Halting State by Charles Stross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I read the two Halting States novels out of order, I’d gotten Rule 34 first, after reading that I got a copy of Halting States and liked it every bit as much as Rule 34. Some reviewers didn’t like the book because as Rule 34 was it’s written in multiple second person point of view, just like interactive fiction, very appropriate for a thriller about Augmented Realty Games, spies and the collapse of the web in a society who use it for everything from self driving cars to policing to logistics.
Oh and the writing is great too
“You emerge from the politie station blinking robotically, like an animatronic ground-hog with a short circuit”
“you’ll have a job in a bank lined up by next week, fixing broken spreadsheets while wearing a suit with one of those strangulation devices, what do they call them…?”
“so-called because it was new when it was built in the 1760s: Edinburgh has history the way cats have bad breath”
“Because it’s a thing of beauty, the ability to spin the cloth of reality, and you’re a sucker for it: Isn’t story-telling what being human is all about?”
Those are just a few of my favorite lines in the book, Stross also manages to throw in references to Ankh-Morpork and the TARDIS. Right now he’s my favorite modern SF author.
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