Help
Actually I tend to prefer looking through bookshops to amazon as I buy stuff based on a single word in the title or picture ont he cover, something that is hard to do on amazon.
I grabbed "The Quantum Thief" by Hannu Rajaniemi.
Just finished it now after a bit of a single minded read. Brilliant book. Doesn't explain a bloody thing. Relatively hard core sci fi with new words for new concepts which aren't explained except through contextual use. It was like every few chapters another thing would click into "oh I know what that means". Pretty short book, has the usual good sci fi plot complexity (think "use of weapons" by Ian Banks, if you hated that you will probably hate this).
I am actually looking forward to the second read when I know the first few chapters will make a world more sense.
Has some incredibly complex ideas which are fleshed out in a couple of sentences. For example there is a speies that has decided the best way to reform criminals is to put them into a game of the prisoners dilemna over and over and over until cooperation is ingrained into their very nature. The books explanation is shorter than mine, most of the understanding seems to rely on you being faintly aware of the idea and then reading the situation and then one sentence to hook it together a few chapters later.
And that is one of the more well explained concepts
It really felt like I couldn't put the book down because I would forget something and come back to a book of gibberish.
Apparently it is his first book. I dread to think how nuts he will go when he gets a bit of free reign and a publishers contract. Could be brilliant.
A must for fans of Egan and Stephenson I think. Fans of Gibson will probably dig it too for the frenetic pacing.
I bought it because it had the word quantum in the title hehehehe
