Charles Stross; Glasshouse (**** [out of 5])
Stross' latest, set about a thousand years hence, is billed as being in the same future as his recent Accelerando, but except for being post-Singularity it really doesn't matter -- the books are not connected in any way.
Human culture has expanded across the galaxy using wormholes, to the point where there is no geographic location to anything; the "corner store" might be 100 light-years from your front door, and your kitchen might as far the other way. Death has been cheated by backup-and restore, and the only real boundaries left are guarded by store-and-forward firewall routers which treat human beings as so many packets.
Robin, our hero, has recently been restored after he submitted to severe memory edit for reasons he's not clear on. But someone else is, and is trying to kill him and all his backups, possibly related to the recently concluded Censorship War, which Robin remembers having some vague part in. Anyway, he goes and hides in an intentionally closed polity where there is only one way in and out. Unfortunately, he seems to have left the frying pan for the fire... (d'oh)
Like Accelerando, Glasshouse left me vaguely unsatisfied; perhaps it's the alienness of the society, perhaps it's the lose-lose choices the heroes face, but I think it's the almost melancholy theme that Stross has employed. It's not a great future, it has lots of problems, but people struggle on just the same. Maybe that's to be expected, but I keep hoping for more.
A note aside: The whole idea of backup-and-restore immortality leaves me cold. The copy may think that it's the real deal with all the memories, but the previous copy died. I don't view being dead while some simulacrum continues as a very satisfying outcome. There is a difference between move and copy. Dr. McCoy was right.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at June 20, 2006 08:37 AM