Orcs in Alpha Complex
I read another Charles Stross novel, Halting State. Overall, I think I enjoyed Glasshouse slightly more, but this one was more amusing more often. It starts with a bank inside an MMORPG getting robbed and ends with a 419 nod, so it’s an internet-savvy narrative. It’s got some characters who are likable, though their flaws don’t seem to really hinder them. The shy nerd with a sexcrime history gets laid, the cop with the uppity kid never has to take time off from the case to settle his hash, the accountant with the brittle work situation never suffers from office politics during the course of the story. It’s pretty light on the characters but correspondingly there’s some meaty cryptographic and augmented reality dealt to the reader in careful doses.
The more I think about it, the less satisfied I am with the way things resolve, so I’m optimistic about a rumored sequel which I hope will explain more about why Scotland’s software infrastructure survives the threat which emerges in this novel, but that’s just quibbling. This is a pretty good near future sf novel with varied characters and a briskly moving storyline.
Who might like it
- Gamers, both the tabletop and mmorpg flavors, and possibly casino to a lesser degree.
- Fans of nerd protagonists.
- People who just can’t get enough of the intricate crinkling of police procedurals.
Who might not like it
- People who think you’re getting a whole novel about people playing an MMORPG.
- People who felt Orcbusters in The Computer Always Shoots Twice was fundamentally cheating.
Tags: ar, novel, pre-singularity, Review, sf
