The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

This is Book 22 started, book 19 finished

The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
Published by Tor Books, 2011

I’ve read post-Singularity/post-human science fiction before but this is one of the best examples of it.  It’s fast paced, it give absolutely no quarter to the reader and it expects you to keep up with it instead of leading you along.  Little is explained in this book as far as the technology infusing this culture; it’s just there and a part of the story and the reader is expected to infer the tech as the story unfolds.

This opens in a prison with an uploaded prisoner being played with/tortured/rehabilitated through a series of scenarios that make little sense but paints a mental image of a Escher-esque multi-dimensional space until he’s broken free and on a ship that may or may not be sentient and may or may not be charge of the human piloting it.

On some levels, this is a detective thriller with Jean le Flambeur, the thief, performing a service in exchange for his freedom and being pursued by detective Beauretlet in a science fiction wonderland.  But it’s not that.  It’s much more.  Most of the book is set on a Mars full of near immortal humans and sentient and near sentient machines.  There are characters galore with various interesting vignettes and technobabble to decipher.

There are thematic currents on what is means to be human, our ultimate purpose and what death is all jumbled in with playful hedonism.   Perhaps the chaos will be better explained in future books but I somehow doubt it.

This is possibly not for everyone in that it’s not Star Trek and while it does entertain, this book insists that you pay attention as you read.  If you read in small bits here and there, you may end up lost and it’s too good a book for that.

4.5 stars.