Hannu Rajaniemi: The quantum thief (2011, Thorndike Press)
467 pages
English language
Published Nov. 17, 2011 by Thorndike Press.
A breathtaking joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people who communicate via shared memory, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as an MMORPG guild.
An entertaining mash-up between old-school gentleman thief stories and 21st century posthumanist sci-fi concepts.
Full of fun ideas, that are thrown at you fast, with little explanation.
It's also clearly the beginning of a series, with a lot left unresolved.
I just finished reading The Quantum Thief and it has blown me away. It's such a beautiful crazy book from so many different perspectives. His writing is challenging but poetic. It's like watching a pointillism art being painted. But then he takes science fiction to a whole new level. This story is a futuristic path beyond the singularity, where humans are post-physical. So he's painting with colors that haven't been invented yet. You're not going to read this and think, "Oh this is like Firefly with X and Y instead of A and B." It's something new.
It's a challenging read, but worth the trip.
