Empire Games launches a new series of books by Charles Stross (review copy from Pan Macmillan), but it didn't leave me wanting to read on.

I haven't read the earlier Merchant Princes books that this series follows on from, but I don't think reading the earlier books is necessary before reading these. The story follows Rita, a drama graduate scraping a living as a booth babe, whose life is turned upside down when she is recruited by the NSA. What Rita doesn't realise is that she is the child of an experimental programme designed to breed the talent to walk between worlds, a talent limited to a small group of people who are believed to be responsible for a terrorist attack that destroyed the White House. The NSA, fearful of further terrorist attacks, want to train Rita as a worldwalking agent, to infiltrate the terrorists.

In a parallel world, Rita's biological mother, Miriam, is a refugee from the retaliation attack that destroyed the home of her family. She has worked her way up to being a Commissioner in the Government, heading the Ministry of Intertemporal Research and Intelligence, an agency that mixes espionage with the securing of technology to help develop the world in which she is now living. Rita's mission is at risk of upsetting the delicate geopolitics of Miriam's world, potentially triggering a worldwide nuclear war.

While there is a great Cold War espionage-style thriller in Empire Games, it was drowned out by an extremely polemical tone, reminiscent of Cory Doctorow. It was far too prominent in the story, and regularly intruded into and distracted from the story.

Goodreads rating: 2*

Echoes of the PKD in the alternate timestyle. A complex job of pulling the multiple strands together without signposting the conclusion early doors.

Empire Games is set in a world of alternative timelines already established by Charles Stross in the Merchant Princes series which introduced the world-walkers, people genetically capable of moving between alternate time lines. We are now nearly twenty years later and things have moved on apace in the ongoing battle of wits between the authorities in Time Line Two (similar to our world up to 2003) since a faction of the world-walkers detonated a stolen nuclear weapon in the White House and assassinated the President. Rita Douglas is ‘rescued’ from her dead-end job, by a shadowy government organization, because she has the genetic potential to world-walk between alternate timelines.
Including Time Line Two, there are three other timelines. In Time Line One, history diverged around 200–250 BCE, leaving that world with a complete collapse of the Roman Empire, and no Judaism, Christianity or Islam. The result is a group of quasi-medieval colony kingdoms along the eastern seaboard of North America, with Chinese traders established on the western seaboard. The world walkers-ability to cross between timelines has made them very wealthy merchant-traders. Miriam Burgeson, a world-walker of noble birth, originally from Time Line One, has sought sanctuary for her group of world-walker survivors in Time Line Three, where they have gained a political toehold due to their knowledge and ability to steal technology from Time Line Two. In Time Line Three, England was invaded by France in 1760 and the British Crown in Exile was established in the New England colonies. Time Line Four is locked in an uninhabited ice age, with some intriguing archaeological remains which might offer promise or pose a threat to the authorities in Time Line Two.
These different timelines provide a great deal of scope for a plot in which political manoeuvering and the deployment of spies provides something for an adventurous reader prepared to wrestle with the challenges of the plot, the many key characters and sometimes rapid shifts from one timeline to another.
The explanatory notes, the list of characters and a glossary of terms is helpful. But I decided not to use them to see how much I could grasp as I went along. It turns out quite a lot. I felt it made for an interesting read because I was seeing the world’s through Rita Douglas’s perspective of having to adapt to situations as they developed, as well as having to mentally assemble all the information into a bigger picture.
The device of being largely introduced to the action through the character of Rita, taken from a life of obscurity and job insecurity into an organization who wants to use her as a spy, worked really well, as well as the transcripts of classified meetings.
Rita’s first excursion on a mission into an alternative timeline is particularly effect as Stross makes the most of her perspective and the spy craft evident in the book is also very engrossing and credible.
Rita is certainly an interesting character, because she is not a kick-ass heroine, but more someone who has been taught by her East German grandfather (with a very murky past) to slip between the cracks. It is why I anticipate being able to witness Rita discover her true potential in subsequent books. Certainly there are hints from her resourceful behaviour that she may not always be the passive pawn pushed from pillar to post by the more aggressive players in this extended political chess game
Empire Games is one of those books which entertains and provides the satisfaction, on a subsequent read, of being able to see how things all fit into place.

Empire Games is the new novel by Charles Stross, and it's the beginning of a new series; however the novel is linked to the Family Trade serie where firsty the time walkers are introduced.

The novel is a science fiction alternative history with the addiction of parallel time lines: the universe is developing in parallel time lines where humanity evolved differently that are accessible only to people able to time-walk (or to normal people with the help of evolved scientific equipment)..

The relation between government and time walkers in time line 2 is deteriorated to end in a war and the elimination of all time-walkers. The survivors went in another time line, less evolved.

About this time 2020) the story begins: two factions are opposed, on one side the US in time line 2, while on the other the time walkers survivors leaded by Miriam Burgeson in time line 3.

Here comes Rita, an actress adopted by US parents, biological daughter of Miriam, but unable to time-walk. The secret service will recruit her and enable her quiescent skill.

The main elements of the novel are action, conspiracies, spy training, unfortunately the characters are poorly built (Rita is the best built, the others are simply inserted in the story). The greater shortcoming of the novel is its being a long introduction for the following installment, here the pawns are arranged, but they do not play very much.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.