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jeriendhalSummary: On the mental mend after a session of voluntary memory erasure, Robin, a citizen of a post-Singularity polity, volunteers for a closed sociology study of the volatile period between the mid 20th and mid 21st centuries, essentially LARPing in a stereotypical Western civilization town with a few hundred other participants to try and recreate the social norms of the period. Once inside though he/she is inside though, they start to realize the study's true purpose may be far more sinister.
Review: This is a seriously frustrating book to review. Charles Stross is an able writer, in this case creating a post-Singularity world much more comprehensible than his earlier Accelerando, thanks mostly to being to write it as a novel instead of a series of connected short stories. He's able to create a sympathetic lead character with believable skills and abilities, and isn't afraid to have his hero(ine) fall flat on their faces on occasion. That said, the plot of is highly dependent, to put it in the gentlest possible terms, on both the hero and their antagonists being idiots.
I don't say that lightly. The premise of Glasshouse is that the social LARP is in an enclosed station, inaccessible to the outside except through a single transmission gate, with total 24-hour monitoring of the participants, including through the personal computer implants that are common in Robin's era. (There's even a fairly blatant homage to The Prisoner around the fourth act.) Unfortunately Stross seems to realize the severe restrictions that puts on Robin when they begin devising their anti-establishment conspiracy, so they when they start planning their actions with the group they form, they essentially throw up their hands and say "Well, they probably aren't listening right now." Mind you, this after Robin has taken several actions that would probably have earned them closer monitoring than the average participant. And the only reason that this has a chance of working is because the establishment, the ones controlling the lives of hundreds of people, are three individuals in total.
Did I mention that one of the establishment keeps a vital piece of equipment that Robin uses to defeat them in a public library, secured with an ordinary 20th century tumbler lock? Facepalm.
The sad thing, I still enjoyed reading it, but my suspension of disbelief got yanked hard.
Recommended with reservation.
Review: This is a seriously frustrating book to review. Charles Stross is an able writer, in this case creating a post-Singularity world much more comprehensible than his earlier Accelerando, thanks mostly to being to write it as a novel instead of a series of connected short stories. He's able to create a sympathetic lead character with believable skills and abilities, and isn't afraid to have his hero(ine) fall flat on their faces on occasion. That said, the plot of is highly dependent, to put it in the gentlest possible terms, on both the hero and their antagonists being idiots.
I don't say that lightly. The premise of Glasshouse is that the social LARP is in an enclosed station, inaccessible to the outside except through a single transmission gate, with total 24-hour monitoring of the participants, including through the personal computer implants that are common in Robin's era. (There's even a fairly blatant homage to The Prisoner around the fourth act.) Unfortunately Stross seems to realize the severe restrictions that puts on Robin when they begin devising their anti-establishment conspiracy, so they when they start planning their actions with the group they form, they essentially throw up their hands and say "Well, they probably aren't listening right now." Mind you, this after Robin has taken several actions that would probably have earned them closer monitoring than the average participant. And the only reason that this has a chance of working is because the establishment, the ones controlling the lives of hundreds of people, are three individuals in total.
Did I mention that one of the establishment keeps a vital piece of equipment that Robin uses to defeat them in a public library, secured with an ordinary 20th century tumbler lock? Facepalm.
The sad thing, I still enjoyed reading it, but my suspension of disbelief got yanked hard.
Recommended with reservation.
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no subject
Date: 2012-10-04 03:48 pm (UTC)Apply Robin's description of the purpose of the Glasshouse (as an environment for rehabillitating war criminals) to Robin's own background and see what conclusions you reach ...
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Date: 2012-10-04 04:56 pm (UTC)I also imagine several of the other participants, especially the score whores, were a bit more vocal in their displeasure when they were informed how long they were going to be stuck there after the climax than Robin implies in the coda.
Still liked the book though.
[1] Of course that was after he managed to duplicate himself as SPOILER, so in retrospect he probably influenced the decision to let himself live.
no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 12:21 pm (UTC)Robin is one of the inmates in the Glasshouse, and the whole point of the thing is that it exists to rehabillitate the un-likeble via personality alteration as a result of social pressure. Robin has, in fact, been mucked around with rather a lot. Everyone else in the Glasshouse is at least as bad, but by the time it reaches its destination, in about another 180 years, they won't be the same people: think of it as very long duration group therapy, with a setup at the beginning to give the inmates something to cohere in opposition to.
What Robin tells us about Hanta, Fiore et al is not necessarily the truth about them: it's just what Robin has been led to believe in order to get him into the Glasshouse ...
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Date: 2012-10-05 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 05:35 pm (UTC)Though that does explain why the score whores went creepily whacko so fast when they went in, if they were sociopaths to start with...
Unreliable narrators with memory modifications. Gotta love 'em.