I have read almost all of Charles Stross’s SF, so even though this series is more fantasy than SF, I decided to give it a try. I sort of cherry picked the first book I could find, the fourth one, actually, The Merchant’s War, which is about alternate universes. Three of them. The sword-and-sorcery dialogue was off-putting but the segments without it were compelling enough that I kept thinking about the plots I had read (not all of them, actually) long after I finished.
So I bought the first three installments, The Family Trade, The Hidden Family, and The Clan Corporate, and inhaled them in a week. The heroine is a bit annoying. Not an airhead, but a liberal ditherer who is accident-prone to say the least. But there are other main characters I find more satisfying. After the first three, I reread the fourth one, including the "by-your-leaves" and the "my lady" stuff, and finally understood it all. There’s even what looks like a new, interlocking plot to come that’s actually going to be SF. Alas, the fifth book in the series isn’t due out until April. I’ve preordered it. Waiting is going to be hard. Come on, Charles, hurry up and finish it, okay? (Looks like he has and he’s working on the sixth one, which will be the end. Oh, dear.)
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 