It’s primarily, I think, within a lineage that goes back at least to Arthur C. But on the other it’s highly traditional, drawing from different lineages within the genre and outside it. On the one hand it’s aggressively bleeding-edge, incorporating quantum theory and game theory and any number of up-to-the-nanosecond science-fictional ideas. Uncertainty and possibility and identity are key themes in this book appropriate, then, that its own identity is somewhat paradoxical. That’s a basic description of Hannu Rajaniemi’s novel The Quantum Thief, the first in a series following le Flambeur’s adventures (the second, The Fractal Prince, will be coming later this year). A youthful detective, hi-tech superheroes, and posthuman intelligences are waiting to complicate his task, which seems to have ramifications on an interplanetary scale. There, he must regain old memories he locked away from all possible recovery when he was literally a far different person than he is now. Until he’s freed by a violent woman named Mieli from the edge of the solar system, and taken to Mars. Tor Books (A Tom Doherty Associates Book 330 pp, $24.99 USD, $28.99 CDN hardcover 2010)Ĭenturies in the future, Jean le Flambeur is a master thief, imprisoned in a virtual-reality jail: every day he makes choices, and dies, and is reborn.
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