The Merchant Princes
The Merchant Princes is a science fantasy and alternate history series of nine novels by British writer Charles Stross. In the series, there exist a number of parallel worlds, all of which are on the same geographical Earth but with different societies at different points of development. Members of a certain bloodline can travel between these worlds along with their immediate possessions. The series largely follows Miriam Beckstein, a technology journalist raised in a familiar "normal" Earth, who discovers she was born in a parallel world and is a member of this bloodline. She quickly becomes entangled in political maneuvering and assassination plots with her estranged family. Miriam uses modern technology and investigative journalism to attempt to stay a step ahead.
The implications of this world-traveling ability are thoroughly explored by the series. The ability to take clothing and held items across allows a phenomenally lucrative import/export trade between worlds; wielders of this power have used it to become wealthy. Invaluable modern technology and medicine can be shipped to the feudal world; illegal drugs can be shipped in a world where the DEA has no power; and packages or messages that would take months to deliver by horseback can simply be mailed via FedEx in the modern world. This power has implications for security and crime as well, since it is now possible to commit a crime then disappear into thin air, and difficult to lock someone up in any effective manner. It also means there is immense social pressure on members of the genetic bloodline to breed with other compatible members to increase the likelihood of the ability manifesting.
The first six novels in the series were released from 2004 to 2010, and take place in 2002–2004 of an alternate present. The books were later re-released in 2014 as A Merchant Princes Omnibus, a trilogy of three books with each book a combination of two of the original novels: The Bloodline Feud, The Traders' War, and The Revolution Trade. The re-release also included a considerable amount of editing and rewriting by Stross, although no major plot changes. A new trilogy began in 2017 with the release of Empire Games featuring new characters and updating the year in-setting to 2020.
The first three novels of the series collectively won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2006. The series was also nominated for the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Series.
Development and themes
According to Stross, in 2001, he had already sold two books to the publisher Ace Books, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. Ace also had the right of first refusal to any future science fiction books Stross would publish, and would likely only publish one book of his a year so as not to have his books compete against themselves. His agent advised him that if he wished to sell more books without breach of contract and also to avoid self-cannibalization, he should branch out genres, and encouraged Stross to try his hand at a fantasy series. Stross was hesitant, but gave it a shot. He wanted to be original but not "too original" and create something hard to market. He decided his series would be his own spin on both the works of Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber, which featured a hero with special world-travelling powers, and the Paratime series of H. Beam Piper, which features an organization with the power to basically raid and exploit multiple alternate histories. The main world to be visited would also be a feudal one more out of the Renaissance, per many other fantasy stories. Stross chose to limit the scope of "magical" powers to solely the world-travelling. Stross was able to sell his new fantasy series to Tor Books, and would later adjust his contract with Ace to specifically exclude The Merchant Princes. This allowed Stross to explain the magic in the series with background science fiction without worrying about breach of contract, while also satisfying his desire for a consistent explanation of what was "really" going on behind the scenes.One of the themes that Stross wanted to explicitly explore in the series was that of the development trap, or more generally developmental economics, the issues involved in helping poor and stratified societies to rapidly "catch up." Economist Paul Krugman wrote about the series that Stross noticed that "the fantasy thought experiment, in which someone brings modern science and technology to a backward society, isn't a fantasy. It is, instead, something that's been tried all across the very real Third World," to mixed success at best. While some countries such as South Korea became rich powerhouses, others such as Thailand have only modernized somewhat, and some states like Somalia remain desperately poor, just with access to cell phones and guns. The case of the Gulf oil states such as Saudi Arabia remains a special case, with a fabulously privileged upper class able to be educated abroad and get cutting-edge medical care and the like, but not expanding the economy of their societies beyond the treasure trove that is their wealth from natural resources – which is compared with the Clan's treasure trove from interdimensional trade. Krugman qualified his praise of the economics with a proviso that the books "are, first and foremost, great fun" with a "rollicking plot," and not a bland essay about the implications of such trade.
''The Family Trade''
The Family Trade is the first book of The Merchant Princes, published in 2004. It introduces the reader to technology journalist Miriam Beckstein, who finds herself in a parallel world in which her extended family holds power.Miriam's adoptive mother Iris gives her a shoebox filled with items that belonged to Miriam's birth mother, a Jane Doe who died mysteriously when Miriam was only a baby. Among other items, Miriam finds a locket. Inside is a design not unlike a Celtic knot, and when she focuses on it, she is transported to a parallel world of a feudal Massachusetts whose technology is mostly in the Dark Ages—except for the men on horses armed with guns, and an upper class that has access to "imported" baubles from Miriam's normal Earth.
