

It’s set in a universe which has hit the singularity and passed cheerfully out the other side. Admittedly that’s partly because I read it several months ago (yes, I am a bad reviewer with an extensive backlog) but I also think it went slightly over my head. He wrote The Quantum Thief in English.I’ve struggled to find a way into The Quantum Thief, to write about it. in string theory and is a member of the same writing group that produced Hal Duncan. HANNU RAJANIEMI is from Finland and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was a director of a think tank providing business services based on advanced math and artificial intelligence. Hard to admit, but I think he's better at this stuff than I am." - Charles Stross "Spectacularly and convincingly inventive, assured and wholly spellbinding: one of the most impressive debuts in years." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy.

Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed. Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. Now he's confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy- from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. One of Library Journal's Best SF/Fantasy Books of 2011 The Quantum Thief is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Science Fiction & Fantasy title. "The Quantum Thief," like so much of the best space opera of this century, is a prodigy house, where propositions are instant heritage, and arguments are eyeclick.-John Clute.
