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Rule 34 (Halting State #2)

by Charles Stross (Goodreads Author)

3.64 of 5 stars 3.64 · rating details · 3,006 ratings · 460 reviews

Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh is head of the Rule 34 Squad, monitoring the Internet to determine whether people are engaging in harmless fantasies or illegal activities. Three ex-con spammers have been murdered, and Liz must uncover the link between them before these homicides go viral.

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Published (first published July 5th 2011)

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Mar 05, 2013 Gwen Nicodemus rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Sci Fi fans

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was my first Charlie Stross book. The story had a lot to wrap my head around, and I don’t think I can review it without spoilers. So, spoilers alert. The spoilers shouldn’t be a big deal, unless you want to read the book for the mystery angle instead of the science fiction angle.

Several different characters and groups, each with their own agenda, interact to make this confusing and enticing plot.

One of the Middle Eastern *stan countries is massively in debt. The country comes up with a kook...more

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Feb 15, 2012 David Monroe rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cyber-punk, science-fiction, techno-thriller, mystery, neon-noir

The second Liz Kavanaugh book is a loose sequel to Halting State. Just like Halting State, Rule 34 is written entirely in a shifting perspective, second person present tense. This makes it hard to really connect to them, but Rule 34 is mostly about its world-building, ideas and technology.

DI Liz Kavanaugh: You realise policing internet porn is your life and your career went down the pan five years ago. But when a fetishist dies on your watch, the Rule 34 Squad moves from low priority to worrying

...more

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May 05, 2013 Treat Street rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The second-person present tense the book is written in is tough to handle, but despite that I still enjoyed the (audio) book. Even so, I'm not sure I'd read another book written in this style. Each sentence that starts with "You" feels like a slap and pulls me out of the story. You do this, You do that...it's as if someone is ordering me around.

Stross, though, is great at creating deeply flawed characters and getting us to care about them. Not just flawed, but also incredibly stupid, and in som...more

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Apr 17, 2013 Peter Bradley rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a police procedural novel set in Edinburgh, capital of the independent nation of Scotland, some time in the very near future - "near future" as in about 10 years from today, i.e., 2013. This is a future of "3-D" copy machines, near artificial intelligence, and globalization and surveillance gone wild. The story follows Borders and Lothian Detective Inspector Liz Cavanaugh as she is sucked into a highly improbable murder of a person loosely connected to local organized crime.

Liz's usual b...more This is a police procedural novel set in Edinburgh, capital of the independent nation of Scotland, some time in the very near future - "near future" as in about 10 years from today, i.e., 2013. This is a future of "3-D" copy machines, near artificial intelligence, and globalization and surveillance gone wild. The story follows Borders and Lothian Detective Inspector Liz Cavanaugh as she is sucked into a highly improbable murder of a person loosely connected to local organized crime.

Liz's usual beat is "Rule 34" violations, which are an internet geek in-joke that have become highly possible and hugely disruptive. "Rule 34" is the internet canard that there is nothing so improbably, unlikely or disgusting that someone hasn't turned it into internet porn. The problem in this near-future is that wild ideas in a society of "replicators" and social fracture and globalization can be imitated by many people very quickly and create all kinds of new dysfunctions.

Because of her Rule 34 beat, Liz learns that other internet scam artists are being liquidated in other parts of Europe. This lead to the introduction of a disgraced Interpol cop - who had a hand in Liz's disgrace a few years before this story - and the two start investigating as other wildly improbable deaths of various internet criminals start showing up. The deaths are all incredibly complex and improbable, and seem to disclose a superhuman ability to plan and/or alter probabilities to bring together circumstances that lead to fatal accidents. They also seem to involve people who are somehow involved in phishing and spamming. In the near future, spamming is the essential industry for criminal enterprise because they need to advertise somehow, and in order to advertise they have interest people with their advertisements, which means getting past the future's highly-developed spam filters, which means developing something that approximates artificial intelligence.

Stross also populates his story with other viewpoint characters. There is Anwar Hussein, a con recently released from prison for his spamming frauds, who has been talked into becoming the honorary consul for the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan. (It is a tribute to Stross's braiding of his story into our world that there really is an Issyk-Kulistan.) There is also the Toymaker, a sociopath who represents the criminal Organization that supplies things that people want and needs the spammers to make people aware of what they want but can't get. There is also Colonel Datka and his boss Bhaskar, president of Khyrgistan, another real country, who seems to have something of a long game being played out.

Over the course of the story these threads develop, weave around each other and finally come together for a satisfying ending.

