Halting State - Charles Stross

My short $.02

This is not a standalone review, just an addition to one you've already read. While it's a good book, it's certainly not a breakthrough concept like the publisher makes it out to be. There's been quite a few books about life in the digital age, and even a couple about crime in the digital world spilling over into the meat world. It's a pleasant read, certainly I was able to put it down when necessary, for instance, once Hereo's Season 2 showed up, I stopped reading and watched that. Good, but not great. A reader, but not a library addition unless you're a fan.

Halting Read

Way back when I was in seminary school, there was a person there who said you could never write a narrative in the second person. I wonder if someone rapped Charles Stross's knuckles then too. This novel is stubbornly written entirely in the second person--the first novel I have ever read written that way. Perhaps it was to imitate the vernacular of video games ("you have picked up a level 7 blunderbuss...") to give the reader a closer connection to the characters. At first it was extremely irritating, often requiring me as a reader to do some subliminal translating before proceeding. However, by the time I had reached the climax of the plot, I agreed that this story could not have been written any other way. It left me with an eagerness to pick up the book again and read it over on some later date.

There has been a few negative reviews of this book--mostly that it starts off at a strong pace, but fizzles at the end. I strongly disagree with that assessment. The denouement was more extended than most modern science fiction, but not nearly as winded as Stross's obvious role-model Gibson has been of late. This is a very well-paced story, with intriguing themes and endearing characters. It managed to do something to me that only David Brin has been capable of: make me wonder what the characters are up to when the book is closed.

"Halting State"? "Halting Read" more like.

I hate to criticise one of my favorite authors, but I have to agree with E. Lyons sentiments: "Function lost in form".

There are no technical challenges for me in this book. I'm an internet software engineer familiar with crypt keys and even the nascent quantum computing.
I'm British, so the scots brogue is clear, even cute.
Also I've been an avid RPG gamer (City of Heroes mostly).

However suppose you login your favorite RPG in which you have created three characters - but the game randomly selects one of your characters to play and gives no indication as to which one!
I guess you'd have to spend 10 minutes finding a clan mate to say "Hello bear", or "Hello brown Orc" or whatever. It would no longer be your favorite RPG I assure you.

I bought this book Oct 2007. I tried 3 times to get into the book but I just couldn't keep track of who I was meant to be. Maybe it's because I rarely read more than one chapter at a time, more often less than this.
Maybe because other books to hand offered no such obstacles to good reading.

Finally I've finished it. Whoop-de-doop.

Rather than rewrite the book in the 3rd person, I would suggest to the author to emulate the RPG's he seems so keen on: each page should have the chapter title, and each chapter title should include who the current "you" is.

Call me a lazy reader, but reading scifi is meant to be recreation.
This was a slog.

Simply awesome

best book about the coming future and what physical and digital systems will look like and how we will interact with them
Read this book!!

Satirical Gimmicks didn't save it

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.

My short $.02

This is not a standalone review, just an addition to one you've already read. While it's a good book, it's certainly not a breakthrough concept like the publisher makes it out to be. There's been quite a few books about life in the digital age, and even a couple about crime in the digital world spilling over into the meat world. It's a pleasant read, certainly I was able to put it down when necessary, for instance, once Hereo's Season 2 showed up, I stopped reading and watched that. Good, but not great. A reader, but not a library addition unless you're a fan.

Halting Read

Way back when I was in seminary school, there was a person there who said you could never write a narrative in the second person. I wonder if someone rapped Charles Stross's knuckles then too. This novel is stubbornly written entirely in the second person--the first novel I have ever read written that way. Perhaps it was to imitate the vernacular of video games ("you have picked up a level 7 blunderbuss...") to give the reader a closer connection to the characters. At first it was extremely irritating, often requiring me as a reader to do some subliminal translating before proceeding. However, by the time I had reached the climax of the plot, I agreed that this story could not have been written any other way. It left me with an eagerness to pick up the book again and read it over on some later date.

There has been a few negative reviews of this book--mostly that it starts off at a strong pace, but fizzles at the end. I strongly disagree with that assessment. The denouement was more extended than most modern science fiction, but not nearly as winded as Stross's obvious role-model Gibson has been of late. This is a very well-paced story, with intriguing themes and endearing characters. It managed to do something to me that only David Brin has been capable of: make me wonder what the characters are up to when the book is closed.

"Halting State"? "Halting Read" more like.

I hate to criticise one of my favorite authors, but I have to agree with E. Lyons sentiments: "Function lost in form".

There are no technical challenges for me in this book. I'm an internet software engineer familiar with crypt keys and even the nascent quantum computing.
I'm British, so the scots brogue is clear, even cute.
Also I've been an avid RPG gamer (City of Heroes mostly).

However suppose you login your favorite RPG in which you have created three characters - but the game randomly selects one of your characters to play and gives no indication as to which one!
I guess you'd have to spend 10 minutes finding a clan mate to say "Hello bear", or "Hello brown Orc" or whatever. It would no longer be your favorite RPG I assure you.

I bought this book Oct 2007. I tried 3 times to get into the book but I just couldn't keep track of who I was meant to be. Maybe it's because I rarely read more than one chapter at a time, more often less than this.
Maybe because other books to hand offered no such obstacles to good reading.

Finally I've finished it. Whoop-de-doop.

Rather than rewrite the book in the 3rd person, I would suggest to the author to emulate the RPG's he seems so keen on: each page should have the chapter title, and each chapter title should include who the current "you" is.

Call me a lazy reader, but reading scifi is meant to be recreation.
This was a slog.

Simply awesome

best book about the coming future and what physical and digital systems will look like and how we will interact with them
Read this book!!

Satirical Gimmicks didn't save it

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.