Halting State

Stross is a tremendous creative talent. I was impressed - nay, tickled - with his nod to the original 2nd-person, text-based games that laid the foundation for today's GUI MMOPRGs. (I played the former, not the latter.) My only fault with this book (no spoilers) is the fundamental conceit of one of the online games, though I concede it's the author's dramatic license to create the plot that will drive the story. Otherwise, I think Stross proved adept at meeting the challenge of engaging readers with multiple characters in 2nd person. Importantly, the technological underpinnings of the story ring true: a reminder to consider carefully the tradeoffs we easily and invisibly make in exchange for greater/faster connectivity and improved personal/professional productivity. Consider this slight reflection a resounding recommendation of Halting State.

So, if you ever were in a creative writing class, you could take down the things that you were told weren't recommended--writing in the second person, changes of perspective that might confuse a reader, use of dialect that might be obscure (or too much jargon--there's another one they'll tell you, in classes like that.) If there's such a thing as classes on sf novel-writing, they might say--well, keep your future prognosticating non-specific, and don't set your scene in the too-near future--

But see, they'd be absolutely wrong. The difference is whether you have the chops to pull it off or not, and if you happen to be Charles Stross, well, you can. The chops being, using the second person voice to advantage, by placing the reader momentarily in the place of the characters, while hiding certain of their motivations, using the shift in perspective to color a scene in the "voice" appropriate to it, using dialect to differentiate voices and set atmosphere (oh, and ditto for jargon-I like when an author gives his readers a little credit for not being dim), an ability to make the nouveaux plausible, because it's a offshoot of existing tech, and has the near-future setting make perfect sense because it's so recognizable, making the points about the increasing "on-line" lives of people more immediate.

I really did enjoy it, just as a story, and because it made me think a little about how much we already invest in our "virtual" selves. The three protagonist's voices are well-developed, and the story has some interesting twists.

An enjoyable and moderately satirical novel set in the near future. Stross' theme is the penetration of information technology into everyday life, so this book is set in future Scotland where there is constant monitoring of daily life, where police have immediate access to enormous databases, and where the lines between virtual reality and conventional reality are increasingly blurred. Stross presents a fairly clever plot which is largely a traditional espionage thriller adapted cleverly to a world of virtual reality, role playing games, and information technology espionage. Like several of Stross' books, the reworking of a traditional genre device is done very well and provides an opportunity for some satire. Characterization and writing are competent, as usual.

I'd almost given up on Charles Stross, but HALTING STATE(2007), a very-near future SciFi Tech-Adventure, turned out to be quite good. GLASSHOUSE(2007) had an excessively violent theme, and was too "far out" tech-wise - but HALTING STATE takes the bold step of dabbling in very near future tech trends, and the computer and software-related tech is definitely interesting.

The book is set 10 years in the future, mostly in Scotland, and revolves around on-line gaming that has become so close to real that it blurs the lines with reality - with crimes taking place within games having to be investigated by the police... and the crimes turn out to be intertwined with international terrorism and all the intrigue that entails.

There is also the typical America-Bashing and Catastrophic Global Warming hype that has come to be expected from most modern SciFi writers. But these themes get tossed in almost as an afterthought, as if the writer doesn't really believe in the "agenda" any longer, and is just going thru the motions... it offers little distraction in this otherwise excellent book.

I normally read ebooks on my treadmill (Kindle lets you adjust the font size).
This one, I couldn't put down.
I'm a former IT guy, and I love the way Stross salts his story with _realistic_ networking terms.

This book provides proof that Mr. Stross can take any premise and flesh it out with a story I could not put down. I enjoyed this book enormously , even though the Gamer acronyms at times left me wondering what the hell is that ? Would buy again.

Although I doubt he will ever write anything equal to the almost cultish appeal of "Accelerando" this is another winner. In fact, I liked it better than his previous work ("Glass House") because it seemed so much more plausible.

It is 2018 and more and more, people are "living" in virtual reality worlds. But this is ony a portent of things to come. Scotland has broken away from the UK and that is the setting for the story. My biggest complain was the overuse of the Scottish language and dialect. It would be if my review was in "hick Southern" (how I sound) and I made readers decipher not only what I was saying but what I was trying to say. It sound simple: The Police are called when a "bank" containing objects used in a game similar to WOW is "robbed".

Since they did not reside on a data base - operations are distributed - the question is how it was done. To this end, Jack, a programmer and a game player, is hired (@ 1,000 Euros/hour) for expertise. It sounds almost innocent until one discovers that nothing is as it seems. We are in the world of undercover spying in the 21st century. What stands out the most is the tie-in between a virtual world and a real world and the fact that the spies think they are playing a game (SPOOK) when they are actually being trained as foreign agents.