There were a few problematic elements. First, Stross seems to go out of his way to populate his book with casual, kinky sex. Anwar is unfaithful to his wife with men. One of the fulcrum character who links Anwar to other threads is the "Gnome," who is one of Anwar's homosexual assignations. Liz is a lesbian. One of the fulcrum characters who brings together various threads is Dorthy, one of Liz's lesbian lovers. Dorothy hooks up with the Toymaker for a night of casual sex, involving sado-masochism and "safe words," After he gets what he wants, he casually tosses her out of his apartment, making her feel devalued and used, which gets her to consider whether she was really "raped." The first murder seems to involve some kind of masochistic self-bondage. Stross is either pitching this book for the libertine left, or, perhaps, he is making a point about the continuing deterioration of conventional morality in the near future, or he really thinks all this is normal. I don't think this is a particular issue, because it does seem to project the near-future quality that Stross is aiming at, but for anyone with particular moral issues that this kind of thing might offend, forewarned is fore-armed. For my part, I found the characters' politically correct post-prandial recriminations tiresome.

Another problematic aspect of the book was its use of a second person perspective at the beginning of various chapters. That was confusing and disrupted the flow of the story. It seems that there is a reason for that perspective, which is alluded to by the end of the book. however, that leads to the third problematic feature of the book, namely, the crime was never solved. Things to wrap up, and the Lothian and Borders Police Force think they have gotten their man, but the truth seems to be that there is something else floating around the global electronic ecosystem.

But that may be an issue for a future book.

The story works as both a police procedural and a view of things we may live to see. The story was interesting and gripping, and, as with all of Stross's books to date, I feel it fully justified my investment of time and money.(less)

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Jan 25, 2013 Alan Denham rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: just-paper

Rule 34: If you can think of it, there's porn of it.
Now there's a good start to the cover blurb!
Charles Stross is well on the way to becoming one of my favourite authors. This book is set in the same world (a near-future Edinburgh) as “Halting State” (which I must also review some time soon). Near-future – much of the technology used is already around, though not integrated and not widespread because it is still VERY expensive – but it is there, so the probability that most (maybe all) of the b...more Rule 34: If you can think of it, there's porn of it.
Now there's a good start to the cover blurb!
Charles Stross is well on the way to becoming one of my favourite authors. This book is set in the same world (a near-future Edinburgh) as “Halting State” (which I must also review some time soon). Near-future – much of the technology used is already around, though not integrated and not widespread because it is still VERY expensive – but it is there, so the probability that most (maybe all) of the background technology will be in place within 10-20 years is very high. Examples include the 'fabber' – an improvement on a 3D printer. These are now available for not much over £1000, even less in kit form, so it won't be long before we see them in every hobbyists garden shed. Also 'CopSpace' – the police force’s own augmented reality environment. Look at a building while wearing your glasses and the built in computer identifies it and tells you the owner and/or residents' names and criminal records etc. All this could happen – and soon!
So: Near-future, and the background tech is highly credible.
The next thing a good book needs is credible and sympathetic characters – and again, Stross has done well. The story is told mostly from the viewpoints of three main characters, who are not initially known to each other – but their stories interweave as the themes develop, and they all come together by the end. The bad guys meet suitable fates, the nominally good guys at least get away with their minor misdemeanors – but more important, the story is told with a background of gentle dry(ish) humour. I don't think there are any points in this story where I actually considered laughing out loud, but I had at least a hint of a smile on my face for most of the time I spent with it. Stross has even achieved the remarkable trick of writing a working-class Scots accent and making it comprehensible – which is more than one can say for the accent itself, in spoken form!
So: Time for the negative comments. Not many, actually. Some passages run a little slowly, some of the humour didn't click with me and became a little laboured. It won't be to everyone's taste – but I am currently reading it for the third time, and still smiling most of the way through it – and that is not something that happens often.
Four stars easily – and I shall certainly buy (or arrange to be given for Christmas) any further books in this world.

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Jun 18, 2012 Lawrence rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: cyberpunk, sci-fi, near-future

Two thirds of the way through the book, you start to get Stross's main vision of the novel. And you realize it is quite grand, intricate and even plausible in the near future. And I do mean you - the entire novel is written in the second person perspective following about five different characters through the story.

I see how the storytelling perspective interweaves with the main theory (your AI based spam filter is telling you what to do, essentially, and the storyteller is telling you the story...more

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Jun 08, 2012 Rob McMinn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Set in an almost-independent Scotland the week after next, Rule 34 is a multi-stranded second-person narrative about an algorithm run wild. I'd not read the earlier book in the series, but didn't feel the lack. I've read bits and pieces by Stross before, and my reactions have been mixed.