Miriam quickly finds herself caught up in the feuds of her estranged family, which calls itself the Clan. The Clan has used the genetic ability to travel back and forth between the two worlds to build a lucrative import/export trade, and enrich themselves. However, their founder and progeny were from the feudal world, and thus their mores and beliefs are as well; they are content to merely enrich themselves, and seek to ingratiate themselves to the local nobility, rather than to help the commonfolk. The easy money from their power also complicates reform. Miriam compares them to Saudi princes who visit the United States and Europe, but think in an entirely different way. The Clan's most profitable transport is currently drugs, which bothers Miriam both for ethical reasons, and in her belief that the Clan could do far better. She decides to attempt to reform the business from within, while dodging the various assassination plots hatched against her. She also understands that the drug trade will only last so long; anonymity and carrying large amounts of raw cash are growing steadily more suspicious.
Miriam finds a number of potential allies in her travels. They include Paulie, a research assistant from her former job with some experience in the field of law; Roland, a distant relation, economist, and potential love interest who would also like to be free of the Clan's machinations and prefers the United States to the feudal Gruinmarkt; Duke Angbard Lofstrom, Miriam's uncle and head of security for the Clan, as well as leader of its Boston operations; Olga, a young and flighty noble who helps explain to Miriam the politics and notables of Gruinmarkt; and Briliana and Kara, two lesser noble ladies-in-waiting assigned to Miriam's service in Gruinmarkt's capital of Niejwein.
Reviews of the book often note its rather abrupt ending. This is because both it and The Hidden Family were originally written as one novel, but that novel was then split for brevity's sake, as 600 pages was too long. The Family Trade placed fifth in the annual Locus Poll for best fantasy novel. The Family Trade and The Hidden Family were later released together as The Bloodline Feud, with some editing and adjustments.
''The Hidden Family''
The Hidden Family is the second book of The Merchant Princes, published in 2005. It completes the story begun in The Family Trade of Miriam Beckstein's attempts to understand and explore the new worlds she has access to. As the title suggests, the existence of families with the power to "worldwalk" unknown to the Clan becomes important in this book, as a shadow war to undermine the Clan continues. The story also includes Miriam's exploration of a third world largely unknown to the Clan, where Massachusetts is part of "New Britain" and the British monarchy fled to America; this nation has roughly Edwardian mores and 1930s technology. The existence of this third world also complicates security expectations, as it provides an angle to attack the Clan from locations which might seem safely guarded in both worlds, but are unguarded in the third world.In The Hidden Family, Miriam correctly hypothesizes that the Clan civil war that took place around the time she was born was caused and intensified by a third party – a distant branch of the Clan that, while weaker, was unknown and had access to a different world. They were thus able to perform attacks that seemed as if they must come from a rival world-walker within the Clan, but actually came from the Hidden Family. Miriam also believes this third party to be behind the attack on her birth mother. For reasons she cannot entirely understand, this branch family considers her existence a threat as well. Miriam also has to contend with elements in the Clan who distrust her. She is warned that in six months, a large Clan meeting will occur at Beltaigne, and her rivals – including her own blood grandmother Hildegarde – are likely to motion to have her declared incompetent, which would deny her the funds held in trust that was her inheritance. Lastly, Miriam believes that Duke Lofstram's security forces have a mole working for the Hidden Family, after several security lapses and attempts on her life that seemed to know too much.
Most of the book concerns Miriam's efforts in New Britain, both to research the hidden family as well as to build her own personal base of power separate from the alternative of marrying a Clan noble and throwing herself under his faction's protection. Miriam gained access to it via taking a New Britain locket off one of the hidden assassins who attacked her at the end of The Family Trade. There, she ships gold – tightly regulated under the mercantilist belief that the government requires a large supply of bullion – and allies with the Levellers, dissidents from the Royal government who demand something like the rights secured in the American Revolution in Miriam's world. Erasmus Burgeson, a Leveller quartermaster and pawnshop owner, helps set Miriam up with false identity papers, and Miriam moves on to her next money-making plan. After shipping gold to get some initial funds, she will instead ship ideas. She buys a business and begins to take to New Britain old patents from the 1900s–1950s unfamiliar there, and sell rights to the ideas.
Publishers Weekly in their review said "Stross continues to mix high and low tech in amusing and surprising ways. However, while giving a gritty SF portrait of the marvels of modern market economics and correcting the too pretty portrait of too many medieval fantasy lands, he sometimes overlooks the realities that constrain both. Still, less historically minded readers can lose themselves in Miriam's attempts to survive the Clan's equally dangerous high-stakes business and social games. Stross weaves a tale worthy of Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown." Roland Green reviewing the book for Booklist compared it to the early novels in Roger Zelazny's Amber series. The Hidden Family was a finalist for the 2006 Prometheus Award.