The Trade of Queens (Merchant Princes Series #6) »

Charles Stross lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

A dissident faction of the Clan, the alternate universe group of families that has traded covertly with our world for a century or more, have carried nuclear devices between the worlds and exploded them in Washington, DC, killing the President of the United States. Now they will exterminate the rest of the Clan and keep Miriam alive only long enough to bear her child, the heir to the throne of their land in the Gruinmarkt world.

The worst and deepest secret is now revealed: behind the horrifying plot is a faction of the US government itself, preparing for a political takeover in the aftermath of disaster. There is no safe place for Miriam and her Clan except, perhaps, in the third alternate world, New Britain—which has just had a revolution and a nuclear incident of its own.

Charles Stross's Merchant Princes series reaches a spectacular climax in this sixth volume. Praised by Nobel laureate Paul Krugman as "great fun," this is state of the art, cutting edge SF grown out of a fantastic premise.

Publishers Weekly

In the meandering sixth and final book in Stross’s Merchant Princes series (after 2008’s The Merchants’ War), the war within the Clan Corporate fully spreads to our dimension. In the summer of 2003, Clan defectors attack Washington, D.C., killing President Bush and members of the Supreme Court and installing a barely disguised Dick Cheney, code-named WARBUCKS, as president. Meanwhile, Miriam, a Boston-area reporter and long-lost member of the Clan, is dealing with the fallout of the previous conflicts, including her unwanted pregnancy. The plethora of character deaths fails to resolve any plot lines, and while Stross’s breezy style makes pages of pedantic background go by quickly, they still feel like filler. The unsubtle political satire is dated and juvenile, and readers drawn in by inventive world-building earlier in the series will be sorely disappointed by its absence here. (Mar.)