Sometimes Charles Stross' worlds are so far beyond ours they're hard to recognise, but the world of Rule 34 is all-too-familiar.

The narrative switches around between characters who are connected but don't know i...more

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May 25, 2012 Brian Lynch rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rule 34 requires a bit of time to get used to. Written in the 2nd person, it reads like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story. I had a hard time with it at first, but gradually got used to the format along with a constant switching between characters. Stross is a huge fan of detailed explanations and there are a few spots that things slow down because of it.
Overall the story is strong; weaving politics, technology, economics and crime into a compelling narrative. There were a lot of things that...more Rule 34 requires a bit of time to get used to. Written in the 2nd person, it reads like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story. I had a hard time with it at first, but gradually got used to the format along with a constant switching between characters. Stross is a huge fan of detailed explanations and there are a few spots that things slow down because of it.
Overall the story is strong; weaving politics, technology, economics and crime into a compelling narrative. There were a lot of things that struck me later after reaching the end that a second reading would stand out.
I can definitely recommend Rule 34 as a fun, engaging read with a caveat of reading a story told in the 2nd person.

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May 02, 2012 Elf M. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You open Rule 34 expecting a police procedural, and indeed, that's how it starts out. It's a police procedural twenty-one minutes into the future: one minute, plus five years, more from the settings of its predecessor Halting State, although the police only solve a few minor crimes, never the major one.

At first, the book is annoying: it's too pat, too convenient. There are too damned many coincidences, too many characters who know too much about each other, run into each other too often, and oft...more You open Rule 34 expecting a police procedural, and indeed, that's how it starts out. It's a police procedural twenty-one minutes into the future: one minute, plus five years, more from the settings of its predecessor Halting State, although the police only solve a few minor crimes, never the major one.

At first, the book is annoying: it's too pat, too convenient. There are too damned many coincidences, too many characters who know too much about each other, run into each other too often, and oftentimes they act a little stupid. Stross isn't into stupid. He knows a stupid plot when he reads one, surely he's not going to write one.

You bounce around from head to head, and there are a lot more heads in this book than the last. There's Inspector Kavanaugh from Halting State, an ex-girlfriend of hers, there's Anwar and Adam and the Toymaker and a ton of other people, and their voices start to get blurry, at least the minor ones, but generally you keep it together long enough to make it interesting.

Eventually, though, it all dawns on you why there are coincidences, and you're impressed by the cheek of that bastard Stross. He mocks the Holmesian myth to policework, while at the same time he's written a contrivance of minescule shards of evidence, and at the end pulls his hat out of his rabbit and gives you a frighteningly plausible explanation.

There's not so much MMO in this book: its all set in the Real World, because what it's about is the way the network can someday reach out and fuck up the real world, in a very real and complete way. It's only twenty-one minutes into the future: the darknets are here, 3D printers are here, and if the Real Dolls aren't animatronic we're only a year out from voice recognition and a tree of scripts. Somewhere around 2016 three-dimensional printers wll be cranking out black-market paedodolls and voice mangling will allow softly accented voices in depressed locales to create hub-and-spoke tree farms of everything from "Oh, Daddy" to "Get on your knees you worthless worm." Stross has captured it all, much to your horror.

And you used to work at an early ISP. Even back in the nineties you could see it all coming down: you remember the caches of malware, cracked Photoshops and the usenet feeds full of self-proclaimed "responsible" paedophiles. And those were the ones functional enough to navigate the esoterica of TRN. These days, it's a one finger experiences-under-glass determination until your low-rent pervert with missing teeth and missing morals can find all the sickness he wants on-line, and carries it with him in his pockets.

It's enough to make you want to drink yourself into oblivion. It's not fun, especially when you have kids who are going to have to live with that nihilistic future. Rule 34 is a massive downer, but so is spinach: Take it in, goddamnit, because the alternative is to be blind.
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Apr 30, 2012 David Hebblethwaite rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reviewed as part of the 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist.

Charles Stross returns to the near-future Edinburgh of his 2007 novel Halting State for this police procedural (though I’ve not read the earlier book, I don’t believe there is any substantial crossover between the two). A decade from now, DI Liz Kavanaugh’s CID career has stalled as she’s currently heading up the Innovative Crime Investigation Unit (or ‘Rule 34 Squad’), which investigates crime based on the spreading of internet memes...more Reviewed as part of the 2012 Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist.

