Review: _Halting State_, by Charles Stross

Stross has been one of my favorite authors for a few years now. This latest book by him may be his best yet. It's a near-future techothriller, with lots of interesting observations about where our immediate future may take us.

A major theme is how the increasing fidelity -- and ubiquity -- of virtual worlds is changing the boundaries between entertainment and reality. The book starts out with a hapless Scottish policewoman called in to investigate a robbery -- in an MMO. Seems like a gang of Orcs broke into the bank of a major game and made off with tons of phat lewt. To quote Douglas Adams, "This is, of course, impossible." But it has manifestly happened, and is clearly a crime of some sort, so has to be investigated. Soon, shadowy government operatives start showing up, and it quickly becomes clear that the non-virtual world is in a great deal of danger. Real corpses are showing up, and war is waiting in the wings.

While it starts out examining a crime in a classic high fantasy WoW-like MMO, the book ends up touching on many other kinds of virtual worlds and their effects on society. To say more would perhaps be a spoiler, but there is a marvelous Sixth Sense style twist near the end. (No, it is *not* that the entire book so far is inside an MMO, Matrix-style; Stross is far more clever and original than that.)

Halting State is not as much of a show-off tour de force as Accelerando was, but it still packs in more ideas than most authors fit in a trilogy. It also manages to be *accessible*, in a way that many of his earlier works weren't. The protagonists are all likeable, and intelligent. While none of them are stupid, some of them are sufficiently under-informed that the others can explain the complex ideas to them in plain language. This book has the potential to get an audience outside of the SF ghetto, and make Charlie a lot of money. I think he deserves it for this one. Highly recommended.

Review: _Halting State_, by Charles Stross

Stross has been one of my favorite authors for a few years now. This latest book by him may be his best yet. It's a near-future techothriller, with lots of interesting observations about where our immediate future may take us.

A major theme is how the increasing fidelity -- and ubiquity -- of virtual worlds is changing the boundaries between entertainment and reality. The book starts out with a hapless Scottish policewoman called in to investigate a robbery -- in an MMO. Seems like a gang of Orcs broke into the bank of a major game and made off with tons of phat lewt. To quote Douglas Adams, "This is, of course, impossible." But it has manifestly happened, and is clearly a crime of some sort, so has to be investigated. Soon, shadowy government operatives start showing up, and it quickly becomes clear that the non-virtual world is in a great deal of danger. Real corpses are showing up, and war is waiting in the wings.

While it starts out examining a crime in a classic high fantasy WoW-like MMO, the book ends up touching on many other kinds of virtual worlds and their effects on society. To say more would perhaps be a spoiler, but there is a marvelous Sixth Sense style twist near the end. (No, it is *not* that the entire book so far is inside an MMO, Matrix-style; Stross is far more clever and original than that.)

Halting State is not as much of a show-off tour de force as Accelerando was, but it still packs in more ideas than most authors fit in a trilogy. It also manages to be *accessible*, in a way that many of his earlier works weren't. The protagonists are all likeable, and intelligent. While none of them are stupid, some of them are sufficiently under-informed that the others can explain the complex ideas to them in plain language. This book has the potential to get an audience outside of the SF ghetto, and make Charlie a lot of money. I think he deserves it for this one. Highly recommended.

Diary Update

The other night, I got home to find kestrell complaining about both a migraine and the fact that the Evil Hum had spread to her room. It's not as loud as it was before the pump got swapped, but it's quite pervasive.

I'm rather at a loss to know what to do. When the plumber left last time, he didn't have any clear course of action for 'next thing to try'. There was some vague discussion of finding the pipe where the vibration is starting and clamping it down better. Unfortunately, it's almost certainly inside a wall, so that could be a major operation.

When I'm in Positive (or Wishful) Thinking mode, I think that our current hypersensitivity is caused by our other health issues, and once they are dealt with, the Hum will cease to seem Evil. In Kes' case, the migraines (I picked up the refill for her migraine medication last night), in my case, the ongoing jaw pain.

I haven't mentioned the jaw pain lately because I've been in denial. "It's just healing slowly," I told everyone, including myself. I think it was even true for the first few weeks after the wisdom tooth came out. But for the last few weeks, I haven't been able to detect any physical progress with my tongue, and the pain has been ramping back up.

As I write this, I am on my way to an oral surgeon to have it Looked At. This is not the one who was out in Guam, but a new one I am seeing for the first time, who is on the Green Line. He came highly recommended, and I hope to have a good experience. Certainly he has a good person manning the phones; she asked intelligent questions, gave me directions without being prompted, and managed to get me an appointment on roughly 24 hours notice. More updates later.

---

Good thing I allowed lots of time. Red Line is "experiencing delays due to a disabled train."

---

Feh. The doctor was very personable, and very efficient, but not actually very helpful. The jaw pain comes and goes, and it was mostly absent when he saw me. so he basically said "Give me a call next time you get pain during working hours and we'll try and see you right away." Le sigh.

On the plus side, he took an x-ray and looked around inside my mouth, and said everything looked as he would expect. I asked him how much longer I could expect the healing process to take. Apparently, around *six months*! Amazingly, no one had yet bothered to mention that to me. Gahhh...

Diary Update

The other night, I got home to find kestrell complaining about both a migraine and the fact that the Evil Hum had spread to her room. It's not as loud as it was before the pump got swapped, but it's quite pervasive.

I'm rather at a loss to know what to do. When the plumber left last time, he didn't have any clear course of action for 'next thing to try'. There was some vague discussion of finding the pipe where the vibration is starting and clamping it down better. Unfortunately, it's almost certainly inside a wall, so that could be a major operation.

When I'm in Positive (or Wishful) Thinking mode, I think that our current hypersensitivity is caused by our other health issues, and once they are dealt with, the Hum will cease to seem Evil. In Kes' case, the migraines (I picked up the refill for her migraine medication last night), in my case, the ongoing jaw pain.

I haven't mentioned the jaw pain lately because I've been in denial. "It's just healing slowly," I told everyone, including myself. I think it was even true for the first few weeks after the wisdom tooth came out. But for the last few weeks, I haven't been able to detect any physical progress with my tongue, and the pain has been ramping back up.

As I write this, I am on my way to an oral surgeon to have it Looked At. This is not the one who was out in Guam, but a new one I am seeing for the first time, who is on the Green Line. He came highly recommended, and I hope to have a good experience. Certainly he has a good person manning the phones; she asked intelligent questions, gave me directions without being prompted, and managed to get me an appointment on roughly 24 hours notice. More updates later.

---

Good thing I allowed lots of time. Red Line is "experiencing delays due to a disabled train."

---

Feh. The doctor was very personable, and very efficient, but not actually very helpful. The jaw pain comes and goes, and it was mostly absent when he saw me. so he basically said "Give me a call next time you get pain during working hours and we'll try and see you right away." Le sigh.

On the plus side, he took an x-ray and looked around inside my mouth, and said everything looked as he would expect. I asked him how much longer I could expect the healing process to take. Apparently, around *six months*! Amazingly, no one had yet bothered to mention that to me. Gahhh...