Halting State
Posted: May 2nd, 2008, 7:59
It was called in as a robbery at Hayek Associates, an online game company. So you can imagine Sergeant Sue Smith's mood as she watches the video footage of the heist being carried out by a band of orcs and a dragon...
Is the start of the blurb at the back of the book, this (I think) is why I bought this book - it was an 'amazon click' whilst drunk. I was pleasantly suprised to find that this book is hella good fun and addictive to boot. The author, Charles Stross, was an unknown to me and is definately a geek, there are reference to D&D, Unix, LARPs and other such things that are associated with 'geek' but this does not ruin the writing, it just serves to enhance it.
So, anyway, the plot of the story revolves around a robbery of a bank in an online game and twists and turns to it's conclustion involving international espionage, driverless taxi's (no Corben Dallas here) and a rogue chinese gaming clan. Most impressive was Stross' vision of future communications technologies that are not too far into the future almost attainable now, very Arther C Clarke.
4 pies
Is the start of the blurb at the back of the book, this (I think) is why I bought this book - it was an 'amazon click' whilst drunk. I was pleasantly suprised to find that this book is hella good fun and addictive to boot. The author, Charles Stross, was an unknown to me and is definately a geek, there are reference to D&D, Unix, LARPs and other such things that are associated with 'geek' but this does not ruin the writing, it just serves to enhance it.
So, anyway, the plot of the story revolves around a robbery of a bank in an online game and twists and turns to it's conclustion involving international espionage, driverless taxi's (no Corben Dallas here) and a rogue chinese gaming clan. Most impressive was Stross' vision of future communications technologies that are not too far into the future almost attainable now, very Arther C Clarke.
4 pies