Charles Stross returns to the near-future Edinburgh of his 2007 novel Halting State for this police procedural (though I’ve not read the earlier book, I don’t believe there is any substantial crossover between the two). A decade from now, DI Liz Kavanaugh’s CID career has stalled as she’s currently heading up the Innovative Crime Investigation Unit (or ‘Rule 34 Squad’), which investigates crime based on the spreading of internet memes; one of ICIU’s current cases, the bizarre murder of a known spammer, suddenly gains more prominence when similar crimes come to light. Elsewhere, Anwar Hussain, an ex-crook on probation, gets a job through a friend as Consul for a months-old breakaway republic, though he doesn’t quite appreciate what he’s getting into; and a man known to us as ‘the Toymaker’ arrives in Scotland to set up a new branch of his criminal enterprise – if only the people he’s there to recruit didn’t keep getting themselves murdered…

Perhaps the most immediately noticeable thing about Rule 34 is that (like Halting State) it is written in the second-person. Now, a childhood of adventure gamebooks and text adventures means I’m reasonably used to being addressed as ‘you’ by a text; but that kind of narration has always tended to distance me from viewpoint characters, because it focuses my attention on action rather than on interior life – and I found that to be the case again here. There are a few occasions when emotion leaps off the page; but, for the most part, the style gets in the way.

Mentioning the style brings to mind Christopher Priest’s infamous comment that ‘Stross writes like an internet puppy’. He has a point – Stross tends to include slightly more detail than will sit comfortably in the narrative, and there are times when this threatens to halt Rule 34 in its tracks (especially a long stretch of exposition towards the end) – but there’s also a restless energy to Stross’s telling; at its best, the writing works very well indeed (a passage on the war on spam, for example, captures an aspect of Stross’s imagined future in a particularly compelling way).

Stross presents an intriguing vision of a society which is substantially more technologically advanced than the present, yet still fraying at the edges; a world of fluidity and compromise. Police officers are wired into an augmented reality called ‘CopSpace’, but useful teleconferencing and face recognition remain beyond reach.Scotland has seceded from the United Kingdom, but not fully, so politics can be messily ambiguous. Policing is less about great detectives than groups of workers searching for patterns in data (‘crowdsourcing by cop,’ as Stross puts it [p. 227]). Throughout the novel, we see individuals, groups, and nations finding gaps and weak points in the system to use to their own advantage, or at least to get by.

As a procedural, I don’t think Rule 34 works quite so well: some of the connections between plot threads take too long to come into the narrative after they’ve been made apparent to the reader; the threads as a whole don’t mesh together as successfully as they might; and the foregrounding towards the end of a particular plot element (which has previously been mentioned in passing) is rather too abrupt. But the book and the world around the procedural are what make Rule 34 worth reading – and what make it one of the stronger titles on this year’s Clarke shortlist.(less)

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Mar 30, 2012 Eric marked it as to-read

Shelves: science-fiction, audiobooks

I added this to my to-read list after Christopher Priest wrote the following paragraph about its nomination for an Arthur C. Clarke Award:

"It is indefensible that a novel like Charles Stross’s Rule 34 should be given apparent credibility by an appearance in the Clarke shortlist. Stross writes like an internet puppy: energetically, egotistically, sometimes amusingly, sometimes affectingly, but always irritatingly, and goes on being energetic and egotistical and amusing for far too long. You wait...more

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Mar 18, 2012 George Sulea rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Charles Stross is a man who has a giant brain. I am convinced that there is a portion of his massive intellect that sits outside our world, unseen by humanity, which spans dimensions and finds details that my soul, continually reeling, finds amazing with each passing word.

I took such a journey while reading "Rule 34", a sequel to "Halting State", which is set in the same universe/timeline. The title refers to the understood internet rule that for ANYTHING on the net, there's corresponding porn....more

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Mar 13, 2012 Tim Mayer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Tim by: timothymayer

It's not often enough I get to read a book which literally blows me away. Rule 34 is such a novel: original, entertaining, futuristic, amok, but optimistic enough to keep the reader involved. There's an assortment of characters, all of who are interesting enough for the story to flow. It's already had a number of good reviews. I'm now motivated to read more books from the author.

Scotland: the near future (10-20 years). Another Great Recession has left the world spinning. Most of Europe has devol...more It's not often enough I get to read a book which literally blows me away. Rule 34 is such a novel: original, entertaining, futuristic, amok, but optimistic enough to keep the reader involved. There's an assortment of characters, all of who are interesting enough for the story to flow. It's already had a number of good reviews. I'm now motivated to read more books from the author.

