Saturn’s Children – Charles Stross
Orbit Hachette Livre, 2009 (reprint)
372 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 978-1-84149-568-2

Reviewed by Liz Grzyb

Saturn’s Children is about Freya, a humanoid robot designed as a concubine for the human race. Unfortunately, the human race has been extinct for 200 years and the new aristos don’t have much of a fondness for humanoids.

Freya finds herself in a spot of bother when she gets into an argument with an aristo at the cloud casino on Venus, and needs to leave in a hurry. She doesn’t need to consider for long when the opportunity of being a “courier” to get off-world presents itself. Unfortunately, working for JeevesCo isn’t as simple as it first seems, and Freya is caught up in a solar system-wide conspiracy, filled with assumed identities, assassination attempts and sex.

As a protagonist, Freya is an interesting character. Due to her “escort” programming, she is empathetic and ever so slightly sex-mad. She yearns for her One True Love, even though humans are extinct, but manages to find some release with various humanoid (and hotels, and spaceship) partners. So far the novel might seem to be squarely centred upon sex, but this isn’t so. Most of the story is pure adventure, as Freya is sent from planet to planet in fulfilling her orders from Jeeves. There is some confusion as Freya installs her sister, Juliette’s, soul chip and takes on part of her personality, but this is resolved fairly well as the story proceeds.

Readers of a range of genres will enjoy Saturn’s Children. It offers an amusing mixture of spy thriller, space opera and humour.