Glasshouse

by Charles Stross

Book Overview

"ONE NIGHTMARISH PANOPTICON." - The New York Times When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It's the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities--including Robin's earlier self. On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0441015085
• ISBN13: 9780441015085
• Release Date: June 2007
• Publisher: Ace Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Next year's Hugo winner?

Decisions, decisions. Is this the best book this year, or is Rainbows End (by Vernor Vinge)? Glasshouse is set later in the same univers as Accelerando, but the story is completely separate and it's not necessary to have read the earlier book. Robin wakes up in a clinic, recovering from memory surgery which has eliminated most of his memory for the period of about an old-fashioned human lifetime. He meets a woman, Kay, who's also recovering from (rather less extreme) memory surgery, and they hit it off--but he also quickly discovers that someone is trying to kill him. He suspects this is because of something he did during the blank period--the little he remembers hints that he was a soldier (a tank?) in the Censorship Wars. At the suggestion of his therapist, he signs on with an experimental social/historical reconstruction, which will put him in a safely sealed environment for a year or two. Kay says she's planning to sign on, too, and they agree to look for each other inside. Robin wakes up inside the experiment as a woman, now named Reeve. The experiment is an attempt recreate the social culture of a period about which most information has been lost--1950 to 2050. The experimental subjects have to pair off as married couples, and live according to rules that are a nightmare version of 1950s, with technology that's closer to the early 21st century. Individuals gain or lose points according to how well they comply with the rules, and the entire cohort is scored by how well its members do overall. Reeve pairs off with a man named Sam, and suspects that a woman named Cass may be Kay. Reeve gets off to a bad start because, quite simply, she can't believe how stupid the rules are. No nudity. No wearing the other gender's clothes. When she wants to buy tools, she has to say they're gifts for her husband, Sam. Sam is assigned a job, so he's gone all day. She has nothing to do but go shopping and do household chores, but all the money she has to spend is what he earns, which makes them both uncomfortable. But this is the good period, before Reeve and Sam and a few others start to notice that there's something seriously wrong. Reeve starts to suspect that the experimenters are in fact war criminals, agents of the Curious Yellow worm at the root of the Censorship Wars, very likely the people who were trying to kill him on the outside. She needs to get out, she needs to warn--somebody--but they're all inside, not a normal habitat, spread out and linked by A- and T-gates, but a glasshouse, a military prison on board a starship, a Mobile Archive Sucker, with only one long-distance T-gate, firmly under the control of the bad guys. And the bad guys have all the weapons, all the zombie manpower they need, and an expert and ruthless memory surgeon. Reeve has a couple of people she can almost trust, a crippled memory, and the ghost of memories of skills needed to fight back. Fantasically good. (As a last note, I'd like to point out that R. Kelly Wagner is

Stross's best novel yet. Don't miss!

~ "A dark-skinned human with four arms walks towards me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls. Her hair forms a smoky wreath around her open and curious face. She's interested in me." So opens GLASSHOUSE, Stross's latest and best (so far) novel, set in the Invisible Republic, a splinter-polity recovering from the Censorship Wars. Here's Robin, the protagonist: "When people ask me what I did during the war, I tell them I used to be a tank regiment. Or maybe I was a counter-intelligence agent. I'm not exactly sure: my memory isn't what it used to be." Robin has hot monkey-love with skull-clad Kay, and they both sign up for an experimental historical-roleplaying project, which has the stated objective of recreating one of the historic Dark Ages, c. 1950-2040 AD. You won't be surprised to hear that (cue ominous music) Things are Not as they Seem. A twisty, engrossing and very well-done paranoia-thriller ensues. It's the 27th century. People have moved to space, in habitats around brown-dwarf stars, linked by instantaneous T-gate wormholes. Their health, wealth and daily sundries are supplied by A-gates, nanotech assemblers that can store, edit and recreate most anything, including the posthumans. But the security on the gate network, well, wasn't.... I had a whole lot of fun reading GLASSHOUSE, which is a spicy blend of bleeding-edge SF extrapolation, cool, complex characters, an amazing number of plot-twists, and wonderful storytelling. This is a mature work, with the author in full control of his tools. The book has the feel of Robert Heinlein at his best: a matter-of-fact recounting of daily life in a far-future world that's taken some very strange turns. Stross's energy and imagination never flag, and the book comes to a satisfying (if a bit formulaic) conclusion. Look for it on next year's award-ballots. Highly recommended. Happy reading-- Peter D. Tillman

Interesting Science does not overwhelm an absorbing story

One of the best Sci Fi books I have read this year: believable characters with both depth and raw "edges", extremely inventive situation, easily understood sci-fiction to enable the action and complications, and fascinating background history to make the "now" more believable, plus he keeps you guessing. The author gets better with each book. The surroundings are simultaneously recognizable and ultimately weird and threatening, a real achievement for an author. He uses some of the strongest prejudices of our current world and society (go read the synopsis) and throws them into a pot of great fictional science and life-threatening situations. If I had any negative comment at all its that he wraps it up too quickly with less detail than when he spins the web and takes us through the complications. There's more of the "mopping up", plus surrounding/subsequent story that I want to know, but perhaps the next book...

One of the Best Scifi Books this Year

I have read 3 great sci-fi novels this year despite the fact fewer scifi novels are being written and what is written is not always great. It seems more difficult to write scifi these days, the future seems harder to see, especially the near future. Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds and Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge were my two favorites this year but then Glasshouse came out. I hestitated at even picking up Glasshouse, I have not been a big fan of Charles Stross's earlier novels. I felt there was something missing for me in those novels but it each new novel has been better than the last. Glasshouse is exceptional and entertaining. You can read Publishers Weekly and Booklist reviews above to see what the book is about, but I do want to add it is a mix of hard scifi, mystery, "Joe Haldemann military scifi" and yes, romance. Stross has written a novel that allows you to totally connect to the characters, to feel as if you are there all the while making you want to read it through the night. I highly recommend this novel!

Stross's Best So Far

Glasshouse is the latest SF novel from Charles Stross and is so far his best. The premise of the novel is that in a far-future society recovering from a war, several of the combatants have elected to wipe their memories and have enlisted in an experimental recreation of the Dark Ages aka the 1950s-2040. Not surprisingly for Stross, the cause of the war was the future equivalent of a computer virus or more accurately a worm. Despite the technological underpinnings, Glasshouse works better than Stross's prior novels in not overwhelming the reader with jargon. This isn't to say that Glasshouse skimps on extrapolative technologies of Stross's other SF work. The SF elements are omnipresent but there is less reliance on infodumps and where they are used they are enmeshed in the storyline. Its also refreshing to have a break from the deus ex machina of technological superiority that took some of the edge off of Singularity Sky and Accelerando. Overall, Glasshouse is an excellent showing by Stross. It will undoubtedly be shortlisted for the Hugo and stands a good chance winning in 2007.