Charles Stross is one of the most entertaining and interesting writers in science fiction today. He is also, with Vernor Vinge, possibly the most important. Regular readers of this review may have noted that I occasionally compare other's writings to Mr. Stross, this is because it is quite possible that in the future, many of us writing today will be compared to Charles Stross, and if Accelerando and The Atrocity Archive are any indication, the comparison will not be favorable.

TOAST and other rusted futures is a collection of short stories; its seemingly odd title is actually rather witty, for as the author explains in the introduction, the rapid pace of technological change has made, and will make, toast of not only these stories, but most of the science fiction now being written. This explanation demonstrates what is both the gift and the curse of the Scottish technowizard - his brilliance is such that he is forced to explain himself in order to let the rest of us in on the joke.

Style: The style of Stross suggests Gibson-light, mixed with a squamous touch of Lovecraftian adjectives and Orwellian Utopianism. It is clean without being cutting, streamlined without being self-consciously hip and surprisingly transparent to the technologically illiterate. While he is a painter of ideas, not words, he is a competent wordsmith, and if his literary talents do not take center stage, they play a solid supporting role.

Stories: While it was "A Colder War" that I was most anticipating, I was surprised to discover that although it is indeed an interesting spin on the idea that the Soviet Union and the USA are battling for military supremacy, not with nuclear weapons, but Cthulhoid arcana, the story was significantly darker and less likeable than I had expected after reading The Atrocity Archive. It is a well-crafted story, however, and I enjoyed it much more the second time through. "Antibodies" is excellent; an intriguing concept building off Stross' nightmarish vision of AI singularity, which is basically Moore's Law on fast-acting steroids. I particularly liked "Big Brother Iron" which is a dark technorwellian piece, and "Bear Trap" is that rarest of creations, a funny short story about economics. "Bear Trap", like Accelerando demonstrates that Stross is truly a mind apart, as unlike most genre writers he is as adept, if not more so, in the social sciences as with the more rigorous disciplines. "A Boy and His God" is probably the weakest of the lot; to my disappointment it was not actually a Mythos retelling of the famous Harlan Ellison story. I was not particularly drawn to either "Ship of Fools" or "Yellow Snow", and Stross is quite correct in describing them as creaking around the edges from a technological point of view. Despite the excellent quality of the fiction, however, it is really "Introduction: after the future imploded" that is the most fascinating read. Stross has a talent for explaining technology to the non-technical, which is no doubt why his technology column is a mainstay in Computer Shopper.

Characters: Stross does have a weakness and it is here. For the most part, his characters exist only so far as they are necessary to make the point at which he is aiming. While he does not complete ignore their motivations and aspirations, one can sometimes almost sense the author's annoyance at having to waste time, effort and words on what, in light of the subject matters, is little more than a necessary evil. But if the characters seldom come to life, what of that? It is the ideas that are alive - this is hard science fiction without outer space, don't you understand?

Creativity: Like most truly creative minds, Stross is not afraid to give credit where credit is due. He readily salutes Vernor Vinge, Gordon Moore, Karl Marx, H.P. Lovecraft and others to whom he owes a debt of inspiration. But it is his own synthesis of technological change, post-scarcity economics, eldritch horrors and the interaction of these things with the cultural milieu that come together in a postcyberpunk synthesis that captures the imagination and sets the mind alight with the infinite possibilities of the future.

What makes Stross' work so interesting is that his grasp of economics and technology makes even his most bizarre fantasies ring true. Toast goes a long way in proving that he is one of the few must-read writers working in the genre today.

Text Sample: "Way I see it, we've been fighting a losing battle here. Maybe if we hadn't put a spike in Babbage's gears he'd have developed computing technology on an ad hoc basis and we might have been able to finess the mathematicians into ignoring it as being beneath them- brute engineering- but I'm not optimistic. Immunizing a civilization against developing strong AI is one of those difficult problems no algorithm exists to solve. The way I see it, once a civilization developes a theory of the general purpose computer, and once someone comes up with the goal of artificial intelligence, the foundations are rotten and the dam is leaking. You might as well take off and nuke them from orbitl it can't do any more damage.

"You remind me of the story of the little Dutch boy." She raised a glass. "Here's to little Dutch boys everywhere, sticking their fingers in cracks in the dam."

"I'll drink to that. Which reminds me. When's our lifeboat due? I really want to go home; this universe has passed its sell-by date."