Halting State

Charles Stross

Oct 2007 · A Halting State Novel Book 1 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

“Halting State [is] a near-future story that is at once over-the-top and compellingly believable.” – Vernor Vinge, author of Rainbows End        
      
In the year 2018, Sergeant Sue Smith of the Edinburgh constabulary is called in on a special case. A daring bank robbery has taken place at Hayek Associates—a dot-com start-up company that’s just floated onto the London stock exchange. But this crime may be a bit beyond Smith’s expertise.              

 The prime suspects are a band of marauding orcs with a dragon in tow for fire support. The bank is located within the virtual reality land of Avalon Four, and the robbery was supposed to be impossible. When word gets out, Hayek Associates and all its virtual “economies” are going to crash hard.                            

 For Smith, the investigation seems pointless. But the deeper she digs, the bigger the case gets. There are powerful players—both real and pixelated—who are watching her every move. Because there is far more at stake than just some game-head’s fantasy financial security…

Ratings and reviews

My least favorite Stross title. It, I think, had more promise than it delivered. Much like Stephenson's REAMDE, it is the story of MMO intersecting a real world. Most of Stross's books follow one protagonist, but this gets lost in six or eight first person narratives.

Straight-ahead, ingenious, near-future science fiction, its evocation of the near future reminds me of William Gibson in its uncanny insight into what is going to happen... In many respects, events and technologies key to the book have come nearer to reality since the book was written. By a narrow margin, my favorite Stross book.

...and that is saying a lot! I loved the fast-paced, five-minutes-in-the-future nature of this story. (The sequel is not nearly as good, unfortunately.) The second-person narration (which in other books is trite and boring) works well here, because it is reminiscent of the role playing games that prefigure the online game around which this story is built.

About the author

Charles Stross was born in Leeds, England in 1964. He holds degrees in pharmacy and computer science, and has worked in a variety of jobs including pharmacist, technical author, software engineer, and freelance journalist. He is now a full-time writer.