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I'd really like to give this three and a half stars. It was pretty cute, and the idea of the real-life spy game was neat. As many others have noted, Stross has a fondness for enormous chunks of exposition, but I guess it doesn't bother me as much. I like learning about stuff, as long as it's interesting stuff.I'm taking off points for:--intermittent use of annoying Scottish dialect --constantly referring to an accountant as a "librarian" because she's...nerdy? dunno.--rather perfunctory characte...
My Review in 50 Words or LessWritten in 2007, what you’ll get if you read this is a smart, savvy novel unsettlingly prescient about where we may be going. Plus there’s a decently plotted story to boot. Just get over that second-person narrative hump. The More than 50-Words VersionThe Second Person Narrative—Is There Something to It?Mary’s been nagging you about your heart ever since that stupid DNA check you both took last year (‘so the wee wun kens his maws ur both gawn tae be aboot for a whiul...
This is a quote from Cory Doctorow's Little Brother about X-Net:"The best part of this is how it made me feel: in control. My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn’t spying on me. This is why I loved technology; if you used it right it could give you power and privacy."This is a quote from Charles Stross' Halting State about BlackNet:"At the protocol level, it's an anonymous peer-to-peer currency system. It asks you to do favors, it does you favors. Like, be in front
There is a new buzzword making the rounds these days: gamification. It refers to the trend of turning quotidian tasks into games. Usually the end goal of the game maker is profit, of course, but often gamification has benefits for the players—it turns an otherwise boring or dull task into something fun. CBC’s Spark has explored gamification. They’ve also interviewed Jane McGonigal, who has some interesting ideas about how gaming is changing our society. (She also has a book I intend to read but
There's pretentiousness, and then there's Second Person Narration pretentiousness. And then there's Second Person Narration, Different POV Character For Each Chapter. I couldn't get past that.Game industry and emergent virtual economies and assorted hacker caper/heist stuff is interesting in real life, but fictionalized versions are not, especially when it all hangs on handwaving and near-future extrapolations that didn't quite feel right.I can sort of see the narration choice as a callback to o...
Unfortunately the more an author relies on current {even current cutting edge technology}, as the river of time flows by it acts as a harsh mirror on what is now down-flow, especially for those who are close in heart and interest to the themes today. Had I have read it closer to the time of its publication, it would certainly be ranked higher as a vision of things to come instead of..
As confusing as Nexus was without a real beginning, this one is even worse. Still no real beginning, just jumping into the action, except it starts with more characters, some of who have similar names (I never did figure out the difference between Michaels and Marcus). The fact that it's told in the 2nd person doesn't hurt as much as you think it would, but at the beginning it sure doesn't help because it means that names don't get mentioned as often and you can't tell who is doing what. I think...
Charles Stross decided it would be a good idea to write Halting State entirely in second person. I briefly toyed with doing the same for my review, but then I remembered that I already did that, and it wasn't that amusing.Then I thought maybe I would do the whole thing in code like a l33t haXor, which would have been appropriate since this book finds it the height of amusement to throw around with-it language like "n00b" and "pwned."Then I realized that it is obnoxious to force readers to suffer...
This book has several interesting (and unusual) attributes. Overall it's a fun read in the vein of Pat Cadigan's Synners, about hackers and suits working together to handle a threat to technology society has evolved to assume. Like Synners it throws you into the world head-first without explaining names, acronyms, slang, or the numerous in-jokes; unlike Synners it focuses on the espionage story and leaves the sociological theorizing out.The plot revolves around a multi-million-dollar bank heist....
This was a bit of a challenging read due to its multiple second person narrators (which "you" am I now?) and varying amounts of Scottish idiom (when did "ned" become an adjective?). Then of course there is the matter of crimes being committed inside a MMOG and the in depth look from both the player and the developer points of view along with their accompanying exposition learning curves.The difficulty is most pronounced in the beginning of the book, but things do get clearer after a while. And t...
This was a delight to read. The story is set in independent Scotland in 2018. Everyone has direct and constant access to the web through their glasses and walk around in a constant twitch as they hammer away on virtual keyboards. Hayek Associates, a small start-up gaming company, has discovered their software has been infiltrated and the virtual bank they oversee has been robbed by a band of orcs and a dragon. Sergeant Sue Smith is first on this bewildering crime “scene”. Next to come along is E...
Okay plot, although Stross thinks he's being more innovative than he really is. The idea of people thinking they're playing war games, only to find out it's real, has been done many times. (Ender's Game for one, and lots of movies from the 1980's). The main characters appealing, but undeveloped. Also, I know I'm fighting a losing battle here, but the word "librarian" describes a profession. It does not mean nerdy, intellectual, sexually repressed, insecure, spinsters! I hate to smash your daydre...
+1 to the list of notable books written in second person, which is only slightly longer than the list of notable books written solely to criticize them. Halting State has a cool premise. I mean, aside from the fact that it was dated by the time it came out (goggles, really? That's your immersion technology. I mean, we've gotten to the point where we can read your mind. But hey, if you wanna strap a small TV to your face instead, whatever.)Let's ignore specifics about Halting State for a minute,
"Halting State" by Charles Stross was the last book on my 2008 Hugo Nominees List. While I still think "Brasyl" by Ian McDonald should have won instead of "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" by Michael Chabon, I do think this comes in a very, very close second.I was pleasantly surprised by "Halting State". I read "Accelerando" by the same author last year and absolutely loathed it. "Halting State" really grabbed me and I read huge chunks at a time. I was amazed at how Stoss managed to maintain a sec...
It's hard to write what I want to about this book without giving away a lot about the plot and the tricks that Stross has up his sleeve. I'm going to go ahead and talk about it regardless, but if you're worried about broad spoilers (nothing too specific, I promise), this might not be the review for you.Note: The rest of this review has been withheld due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.In the meantime, you can read the entire revie...
Just when you think you've read everything worth reading and that there's nothing new under the sun, just when you are feeling really jaded, that's when books like this one (and Michael Flynn's "January Dancer", and Peter Watts' "Blindsight") come along and remind you why you love science fiction and fantasy.Set in the near future, using technology that either exists already or is on the drawing board now, Stross creates a world that is at the same time almost alien and yet recognizably our tomo...
Once you've got over the all to frequent multiple starts with apparently unrelated characters and got in to the story somewhat this turns into an amusing little cyber-punk crime novel. It is a bit overly oriented towards computer game addicts, using jargon that is difficult for the rest of us to decipher and the Scottish dialect is also a little much at times.The premise that role-playing games, on-line or live-action, are going to become mainstream is utterly fantastical, in my view, detracting...
Weird but good scifi novel about a crime (or not) that may (or not) have occurred inside a virtual reality game. It's told in second person (to give you the feel of playing a game, I think) from the alternating perspectives of three people who are trying to figure out what happened (or didn't). Definitely took me a bit to get used to the unusual storytelling mode.
Another from my list of books in second person. I found it extremely hard to get into this at first. The second person present perspective plus the head jumping into different characters felt very awkward, and I really wasn't at all sure where the story was going, so I was reluctant to dive in. About a third of the way through, I finally grokked where it was trying to go and I leapt in, reading the rest of the book at a faster pace and really enjoying the characters. It's rare in a book with mul...
Every once in a while I get the idea I'm not reading brainy enough SF, and that all the other SF readers will sneer at me for not reading enough Hugo winners. Halting State hasn't won a Hugo, but it says "Hugo Award-winning author of" on the front, so it probably count for half points.Sue Smith is a tough, no-nonsense cop who takes occasional flack for being the only out lesbian in her department. And that was the last time the book gave me something I liked.The entire book (well, let me be hone...