populations, in which all societal transactions have been monetized. the hero is a forensic accountant who investigates a major scam perpetrated two thousand years back in a very long con. the lost financial instrument she's chasing, then, spreadsheets that prove what happened, have broad financial consequences well beyond revealing a conspiracy/massacre that would be a war crime if war still made any economic sense. various parties declare mutually incompatible financial interests along the way, including an itinerant insurance company operating in space as privateers, a mendicant Church of the Fragile seeking to repopulate the stars with humans, and some very focussed merchant bankers looking for a long-awaited score. meanwhile the whole currency system may collapse if a FTL drive, a holy grail that would destroy the whole principle behind slow money, proves to be possible. all debts eventually come due and must be tallied and collected, and some of them, against all odds, turn out to have ethical as well as monetary implications. in short, a typical romp with the wild imagination of Charlie Stross, extrapolating from the present day.

[stormraven_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

To me, the most amazing thing about Neptune's Brood is that it is interesting. Sure, it is set in the same post-human future as Saturn's Children (although it is not a direct sequel, so not having read the first will not prevent one from enjoying this). Sure, it has killer androids, deranged clergy, paranoid despots, and ruthless space pirates. But the central plot of the story revolves around interstellar banking transactions, a subject that it would seem would be as dry as space dust, but in Stross' hands, this forms the basis for a tense and gripping tale of intrigue, mystery, and danger. Not only that, it is set in a future that is both very alien, and yet familiar enough to make the reader uneasy.The story follows the travails of Krina Alizond-114, a bank historian who specializes in the history of banking frauds, as she tries to find her sister Ana so they can work together to track down the Atlantis Carbuncle, an item that will unlock vast wealth. As the book opens, Krina has just arrived at Taj Beacon, having beamed in expecting to meet her sister there only to find that Ana has traveled to the nearby water planet of Shin-Tethys without leaving any kind of explanation. This poses something of a problem for Krina, as she had arrived at Taj Beacon without substantial amounts of "fast money", and unwilling to draw the attention that would accompany converting her "slow money" reserve into usable currency. As a result, Krina accepts a working passage under aboard a mobile chapel of the Church of the Fragile under the authority of Deacon Dennett, the temporary leader of the mission.This delay in Krina's plans allows Stross to discuss the two primary background elements of the novel: The nature of this post-human society, and how interstellar finance is handled in a world in which faster than light travel does not exist. Traveling on the Church of the Fragile - the local representatives of the sect dedicated to preserving and possibly reviving the "fragile" as the androids that populate the universe call humans (due to our easily damaged nature) - reveals just how different this world is from ours. Although Krina wears a human-looking body, this isn't her. In fact, it turns out that the body she wears at the opening of the novel was just created for her on Taj Beacon after she was transmitted from an entirely different star system (apparently as nothing more than a set of code sent on a light beam). One's identity is now stored in a "soul chip" placed inside the head of a body, which is why the high priestess of the Church of the Fragile isn't dead as the result of an on-ship mishap, but is merely incapacitated while Deacon Dennett generates a new body for her.The other background feature of the story is interstellar banking, which is handled using "slow money", a form of currency that exists almost exclusively to finance interstellar expeditions to found new colonies. This "slow money" is contrasted in the book with "fast money" (which is what we would now normally consider "money") and "medium money" (which covers investments other than building colony ships and funding the needs of new colonies). But slow money is at the root of the interstellar financial system, and at the heart of the story. Because when a new colony is financed, it must go deeply into "slow money" debt, first to pay back the parent colony that sponsored the new one, and then to recruit new colonists to help with the new colony. But the only reasonable path for a colony to get out of slow money debt is to finance the construction of new colonies that will then be financially beholden to it as their parent. In short, slow money is something like a very slow-moving chain letter, and the colonies at the end of the line end up owing a pile of debt they can never hope to repay. The debt-centric nature of this future society even permeates to the personal level, as Krina reveals that people are born (or rather, created) owing a debt to repay their parent for the cost required to incubate and raise them.One of the interesting unspoken facts about the world that Stross has created is that this "slow money" debt is, almost the sole driving force that for space colonization. In the post-human world where life spans are extremely long, the birth rate is consciously determined, and even if one's body is in a mishap that kills you there is a decent chance you can be brought back, there is no particular demographic reason for humanity to expand to the stars. As trading physical commodities between star systems would be prohibitively expensive, the only transactions between different colonies involve information and not material goods. The only real reason to finance and establish a new colony in another star system is to offload your own debt onto a new venture. This doesn't explain why or how the first extrasolar colony was founded, or how this colony was financed - the system Stross describes requires at least three inhabited star systems to work - but it is the underlying truth of how the system functions at the time the book is set.It is against this backdrop that Krina's quest to unravel what she suspects to be the largest banking fraud in history is set. In a world in which interstellar banking looms over pretty much everything else, being a bank historian who specializes in studying the history of bank fraud is a relatively interesting subject, and Krina is clearly quite intelligent and understands the financial systems of her society quite well. But she is also an academic, and as a result, she is somewhat naive when it comes to the every day hazards that surround her. This combination of obvious intellect and naivete makes Krina a character that the reader can enjoy following about, but who is not so overly competent that she never makes missteps. And her missteps are often what drive the plot. When she takes passage on the Deacon Dennett's Church of the Fragile ship, Krina is oblivious to the lurking dangers that surround her, which in retrospect seem almost obvious. Krina is oblivious to the danger that pursues her, and even when she is taken in by the piratical "Count" Rudi of the Permanent Crimson Branch Office Five Zero, who is trying to locate Krina's sister Ana as his corporation had rather foolishly underwritten a large insurance policy on Ana, Krina is still more or less clueless concerning the direction from which the hazards to her life and freedom are coming from.But to a certain extent Krina's story, as filled with intrigue, double-crosses, and misadventures as it is, is only the first layer of what makes Neptune's Brood interesting. When Krina reaches the water planet Shin-Tehtys and lands in Nova Ploetsk in the Kingdom of Argos, she finds a nation ruled by the despotic and paranoid Queen Medea. But in a world in which one can make "children" who are little more than copies of oneself, a paranoid ruler can populate her bureaucracy with what amounts to one's own clones, ensuring their loyalty. And Queen Medea has done so, creating a self-reinforcing aura of paranoia in her government. But Medea isn't the only one - Krina's "mother" Sondra has herself created a collection of clones and almost clones to staff her bank, including the line that Krina comes from. Although not fully explored in the book, the idea of a world in which those with power can create clones and near clones of themselves to act as their own foot soldiers is both unsettling and, I would venture, a topic that would make for an interesting book.[More forthcoming]

