Minor Thoughts from me to you

Halting State by Charlie Stross

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Personal Enthusiasm: It Was Okay

Charles Stross is one of the best SF writers currently in the field. Hia books are deeply inventive and he has a gift both for imagining potential futures and for bringing them to life. Glenn Reynolds recommended his new book, Rule 34. It sounded interesting but I wasn’t interested in paying new book prices to read it. I noticed that it was preceeded by Halting State. Since it was selling for quite a reasonable price, I decided to buy it.

I enjoyed this book. Stross envisions a new future where network connectivity and augmented reality are ubiquitous. Most people wear glasses that give them information about where they are (virtual maps overlaid on top of streets), who they’re seeing (names and brief bios floating alongside the people you’re looking at), or even information about nearby businesses. Gaming is big business, with massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs) running continuously on cell phones, available for play anytime.

And then a bank is robbed. But it’s a bank located in a game. A bank that should be completely unhackable. And the company running the bank seems strangely unwilling to assist the police in their investigation. The police, meanwhile, are baffled by the entire situation and the gaming scene. It’s up to a forensic accountant and a recently fired programmer to figure out what’s going on.

The book was recent in second person perspective, for 3 or 4 characters. It was nearly first person perspective but instead of the characters narrating their own viewpoint, Stross narrated it for them. (For example, “You stepped out into the street and hailed a passing taxi.”) That was odd but eventually, mostly, faded into the background.

The science and technology in the story was top notch, as you’d expect from an author who used to be a programmer. The characters were real and believable and each had their own voice and perspective.

It was a very good book. So why didn’t I enjoy it more? I think it was that the book wasn’t quite where my interests lay. I really enjoyed the world that Stross created but I’m just not that into gaming. Since the entire story revolved around gaming, I found it hard to really get into the spirit of the thing. For someone who does really enjoy gaming, this is an absolutely fantastic book.