The Quantum Thief
2010 • 337 pages
Ratings45
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings45
Average rating3.9
Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy- from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he's confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.
Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turnedsingularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.
As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur....
The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.
Featured Series
3 primary booksJean le Flambeur is a 3-book series with 3 primary works first released in 2010 with contributions by Hannu Rajaniemi.
Reviews with the most likes.
Slow pacing.
A skillful thief is imprisoned in a high tech jail controlled by an AI which idea of rehabilitation involves killing its prisoners over and over again, until they are fit to go back to society.
It seems that it is their mind that is upload to a virtual prison, but they feel the same. The AI supposedly can read their thoughts, because after all, they're just uploads in “the matrix”.
The prison is inescapable, yet, someone manages to rescue him in order to secure his services. His rescuer takes him to her ship, a spaceship controlled by a sentient AI.
read 02:05 / 10:54 18%
I almost DNF'd this book.
It relates a story of post humanism where things like communication by thoughts, mind copies, AGI and Singularity are very real. All this is thrown at the reader without any bit of explanation, which makes the book interesting initially.
By the time you know how all things really work and were supposed to be "fun", it felt quite plain and boring.
I did not mind the device the author used to tell the story at all, which I can understand why some people hate it, but by the end of the book I think it was not even worth the struggle.
I might be judging this book too harshly, but I am still interested in giving it a revisit and see if my opinion changes.
Perhaps the best book I have read this year. There is a strange and complex beauty to the writing of this book, where the reader is dropped into a maelstrom of events that are initially confusing. Just go with the flow and enjoy the strange culture, characters, and exotic technology that populate this universe.
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Why in the Nine Hells didn't this book get a Hugo Award nomination? This is a fantastic SF novel! The characters are well written, the world is masterfully crafted, and the ideas inside the book are gloriously presented. I'm definitely going to read the next book in the series.
