Halting State

"It isn't virtual reality until you can mount a coup d'etat in it -- and make it stick in the real world."

Stross brings us a very believable tale of crime and intrigue set in the year 2018. Augmented and virtual reality are commonly used for games, and the story opens with a bank heist in that era's equivalent of World of Warcraft which threatens to lead to serious economic repercussions. As police and insurance investigators dig deeper into the case, they uncover more machinations, and begin to draw lethal attention in return.

This book is the only one I know of written in the second person perspective. It's unusual, and it works: it tells you what each character is perceiving and understanding as the story unfolds, and allows him to show more juggle exposition and the complexities of technology quite well. I find his speculations of the utility of augmented reality and lifelogs in police work very plausible. show less

This book was written in 2007-08 and is set in 2018. Having come to it late, I was staggered from the very first page as to how close Charlie Stross has come to accurately depicting the IT industry of my present day. The introduction takes the form of a speculative approach from an IT recruitment agency. I spent six months of 2016 looking for work in IT, so I was hooked from the outset.

I'm not a techie person (I test software for a living, and I approach the job from the user's p.o.v.), but all the techno-babble that Stross uses was actually fairly comprehensible to me - that is, it made about as much sense to me in the novel as it does when I hear almost exactly the same terms used in the office. In the interview appended to the Orbit show more UK pb edition, Stross comments that there was little in the novel that didn't already exist; and what doesn't is very close to our present tech horizon. He did, in truth, work in the industry, and it shows, both in terms of the techie-speak and in the characters, personalities and settings. He has corporate management and office conspiracies right down to the smallest detail.

The politics is like ours, only slightly different. The novel takes place in an independent Scotland, still negotiating the terms of its divorce from a Remnant UK which is still in the EU; and even though our current political situation is (sort of) opposite, it still feels very relevant and understandable.

The plot concerns a (real) robbery from a (virtual) bank in an online role-playing game. I'm not a gamer, but I know sufficient people who are for this to have relevance. Teams from the police and from a firm of forensic accountants try to find out what was stolen, from whom, why, and how. Things quickly move into a much more serious space. The cover blurbs mention William Gibson, and certainly a lot of this had the feel of Gibson's exploration of new angles to our online world that no-one's thought of yet (or at least not gone public with yet).

Stross is a Scot by adoptive choice, so his affection for Edinburgh comes out strongly. As to the accents - well, if you watch a few episodes of the Eighties/Nineties/Noughties cop show 'Taggart', you'll get the gist of what's being said.

I bought this book on the first day of the UK Science Fiction Easter convention and started reading it that evening. I felt compelled to finish it as soon as I could, so much did the story and setting grab me. Oh, and the cover of the Orbit UK paperback, with graphics showing in-game avatars, includes one of Charlie Stross himself.

Highly recommended. show less

Charlie Stross has suddenly leaped onto my "favourite authors" list with this book. It actually reminds me of Christopher Brookmyre a lot (let's see, set in Scotland - Check. Crime needs solving - Check. Humourous political comentary - Check.).

Yes, a crime has been committed and you must solve it in your personas of Sue the cop, Elaine the accountant and Jack the game programmer. Written in second person is actually entirely appropriate for this book which is about a crime committed in an MMORPG. It harks back to text adventure games or Fighting Fantasy or tabletop RPGs ("You are in a cave, there are corridors to the north, south and easy. You smell the wumpus - must be nearby").

I had immense fun reading this. I just hope this new show more addition to my list doesn't disappoint with his other books. show less

I found it surprisingly tough to finish this book. It wasn't the second-person perspective (which I didn't notice until reading other reviews), and it wasn't that the story lacked any interesting ideas, but somehow everything felt jumbled together in a way I couldn't get fully engaged with.

Surprisingly, the most interesting parts of the story had nothing to do with the overt "theme" of virtual/game worlds advertised by the cover text, celebrity testimonials etc. Hidden behind the seemingly pointless talk of LARPing and orcs is a story about a threat that is much closer (as in, it could happen tomorrow) than any augmented reality overlay or VR world. The exception to this was the SPOOKS game, which ironically wouldn't require any show more technology more advanced than a cell phone.

In general, I feel like this story would have been more compelling and easier to follow if it was present-day fiction rather than some vague near-future sci fi. show less

I can't go any further with this.

This is an odd book. It's written in the second person, but I don't mind that. I understand why the author did it, and I kind of like it. I didn't have any trouble remembering which character I "was" at any time.

The problem is that it is filled with so much junk text - mountains of jargon and unnecessary tangents constantly inserted into the narrative - that it is impenetrable.

I really like the core idea - the investigation into a crime committed in a virtual game scenario - and wish I could stay to find out how it's solved, but it is just too tedious.

[Hey! What happened to my original review?!?]

This is my favorite Charles Stross book, and that is saying something. I just re-read it after a 4-year gap, and I found it even better the second time around. The plot is so twisty, the high-tech details so thick and the narrative style so rich (or, to some peoples' thinking, confusing) that even knowing the basic plot, it was still a rollercoaster ride.

One note: some friends who listened to this on audiobook complained that it was difficult to follow. Even though the narrator was apparently quite good, the fact that the story is told from 3 different viewpoints and one uses Scottish idiom and accent contributed to their puzzlement.

I really, really liked Halting State, by Charles Stross. This near-future thriller moves at breakneck speed, from several different perspectives. I'd call it a page-turner, but I read it in electronic format :)

The tech/geek references fly even faster than the story itself. Someone not familiar with computer gaming, LARPing, or general SF/F fandom may have a hard time keeping up. There were times where I felt I was missing things, and I like to think I'm reasonably well versed in such things. Mr. Stross suggests some amazing, yet believable technology. But the writing and the plotting is engaging enough to hold my interest, even when I felt lost.

He doesn't predict jacking into computer systems, not does he have everyone getting show more technology surgically implanted. Most people wear glasses or goggles that overlay the internet on normal vision. No, really. Just go read it - it's very smooth and makes a whole lot of sense.

Our first viewpoint character is Detective Seargent Sue Smith. She wants to do a good job, and take care of her wife and son. I really, really like that Mr. Stross doesn't make a big deal out of the same sex relationship - it's just part of who Sue is. She's the closest we get to an Every(wo)man. She's a competent user of the ubiquitous, immersive technology, but doesn't give any thought to how it works - just like most end users today. She works with a virtual environment, then puts it aside to live her personal life.

Then there's Elaine. She's a VR LARPer by night, and an insurance fraud auditor by day. Like Sue, she use the technology, but doesn't question it. And I seriously want in on a couple of the games she's playing in! She works with computers, but plays in immersive VR on her own time.

Next we meet Jack, a programmer, gamer, and some-times hacker. He does know how the technology works, so he's the first to get scared. He, basically, lives in immersive technology, gaming as part of his workday, and using VR overlays nearly constantly in his personal life. He's the over-connected gamer geek turned up to 11.

Eventually, I'm going to have to re-read Halting State. The plot is complex; I'm looking forward to seeing nuances I missed the first time around. And I'm looking forward to spending time with our viewpoint characters again. All three have a wonderful depth. Between them, just about anyone can find a character to identify with. With that connection, you're in for a roller coaster of a story, as three initially separate storylines converge, then blossom into a near-epic denouement. Each one has a different perspective, and different pieces of the puzzle. Once you get there, you see how everything led up to it - but you probably didn't see it coming.

Go, read it! show less