[alanpoulter_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Set in a future when humanity is extinct, intelligent robots carry on the task of spreading civilisation, having colonised the solar system and sent ships to nearby stars. These are not soulless Asimovian robots as their minds are copies of archetypal personalities, created by conditioning using human experiences (some extremely unpleasant). This conditioning also inculcates basic emotions and needs: for example, robots can enjoy a drink or two (though not of alcohol) and can experience the pleasures of sex when they 'link up'.For control purposes, humans made serving them the deepest desire of a robot. Now humans are gone, 'aristo' robots use this servitude capacity to enslave other robots. Their greatest fear is of 'pink goo' - animal cells of any kind that could, in theory, be used to rebuild one of the lost human 'Creators'. A human, could, simply by their presence, control any and all robots using their inbuilt servitude routines.The second in a series, this novel seemingly eschews the more fundamental issues looked at in the first and takes place in the seemingly rather dull area of accountancy. Krina studies historical accounting practices, in particular the disappearance of the Atlantis space Colony, but is re-assigned to find her sister, who is also a accountant, who has gone missing. There is no FTL drive, but robots can shut down and wait out the journey to nearby stars. The problem is how to finance such expansion. Krina gets cheap passage on a “ Human Church” worshippers ship going to the right planet. Unbeknownst to her, she is followed onto the Church ship by a replica of herself who murders the ticketing robot she dealt with and stows away on her ship. And things escalate from there as the scenario opens out in to a gloriously human tale of greed and murder on an epic scale: everything turns out to be inter-related and no-one is entirely innocent. This tale sounds perhaps somewhat grim but this is balanced by its robot cast, some so outlandishly evil in their actions, that they become caricature villains...This novel has everything, new ideas a plenty, a very different approach to space colonisation and humour. It is a shame it missed out on awards. It even makes accountancy seem exciting...

[glennis.leblanc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you like lots of asides by the main character about banking and financial fraud then this is the book for you. Otherwise the constant interruptions in the flow of the story got old. Granted it was all very clever and with Krina being a financial historian it does make sense that she would lecture the reader but it does grow old. I found myself skimming those sections. Otherwise the story was good and the world building was great. This is a sequel to Saturn's Children and the nice thing is this book is set up that you don't have to have read the first book in order to understand what is going on since Ana was the protagonist of the first book and Krina of this one.

[questbird · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in the same universe as Saturn's Children, though many centuries later. The central theme is money and how it works at slower-than-light speeds when civilisation is spread across several light years. Interstellar travel is only possible at sublight speeds; impossible for us 'Fragiles' but doable by our metahuman robotic successors who can shift themselves into 'slow time'. The heroine is an accountant historian. That sounds unlikely and it is. Far from the sexy, fightin' femmebot of 'Saturn's children', Krina spends most of the novel reacting to things which happen to her. In between various kidnappings and imprisonments she ruminates about interstellar banking and debt, and the mystery of her vanished sister. The author has put quite a bit of thought into this topic, but he struggles to make it an engaging story with these characters. A moderately amusing tale nonetheless.

