It's hard to sum up what it is exactly, easily. Take one part Total Recall, one part A Scanner Darkly [that's two parts P.K. Dick, right there], one part The Stepford Wives and one part something else entirely wonderful... and then you'd come close to defining Glasshouse.
The Wikipedia page tags its Major Themes as:
Self-concept, self image, the "self", peer pressure, conformism, problem of other minds, redemption.And all that's true. But it's also about people and their relationships with one another.
Just exceptionally well written. Stross has been on my list of authors whose works I want to pick up, and Glasshouse puts him at the top of that imaginary list I keep in my head. And on Amazon.
...and it has a happy ending. So there.
Plus, if you read it just before bed, you'll have dreams where you surf through a wealth of different identities. Which is just cool.
The Charles Stross FAQ:
"Glasshouse is a claustrophobic far-future helter-skelter ride through an experimental archaeology project gone horribly wrong... As the cover flap says:"Hi, I'm Robin. When people ask me what I did during the war, I tell them I used to be a tank regiment. Or maybe I was a counter-intelligence agent. I'm not exactly sure: my memory isn't what it used to be."
When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It's the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew.
On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse. Constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture, participants are assigned anonymized identities: it looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters, and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche...
Like "Accelerando" before it, "Glasshouse" was shortlisted for the Hugo award in 2007. It also received the Prometheus award for best SF novel from the Libertarian Futurist Society and got an honorable mention from the Tiptree award folks. "
Charlie Stross, one of my favourite SF authors. I do, however, tend to think that his books are wrapped up far too quickly. A little more ambling would be (in my meager mind) preferable.
ReplyDeleteYou should also check out Richard Morgan, Iain Banks, Peter Hamilton, and Allister Reynolds. All great British sci-fi authors. Just a warning though. Of these, only Morgan does hard sci-fi. The rest are more idea/concept driven. Also, regarding Hamilton: good book, but be prepared to be bored for 80% of his first book in a series. He does multi-volume series in which the first is basically setting up his extensive cast of characters, to the point where you'll wonder where the plot is.
You're description of Hamilton sounds like Kim Stanley Robinson's "Forty Signs of Rain." I'm slogging through it, but I'm starting to hate it, a little, personally.
ReplyDelete'Your' not 'you're' obviously...
ReplyDeleteHey, sorry about the late late reply. Yeah, KSR's like that. His books are basically about nothing, until something happens. Ultimately, especially his 40/50/60 trilogy, his books are about the policies that drive scientific exploration, rather than the exploration itself.
ReplyDelete"His books are basically about nothing, until something happens."
ReplyDeleteHow very, very zen of you :)