Now, sometimes such early warnings are hype but the fairly respectable debut advance Hannu received, as well as the book's rights being promptly sold on both sides of the Atlantic, are testimony to this novel's launch heralding something rather special. America by Tor US) there have been rumbles as to the author being a major new talent. This is Rajaniemi's debut novel and many months prior to its publication (2010 in the British Isles by Gollancz and 2011 in N. As the story progresses we see the thief begin to remember his past lives and the detective preparing to foil an as yet unknown crime attempt but one he that has been forewarned will take place at the ceremony to mark an aristocrat leaving human form (pseudo-dying) to begin a stint as a Quiet. However there are also brief interludes with humans who have become what Charles Stross might call weakly god-like intelligences (see Accelerando) as well as briefer flashbacks and the occasional reminiscences of some of the characters back on Earth just as the ability to code human intelligence, and upload personalities, becomes possible. The city's inhabitants spend part of their time 'alive' as humans spending temporal credit they earn from their labours, and the rest of their time downloaded as 'Quiet' into machines that serve the city and do the terra-forming and fending off attacks of the phoboi (who are a bit like the Quiet but who for some reason do not like the city). Much of the novel's narrative takes place on Mars in the Moving City of the Obliette that wanders the Martian surface terra-forming as it goes. The future portrayed is what in Vernor Vinge terms might be described as post-singularity and humans have uplifted themselves into a Greg Egan type far future (see Diaspora, Incandescence or Schild's Ladder).

Meanwhile on Mars a detective (an old fashioned concept) is wrapping up a murder case… Of course he owes her his freedom, and besides if he does not help she will kill him. She wants Jean's help to steal something. It is in the midst of one such game that he (or a version of himself) is sprung from jail by Meli and her sentient ship Perhonen who originally came from the Oort cloud. It is all supposedly part of his rehabilitation.

Or to be more precise, having been incarcerated, there are now many copies of himself in prison with each being forced to play Prisoners' Dilemma with each other, and here the cooperation reward is not just shooting the other but with the big being prize to shoot the other without getting shot back. It is the future centuries from now and Jean le Flambeur is a thief who is being held in a (space) prison for his crimes.

The Quantum Thief – Hanu Rajaniemi Fiction Reviews

The quantum thief review