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A review by timinbc
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
5.0
Five stars, not because it's perfect but because it gives a hearty kick to the boundaries of SF. And it's a mind-stretcher.
Neal Asher's review in this thread noted the complexity, and Asher is no stranger to complexity and challenging concepts.
You MUST be comfortable with hard SF to have any chance at all of enjoying this. And if you need everything explained, go rread something else. Dan Schwent's review here is a good overview.
Several people here mentioned reading it twice, and it won't hurt to read a glossary. The one on Wikipedia mentioned herein is gone, but if you Google "Flambeau glossary" you'll find several versions.
I got many of the literary/language references, but for about 200 pages I couldn't stop thinking that Mieli was a dishwashing machine.
There's an enormous collection of vastly powerful entities here, but most are believable. I felt Rajaniemi went a bit far with Mieli's ship - an interesting character in its own right - when he told us it's grown from coral and built by Mieli singing.
I am going to look for Volume 2 now, but first I'm going to read several lightweight space operas, or some fluffy fantasy. My brain hurts.
Neal Asher's review in this thread noted the complexity, and Asher is no stranger to complexity and challenging concepts.
You MUST be comfortable with hard SF to have any chance at all of enjoying this. And if you need everything explained, go rread something else. Dan Schwent's review here is a good overview.
Several people here mentioned reading it twice, and it won't hurt to read a glossary. The one on Wikipedia mentioned herein is gone, but if you Google "Flambeau glossary" you'll find several versions.
I got many of the literary/language references, but for about 200 pages I couldn't stop thinking that Mieli was a dishwashing machine.
There's an enormous collection of vastly powerful entities here, but most are believable. I felt Rajaniemi went a bit far with Mieli's ship - an interesting character in its own right - when he told us it's grown from coral and built by Mieli singing.
I am going to look for Volume 2 now, but first I'm going to read several lightweight space operas, or some fluffy fantasy. My brain hurts.