[melydia_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's the far future, and our narrator is Krina, a sort of being we might consider to be somewhere between an android and a clone. It's several thousand years in the future, and almost nothing is familiar to someone from the 21st century, from the extreme genetic modifications to the spaceship planets to the monetary system. In fact, I felt like there was too much going on here. I like extensive world-building, especially in science fiction, but I had a lot of trouble keeping up. It didn't help that many of the differences between Krina's world and our own were explained in lengthy essays on the different speeds of money, financial fraud, semi-autonomous clones, mermaids, and bats, rather than as a natural part of the plot. Had the people been physically familiar with a crazy economic system (I never quite got the hang of slow money); or barely humanoid cyborg clones living on a planet without needing to organize their economy around slower-than-light space travel; or the plot focused mainly on the interactions between clones, their originals, copied soul chips, and the tricky ethics thereof; or the characters had been either bat-humans or insurance pirates but not both; or even just focusing on the underused Church of the Fragile, a cult dedicated to humans without any physical modifications -- any of those alone could have been fascinating. All of them stuffed into a single novel got in the way of the story. I had a lot of trouble following what was going on and keeping the characters straight. There is surely a very specific audience who would love this sort of ultra-exotic science fiction, but I prefer my story/concept balance to be tipped just a little bit further toward the former.

[susanbeamon · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This review is for the audio book version. The narration by Emily Gray was very well done.The science in science fiction is usually physical, like viruses or DNA or computers or spaceships. There is some of that in this story, but the main science is the dismal science, economics. Who understands economics? Financial frauds play a large part of the story. Every time our lead character stops to explain something, necessary to maintain understanding and interest, I learned something new.

[enemyanniemae · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I was the recipient of a copy of this book in audio format from the Librarything Early Reviewers Program. While I enjoyed listening to it (the narrator was quite good and very skilled at creating different voices for the various characters), I have to admit that I had to re-listen to entire sections more than once. Science Fiction is NOT a genre I've ever been interested in. I remember trying and failing to finish books by Clarke, Asimov, Robinson... Had Neptune's Brood arrived in paper form, I don't know that I could have finished it either. But the reading was so good that I looked forward to listening. (to be continued)

[edwakurt-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I won this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewers. I love sci-fi and fantasy stories and was super excited to get this audiobook. I was sorely disappointed when I actually listened to the book. I felt that the listener was thrown into the middle of the story without any idea of what was going on. This book contained a lot of jargon that was hard to keep straight. I am still confused about the plot of the story and felt lost the whole time I listened to the book. I think the idea of mechanical people helping the human race was a great premise but the idea was not fully flushed out and it was definitely not easy to read.

[hg2008_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to try out this audiobook because even though it was not my go to genre, I do like some sci fi and the plot of the audiobook sounded interesting, but alas I was sorely disappointed. While the audiobook really was well written and developed, I felt there were a few things wrong with it: •The "jargon" that is used in the story is very inventive, but very confusing and hard to understand for a new reader of this authors works (like me). •The plot seems to go very slow and drags •It seems like a sequel when it is actually a stand alone book. This kind of relates to my frist point when listening to this book it feels like you already supposed to know what is going on in this invented world and understand its structure and how things work there etc which for someone like me this wasnt the case. I found myself so very confused with the structure or premise of this world. Yes, I did some research and this made up world is not new for this author as it is in another book of his but for someone like me who hasnt read any of his other books it was very frustrating. •The premise about the value of cash and what has happened to it is interesting but I dont like how there is alot of focus on it through the book. I think there are alot of other better plot points he could have focused on in the story. Narration: The narration was ok. Grays voice was nice to listen to in tone and she was very animated. The only qualm I have here is a very important one: All the characters voices seemed to sound the same to me. I mean there was some variation but every voice I heard the narrator voice, nothing different or unique and I found it rather frustrating. My final verdict: I would recommend this audiobook for fans of this author, but otherwise I would not recommend this audiobook to the average person because I dont think they would understand or enjoy this book.

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

More shenanigans from Charlie Stross involving financial scams, post-human culture and much put-upon female characters. Ostensibly a follow-on to "Saturn's Children," I'll also note that much of the personal conflict reminds me of a better executed version of "Accelerando;" highly recommended.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Krina Alizond-114 is an android, and also a space-forensic-accountant. She and her sister clones investigate space-financial transactions which have been left open (usually because someone involved died, or it was a fraud) and clean up the mess while pocketing most of the space-money, just like their mother taught them. Krina is on a research space-pilgrimage to learn more about the centuries-old disappearance of the heavily-funded Atlantis space-Colony - the greatest space-Ponzi-scheme of all time - when she discovers she has a space-assassin stalking her. Why would anyone want to assassinate Krina? . . . . Unless her research has uncovered something that powerful people don't want to be public.This is the second book in a non-serial series. I haven't read the first (yet) but my understanding is that it is the same world but totally different characters. I fully enjoyed this book regardless. Space Operas are not usually my kind of thing, but this book is so well- (and nerdily-) written, and so hilarious, and the main character is so well-developed and compelling that the genre didn't matter in the least. None of the space-financial jargon made the least bit of sense to me, but I appreciate a good space-pirate, space-zombie, space-religious-cult, space-mermaid, or space-mafia-hit when I see one. Spaaaaaaaaaaace. Space.

[karenherndon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was not my kind of SciFi read. That said I have to admit that it was very well written with good characters and an unusual creative plot. I rated it only a three because, to me, it wasn't what I usually like plot wise, but to other SciFi fans it will probably be a five.