Along the way, Stross gives us a glimpse of the near future - driverless taxis, indentity cards, globalization gone wild and the power of human emotions and relationships. It's hard to describe the plot without giving it away so read the book.

Charles Stross manages to make a book about a not so different world enjoyable. He was a little optimistic about when the virtual world would be here - it has already arrived. Internet warfare, electronic realities, and the crossover of behaviors bringing laws and lawyers to cyberspace. From the 'Atlantic Monthly' cartoon of a dog at the computer saying' "On-line no one knows you are a dog!" to present day reality of people selling clothes and accessories to avatars in 'Second Life'. Turns out that reality in not a crutch, it is what you make of it.

Puzzling, strangely resolved, but fundamentally glorious. I'm fond of Stross and Halting State and its sequel are my favorites by a wide margin. Policing and programming in near-future independent Scotland where wearable computing has become ubiquitous and intelligence agencies quietly crowdsource their boots-on-the-ground through ARGs? Magnificent. The audiobook is especially wonderful: The three "you" characters' accents are as different as you can get without leaving the British Isles, and the narrator gets deeply into them. Read it, listen to it. Have some patience for its strangeness and don't overthink what confuses you. You'll be glad you did.

Eeyurgh, what could an editor be thinking when he/she lets an author go all cutesy writing in the second person?

Making it even more grating is picking through three different POVs in a second-person narrative.

OK, now that that's off my chest, I admit enjoying the book anyway, even enough to give it 4 stars. It's going to be dated in a few years, but at the present time it's a great SF thriller. That I have a Chinese gold-farmer among my in-laws just gives it a special appeal to me, I guess.

This story creates an intersection of high-tech gaming and high-tech finance, creating a highly engaging SF and mystery heist book. Don't let the second person narrative get to you, for it really brings the reader deeper into the book, although it takes some getting used to.

Stross understands what he is writing about from first hand experience in the high-tech world, and he understands finance and economics. It is one of the few books I have read lately that warrants a second read.

Stross must have spent some serious time with an urban dictionary. He tosses off a combo of futuristic, grungy, urban, cyberpunk slang and Scottish dialect effortlessly. I found myself chuckling out loud at some of his turns of phrase and the evolution of terminology he events.

I was less thrilled by the 2nd person narrative. Each chapter rotates to one of 3 different main characters, and I found the voice of each narrative to be too similar. I would have to go back to peek at the beginning of the chapter to remember which "you" I was suppose to be at the moment. I didn't particularly identify with any of them--the 2nd person didn't do anything to make me feel closer to the narrative and was quite distracting.

The plot set-up was well done, but the last half of the book gallops along, and the appearance of the super-spies from the EU, the death of one of the minor characters, and the flash mob of zombies feels like a half ton of deus ex machina poured on the plot. That said, I'd sit down with this again on a rainy day just to bask in the lingo.

The first thing that comes to mind is...Meh....

OK for a coast to to coast plane flight, but pretty poor character development, and a tad on the gratuitous kinky side. Butt, then it is called Rule 34 for a reason. The ending (no spoiler) just kind of runs out of steam.Plot manifests pretty early on, so just sit back and go along for the ride.

Once you cut past the technical jargon and mumbo jumbo, the story itself isn't too bad. Essentially a computer geek (Jack) and an insurance adjuster (Elaine) get stuck in the middle of some high-tech extortion plan run by a few greedy people. They were "chosen" for this case because of their gaming skills (or as the author puts it, "mad skillz"). The book was rather tongue in cheek for most of the part, and I am not sure why the theme of beauty and the geek is almost pervasive among Sci-Fi techno novels. In this story, Jack is described as some fat, unshaven, and unwashed computer geek. In my mind, I am picturing Michael Moore or perhaps Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Elaine is described as a mousy woman of proportions similar to a librarian, with extensive training in sword play. In my mind, I pictured Kate Beckinsale with a huge sword (ala Underworld). Overall, the story was fun but a lot of the technical jargon and mumbo jumbo just got in the way. I found myself skipping paragraphs every so often.

Writing in the second person present tense is rarely a good idea. This, combined with the barely one-dimensional characters, makes Halting State an unrewarding experience for all but the most undiscriminating of SF fans.

As a fan and sometime inhabitant of Second Life, my first reaction to this book was a solid "Whoa!" The basic premise is that a robbery has taken place in a virtual setting. How did the criminals get in? Of what value is the stolen treasure? Amazingly, millions of dollars are at risk. This book has an interesting structure as it flashes viewpoints from a police sergeant (Sue), an accounting auditor, a programmer, as folks try to figure out the who, what, where, when, and if (was it a crime?)of this crime. The ramifications for both finance, national borders, future warfare, etc are enormous. And, amazingly, it is all plausible! I recommend this book to anyone who loves science fiction, virtual reality, and doesn't mind an interesting narrative style. good job, Mr. Stross!

