OOK, this is where the publishing industry gets a bit strange. The Bloodline Feud, available in the United kingdom right now, was originally published as separate volumes, to wit The Family Trade (2004) and The Hidden Family (2005) as the beginning of his Merchant Princes series, which is six volumes long. Or three volumes long if Stross had had his way. And now it will be three volumes long.
The Merchant Princes is a series in which some humans have an ability to travel between alternative Earths, which have greatly differing levels of technology and cultural development. This series is science fiction, even though it was originally marketed by the publisher as fantasy. The first three books were collectively nominated for and won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2007.
If you haven’t already read the novels as published separately, The Bloodline Feud forms the author’s preferred text, as this was the way Stross intended it to be published. Like The Lord of The Rings, it was intended as a trilogy with three fat volumes.
Bella, his editor, says Charlie “made a large number of line-edit type changes throughout, making for a smoother, higher quality read. He also dealt with niggles in the text that had been bothering him and also cut out some of the ‘infodump’ type sections necessary when the series was many smaller books. When the books were taken from six to three, we knew not as much ‘catchup’ was needed for the reader as if you were reintroducing aspects of world-building, plot and character at the start of each of the original six novels. We hope this will mean a more enjoyable read from a now more experienced author.”
The series centers on Miriam Beckstein, a freelance tech journalist who quite suddenly and rather unpleasantly gets involved far too quickly with cross-world assassins. Miriam is on the receiving end of death threats, as these covert operators are drug runners and autocrats, who in their world are something like the rulers of a medieval empire. To make things infinitely worse, one of the competing families are her own long lost family, as her mother traveled to another Earth to protect herself and Miriam and they now want her to rejoin them, as she’s of royal blood. She has other plans
It’s a fun read with swords and nuclear weapons, deadly family politics and American inside the Beltway politics, and rather well-crafted worlds. Do pay attention carefully to how the Earth that may or may be this one is described in conversations as there’s a big surprise that I missed the first time I read The Bloodline Feud in the original text.
Does it work as alternative history? I think it does. It certainly works better as one volume read straight through than it did when I waited a year for the second volume. I indeed think you have a treat in store for you as Tor UK is publishing all three volumes starting in April followed by The Traders’ War and The Revolution Trade in May and June of this year respectively.
(Tor UK, 2012)
