Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent (A Book Swede Review), 16 Aug 2007
Halting State is a forthcoming title and will be published by Orbit in the UK in January of next year. It should be in the US sometime later this year.
Charles Stross has quickly become one of my favourite authors of science-fiction, so you can imagine my pleasure when this bound proof turned up unannounced on my doorstep a week ago for me to review!
A robbery at Hayek Associates--a robbery within one of their online games. An employee blabs to the police when he should have followed the correct procedural rules... Enter Sue Smith, a sergeant with the police, and a woman with much better things to be doing than chasing nerds round an office.
Until the first body shows up. Followed quickly by an EU elite anti-terrorism unit...
I've felt that too much was taken for granted of readers' knowledge in certain areas in previous Stross books--but this is not so with Halting State. There were occasional moments when I felt like I was about to drown in information, but it soon picked up again. Indeed, that was the only failing of this book, and a minute one at that. This book is the easiest of Stross' to sink into, and the pace is electrifying. Set in the near future, with the break-up of the United Kingdom, the main story takes place in Scotland (hence some of the slang and occasional weird spellings!), with a massive act of electronic terrorism urgently needing averting.
Halting State is, rather unusually told in second person narrative. That is to say, "You went" instead of "I went" or "He went". When I noticed that the multiple POVs were all to be told in this way, I was worried that it would become a bit too confusing. I was wrong. I got rather used to it, and it enmeshed the different story lines together rather well and much better than any other style of narrative would have.
The story and characterisation is typical Stross, that is to say, brilliant. There's no chance of second guessing all the twists and turns, which is what makes Stross such fun. A re-read will be necessary to put everything in order and that is something I look forward to greatly. It'll also be interesting in future years to see how things pan out--the events of this book are wildly unbelievable and yet totally plausible at the same time.
All in all, a cracking read, and the best book by Charles Stross I have ever read. A book definitely not to missed when it comes out to general release. Nothing seems capable of Halting Charles Stross; the State of his writing remains the same: getting better and better. Nine out of Ten.
For more fantasy/SF reviews, regular amazing competitions, and author interviews, visit: www.thebookswede.blogspot.com
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Virtually brilliant, 3 Feb 2008
Halting State has an interesting and topical subject for a science fiction novel - an interactive web-game has been hacked by an unknown organisation who have stolen all of the virtual weapons and spells from their holding bank. Although the "bank robbery" is virtual, it nevertheless has serious repercussions for the product and the company who have developed it, since it is evidently going to affect sales of the game. It's a brilliant idea and the story flies along with plenty of incident and invention, Stross having a great deal of fun with gaming culture and those wrapped up in its worlds, while realising at the same time that it is a serious business.
The writing is quite dazzling, sparkling with sarcasm and humour (although bafflingly and for no good reason it is rather annoyingly all written in second-person - "you go here, and you do this" etc.), but it does become a bit heavy with tech-speak and eventually start playing out like a virtual game itself. It's clearly the intention of the writer to start blurring the lines between the real world and the virtual, but you'd probably have to be a gamer yourself to fully appreciate all the references and clever playing out of the situation.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining futuristic Computer Mystery, 4 Mar 2008
For those in the know of the MMORG this is probably a book that will make you not only laugh your socks off but scare the hell out of you at the same time. Not only have you spent hours/days/weeks building up your character and managed to grab those indispensable items but all of a sudden you find your character robbed blind and the items that you've so long horded stolen and sold on the open market? Only in fiction you say, well not really, its happened and on most auction sites you can find these little beauties available. You could even pay someone in China to build your character up for you.
What Charles does here is not only play on the paranoia but brings a great mystery up to date in a futuristic world where the worst can happen with everyday games taking over peoples lives in a counter intelligence operation built in cyberspace. Highly inventive, confusing and above all probably a scarily accurate possible future. An interesting take on the world from a man who perhaps not only understands it but could be one of the guys pushing us towards it in this highly addictive sci-fi novel where every character has a role to play in the bigger picture. You are no longer a person but a pixelization of the cyberworld trying to keep their space free. With espionage, counter terrorism, plotting, criminal activity and above all a tale that will keep you guessing from the first page to the last, this will be a book to recommend to all those computer addicted friends. How will you know if they've read it? Just look at the paranoid way in which they watch the computer out of the corner of their eyes as well as the haunted way that they just can't resist building their characters to even higher proportions.
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