Murder mystery, romance, MMPORG and LRP, SCA, stock market malfeasance, international intrigue, ... I'm a deep techy and am interested in online gaming because of the 'management of complexity' issues. How do you create an imaginary world where everything makes sense? How do you create an imaginary economy that works? I gave this book (along with my notes explaining the tech abbreviations) to many friends. It generates either love or hate - not much middle of the road opinion on this one. I think it is one of the three or four best sci-fi books I've read in the last year.

I've always tried reading sci-fiction without much success. I picked up Halting State on recommendations from BoingBoing just to give it a look-see and I'm fantastically surprised. I'm not a hacker or gamer but the speculative nature of the book isn't so far fetched as to make it impossible to believe or pin down. Stross also writes a great character-driven story with believable sketches that bring the story to life so you're not tripping over the geekiness of the science that is believable and hopefully, not too far away.

Funny and brilliant, although the Geekish non natives will have to struggle with mysterious acronyms and concepts...but this book is really worth the effort : Charles Stross knows how to keep his reader captive !

The second person perspective is annoying and distracting at the best of times and completely ruins the narrative at others. It was an attempt to bring back the 1st and 2nd generations of role-playing video games when they game told you what you were doing, and it annoyed me then too. The most interesting chapter is the bit about the digital heist. The rest of the book seemed to go on and on about which character done it. The chapter character switches made it impossible for me to care one way or another about any of the characters. Skip this one. There is far better sci-fi satire/cyber-punk.

Charlie Stross shows once again he's about the most versatile of the latest crop of SF writers, effortlessly juggling policier, VR/fantasy, and hard near-future extrapolation, with a lively (and unusual) set of characters and some... weird... action. A very entertaining and thoughtful read!

This book combines a good detective story along with a great new near-future world. It's a fun story told in second person (to emphasize the gaming environment and aspect) from the point of view of three of the main characters. It's even more fun if you've spent time in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Stross has a VERY unique style of developing a believable near-future using nothing more than than the words his characters speak. This story is alive, intelligent, real, and very different from anything I ever read before. I could not put it down once I started.

'Halting State' a good read for security geeks
01/24/08
By M. E. Kabay, PhD, CISSP-ISSMP

I have just finished reading a novel called 'Halting State,' by Charles Stross, that strikes me as a significant event for security specialists in the development of today's science fiction. Much as William Gibson's Neuromancer is credited with popularizing the notion of cyberspace in establishing the cyberpunk style, I think Halting State may be the first book that speaks directly to the culture of information security specialists.

... entire review online at
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Stross's writing tends to throw a massive amount of information at you. Unlike both Dick and Gibson he understands that wild and unbalancing ideas are more palatable when you have characters you actually like. There are a few extraneous plot points but Stross is a talented writer and he makes you root for his characters.

SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!

READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WISH TO AVOID PLOT DETAILS!!!

An insider decides to bet against a startup company's success. In the process, he compromises Scotland's entire digital infrastructure. It's up to spies in training - who actually think they've been playing a game - to save the day.

This is the sort of story that's close enough to today's boom-and-bust markets and emerging digital world to be entirely believable. It's written to keep your attention to the end. There is an odd bit where some EU police show up like a Deus ex Machina to move the plot along a little, but that was about the only bit that really left me going "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?"

I wish the Scottish police had actually been Laughing Joker Security, but you can't have everything - the book is set close enough to the present to make it hard to imagine completely privatized policing.

The book has a great epilogue: you'll never see spam the same way ever again.

One last thing: around page 240, or so, the author has a go at the US. In his world, the EU, China, and Russia are all going great guns, while the US is enfeebled and off the world stage. This *is* a work of fiction, so, ok. When you look at the demographics for those parts of the world however, you see that he's actually whistling past the graveyard. I mention this because I've now read three books in the past six months where an author has taken a similar swipe at the US - Chris Moriarty and Richard Morgan being the other two. It's almost as if they believe the propaganda on the Beeb.

I found the second person narrative to be horribly distracting, and could not make it past the second chapter because of this. While it is clearly a homage to adventure games gone by, I was hoping for a more grown up way of writing for this.

I really tried reading it, because the idea sounded so interesting. There are books I just can't get into and I push through anyway. But this was something alltogether different. This book was impossible to read. I read over 100 pages and still couldn't figure out what they were talking about.

It's about criminals and conspiracies and MMORPGs. What more could you want? It harks back to D&D and MMOs just like Ready Player One, but does it with more thriller seriousness like Reamde. I'd say it's more like a halfway point between the two.

If you didn't read those two books, go read them first. Or at least Ready Player One. But definitely come back and read Halting State - Five stars!