Halting State (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“I just finished Charles Stross’s last book, Halting State, which proved to be a facinating, and ultimately a very different read than I had been expecting.

The book is set nearly twenty years from now, and technology has progressed much as it could be expected. Mobile phones, wireless devices, and the internet have taken on a far more ingrained role in society than it is today. The premise of the book starts with a bank robbery in MMORPG land - a band of Orcs break into a super-secure facility and make off with a lot of loot. In real life terms, a bunch of gamers have gone in to a place they shouldn’t have, and taken property, essentially re-writing digital signatures and threatening to distrupt a lot of the internal economy, and thus messing with the real company’s profits. Several of the main characters are called in to investigate how this happened, and the floor drops on them, revealing a mess of a situation that involves foreign governments, corrupt CEOs and various agendas gone haywire.

A couple days ago, I wrote about how older SciFi is still relevant. On the opposite side of the coin, this book goes to show just how relevant modern day science fiction can be very relevant. Stross takes society today, and extrapolates just how dependent we are likely to become on electronics. The near-future that he paints is very, very frightening to me. This is certainly a product of the United Kingdom, where things such as video surveillance is an everyday thing in most places, and here, it’s taken to a bit more of a frightening level. This is cyberpunk with a dose of wireless - it’s a place where foreign governments are actively trying to subvert the UK’s infrastructure by utilizing gamers to do all the legwork by unwittingly hacking into various systems. It’s almost like SETI, but with the focus on disrupting the telecommunications, inventory and emergency systems of a place that is overly dependent on electronics.

It brings an interesting subject that I’ve been contemplating - just how dependent are we on such devices? I myself carry my mobile, ipod and laptop to and from work. I know some people who carry around more things, and are always connected to the internet, no matter where they are. What makes this even more scary is when some agency moves in to mess around with the fundamental coding and access points of all these devices, which would likely leave the target population utterly helpless. I was talking about this with my father the other day - I think that a more crippling type of terrorist attack would be one on the wireless infrastructure out there, because of the sheer dependence here. Halting State brings us to a UK where this is not only a frightening reality, but it’s one that brings some of the more unobtrusive things, such as games, and mobile phones into the front lines of a possible war.

I have to say that this is one of the more engaging and interesting books that I’ve read recently. Stross is a master of the genre - I loved Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise, as well as numerous short stories that I’ve read by him in Asimovs. He’s won several Hugo awards, if memory serves, and they are well deserved. This is a paticularly fun read as it’s written in the second person (apparently as a homage to some of the older Adventure games.)

There’s also a good dash of humor here. One of my favorite lines in the book was as follows:

Attention object able Charlie sixteen. This is your creator speaking. Give me a cookie and initiate debug mode.

Stross also ends the book with a 419 e-mail (you know, one of those Nigerian ones that promises loads of money?) and opens with a recruitment e-mail that is very very frightening for anyone who’s paranoid about personal privacy on the internet.

This is Cyberpunk in the Social-Networking age. And what’s frightening, and fascinating, is how true it could become.

(Originally printed: http://jeditrilobite.wordpress.com)”

• Rated 2 stars

“The author seems to try too hard for a casual tone and the writing ends up sounding unpolished, almost amateur. The story is also told entirely in second person ("you" do this, "you" think that), yet from the perspective of three characters, for no apparent reason. (Well, maybe it's supposed to tie into the game idea the book is based around, but this is never developed.) The characters are thin, and the reader's effort to develop any relationship with them is hampered by the use of second person. Still, once the plot gets going (about 100 pages in), it starts to get quite interesting, and the story is chock-full of fascinating ideas. ”

• Rated 2 stars

“I liked the premise of this book. I liked the idea of a virtual bank robbery. I liked how it took place in the not so far off future so you had interesting new technologies but they were in a world you still recognized. I liked the changing point of view. I even liked the way it all wrapped up. So I really wished I had enjoyed actually reading the book more. Maybe it was because I am not the target audience for this book. Or maybe I just needed to concentrate a lot harder. But I found myself reading and getting just the gist of the story without ever fully understanding what people were saying. I didn’t have trouble with the Scottish accent or the changing point of view but as soon as anyone started to explain how something worked everything went hazy. It was worth reading and I was able to follow the plot but a lot of the finer points were lost on me. Although maybe someone who is more into virtual reality and online gaming would not have this problem.”

• Rated 4 stars

“I found the plot a bit difficult to follow, and I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and a lot of experience with computers. I thought there was a bit too much unexplained jargon particularly at the beginning. The story did get better as it went along, and I did begin to identify somewhat with the central characters by the end.

Not one of my favorites but well worth reading. ---gk”

• Rated 5 stars

“Excellent "slightly in the future" science fiction incorporating all kinds of funky technology, a complex plot around virtual worlds virtual money, plenty of good guys, bad guys, a male nerd / female cop protagonist romantic plot twist, some irrational bad guys, and a few things you had to go back and read a second time to make sure you understood what had just happened. All of it is set in Scotland resulting in some entertaining dialog for this American boy.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Halting State is part science fiction, part romance, part police procedural mystery, complete with a few murders. It is also a convincing and thought provoking look at what the future might bring, logically extrapolated from present trends in technology. According to some people, this is what science fiction is all about, no matter how rarely you come across it.

For my money, though, what science fiction is all about is a gripping story, one that keeps you turning pages long past bedtime. Stross knows how to do that, too.

In Halting State, enemy agents from a surprising source have infiltrated Europe's networking infrastructure (sounds geeky, but never fear, Stross makes it interesting), and it's touch and go as Sue (police sergeant who occasionally breaks into her Scottish brogue), Jack (computer programming wizard), and Elaine (sword fighting forensic accountant) track down some orcs that robbed a bank of its magic items.

No, this is reality. Virtual reality, that is.

In any event, the story is written at a break neck pace, all in second person narrative mode (like you might expect from a role playing adventure story, I suppose), and convincingly set in various places in Europe.

It was nominated for the 2008 Hugo and richly deserves its nomination.”

• Rated 4 stars

“A near future story told from the point of view of three main characters. An On-line bank is robbed by a group of Orcs and the local police are brought in to investigate... was a Hugo finalist.”

• Rated 4 stars

“As a good friend of my said, Stross writes good yarns. Very enjoyable.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Stross writes about a near future where networking, RFID, implants, and online gaming have taken over. The potential of walking down a street and switching between various overlays--gaming, social, mapping, policing, etc.--is both fascinating and a little scary. Stross also has a real way with a sentence... sometimes. This is a writer who is not quite in control of his talent, which seems enormous to me. Sometimes this is fascinating, other times muddled. Great sentences alternate with those that just don't hold together. Unfortunately, his three main narrator characters all seem to think, speak, and act with the same tone. But don't let that put you off. This is still a fascinating book with enough gems to merit four stars. This was my first Stross, but I'll definitely keep an eye on him in the future.”