Glasshouse (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“I really enjoyed this book. The story is filled with action, yet there's always a human side to everything that goes on. The characters deal with interesting conflicts, and the overall story comes to a satisfying conclusion. Robin, the narrator, has a great voice that is often funny and always haunted by a mysterious past. The distant future setting clashing with what they would imagine the twenty-first century would have been like make for a great premise, and Stross executes the story very well.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Several hundred years from now, humanity has just finished the Censorship Wars. Using an electronic virus called Curious Yellow, it targeted the brains of historians as they used teleportation gates (the major method of transportation). Robin has just emerged from a medical clinic with most of his memory wiped. Perhaps he was one of those targeted historians; he does have memories of being in a tank regiment during the war, not as a soldier, but as a tank. He joins a research program to recreate the "dark ages," the late 20th and early 21st centuries, by having volunteers live in an actual, recreated "town." It sounds like a good way to get away from whoever is trying to kill him; whatever he did, or was, before his wipe, it must have been important.

The participants are given random, anonymous identities (Robin is turned into a woman named Reeve). Along with Sam, her "husband," they are placed into what looks like Smalltown, USA. They are given little, or no, idea as to just what they are supposed to do. All the couples are electronically monitored; during mandatory church services on Sunday, any faults or misdeeds are pointed out to everyone. Reeve is one of the few who begins to realize that something is really wrong. Their contract specifies a minimum amount of time to be in the study, approximately 3 years, but does not specify a maximum amount of time. The town has become a very high-tech panopticon. The women have suddenly become fertile, and several female participants have become pregnant. Perhaps the idea is to create a new race of people who don't know that there is an outside world. Perhaps it has to do with this new race re-infecting the rest of humanity with a new and improved version of Curious Yellow.

Here is a wonderful piece of writing. The best part is the author's look at present-day life. He does not just needle it or poke fun at it, he rips it to pieces and stomps on what is left. The rest of the book is also very much worth reading. This gets two strong thumbs-up.

”

• Rated 4 stars

“An exciting read. This is the fourth Stross book I've read, after Singularity Sky, Iron Sunrise, and Accelerando. Stross has a great imagination, and seems to specialize in grandiose speculations on post-singularity existence. I was pulled into the first two books by their cyberpunkish, space opera overtones, and though Accelerando presented even bigger and better technological ideas, all three could mire me down in speculation for which I had no context. Glasshouse, however, went quickly. It has no less of the mind-bending ideas Stross seems to reel off on a whim, but because it's virtual world is a simulation of our own, it made it much more accessible to this sci-fi dimwit. I heartily recommend ALL four of the Stross books mentioned in this review.”

• Rated 5 stars

“I picked this book up based on a recommendation from a friend that I should pick up something by Charles Stross. I picked this one up on a Friday and on Monday had to go back and find the rest of his recent works. This was a well written book with great adventure, great ideas, and great characters. If you're looking for the best of 21st century science fiction authors start with Stross. You'll have a hard time topping him.”

• Rated 5 stars

“After that stretch of books I needed some mental floss. I loved the Charles Stross sci-fi book that I read last week and on a reader's recommendation went on Amazon and bought all of his books for my Kindle. This one was even better, and I've got another half dozen to go before I run out of things he's written in the past few years.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Stross is a prolific, hard science fiction machine, and with Glasshouse he continues his streak of excellent books. Glasshouse examines what identity means in a world where you can edit or erase memories, and you can adjust personality traits. Identity theft takes on an entirely new and very sinister meaning... how can you know if you've been hacked, and if you have been hacked but you are now happy about it, should you be returned to your original state? Thought provoking stuff.”

• Rated 4 stars

“A good book. Wormhole technology, sex changes, big brother. It jumps around a bit and some good twists. Worth a quick read.”

• Rated 4 stars

“If you can get past the first chapter and into the actual Glasshouse, its worth the read. I picked it up and put it down 3 times before I realized I needed to skip a bunch of the first chapter. After that, I had a hard time putting it back down.”

• Rated 5 stars

“Stross does an excellent job looking at present day society from a 3rd person perspective. It makes for a great commentary on who we are, why some people do the things they do, and makes for some good humor (like when the women are trying to figure out what a "husband" is).
After a while I started to wonder where the science fiction was. Usually people are using futuristic gadgets and futuristic things all the time in a science fiction book. It was in the beginning, then only in the main character's dreams and memories for most of the rest of the book.”

• Rated 5 stars

“While I was reading it, I wasn't always pleased with the plotting, but as the book ended, and I had time to ponder it, I really dug the exploration of the "sense of self", and when I got to the end I was happy with it.”