Scotland: the near future (10-20 years). Another Great Recession has left the world spinning. Most of Europe has devolved into smaller states, although cooperation still exists. The United Kingdom has broken into it's former principalities with Scotland an independent nation. Pollution control laws and the price of gas has forced most people to return to public transportation as the prime means of getting around. Even police officers are forced to use Segways for small trips. But most vehicles are automatically driven, which makes for safer streets. 3D printers can take care of small part needs, but home fabricators are heavily restricted due to the anti-piracy laws and their potential for weapons manufacture. Most people are happy to work and just get by.

The title refers to an urban legend: "Rule 34: If you can imagine something, there will be a porn version." Rule 34 is also a sequel to Stross' 2008 novel, The Halting State.

Rule 34 is original because most of it is written in the second person singular tense. A typical sentence might start out "You walk down the stairs...". In most cases, I've never liked second person fiction as it assumes to much about the reader. But Stross makes it fresh by breaking the story up into a variety of characters. He's also able to write whole passages effectively in Scottish dialect, not an easy feat. It's a little difficult to follow, but easily picked up.

The book begins with a murder investigation. Edinburgh Police Inspector Lisa Kavanaugh is called in to help solve a gruesome death involving an internet spam king and his antique enema machine. Kavanaugh has seen much worse since she runs an Internet monitoring divison of the police department. Her group tries to prevent copycat crimes from going out of control.

During the investigation, a mysterious character known as "The Toymaker" drops in accidentally. He wanted to recruit the victim as a represenative for the crime syndicate who employes him, but had no idea he was waltzing into a murder scene. Noted by the police as a mere acquaintence of the victim, he's forced to sneak away and go to a fall-back plan.

Another major character is Anwar Hussein, a second generation immigrant from Pakistan. He's just got released from the slammer for identity theft and needs a job. Although he's doing IT work for his cousin's website, he also gets little assignments from an underworld figure known as "The Gnome". The Gnome has just discovered there's an honory consul position open for a breakaway Asian republic and Anwar fits the bill. Soon Anwar finds himself in an office complex, bored, wondering what was the real reason he got the job. And then someone from the republic shows up with "samples" of a bread mix he's supposed to distribute to anyone asking....

The police in this novel have a lot more resources at their disposal than the ones at present. Officers patrol with glasses to show them "CopSpace" and remote drones patrol the sky looking for vandals and littering. But criminal science has reached it's maturity with the police constantly being evaulated and actual murders quite rare. Any Person Of Interest can petetion to have their DNA removed from the police database.

So when spammers start turning up dead, all over the world, law enforcement starts wondering who, what and why. To say more would ruin the book. And the Toymaker is carrying around a sample case, the contents of which are not revealed till the end of the book. When you do find out what's in it, you wish you hadn't.

And excellent novel, perhaps the best science fiction work of 2011. I'm looking forward to the next one in the series.
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Mar 11, 2012 Lorena rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, mystery

I'm not sure why I didn't like this one quite as much as Halting State; it had much of the same pacing, certainly also told in second person (which as with Halting State didn't bother me as much as others), and has a few of the same characters. I did like it, mind you; just not as much as the first one. I think, perhaps, I could have done with maybe two less points-of-view - occasionally I would be a page into a chapter and realize it wasn't in the head of the person I thought it was, and once o...more

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Feb 20, 2012 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Readers who thought Saturn's Children was a little too tame...

Recommended to Alan by: Previous work and low interests

All right (not "alright," dagnabbit—I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that one). Let's get it out of the way. If you don't already know, you need to: Rule 34 is the made-up maxim that states "if you can think of it, there's at least one porn site on the Internet about it." Or words to that effect. Its wording is variable and its provenance is murky. But in any case, what Rule 34 is here is the basis for a near-future police procedural novel set in Edinburgh and featuring returning char...more All right (not "alright," dagnabbit—I don't think I'm ever going to get used to that one). Let's get it out of the way. If you don't already know, you need to: Rule 34 is the made-up maxim that states "if you can think of it, there's at least one porn site on the Internet about it." Or words to that effect. Its wording is variable and its provenance is murky. But in any case, what Rule 34 is here is the basis for a near-future police procedural novel set in Edinburgh and featuring returning character Liz Kavanaugh, whom we last saw in a minor role in Halting State. So yes, Rule 34 is a sequel of sorts, but you don't have to have read these in any particular sequence to pick up on the flow. You do need to have at least a passing familiarity with the darker sides of the Internet, though, in order to really appreciate this book—it's not at all intended for innocent eyeballs.

Liz is—you are—it is a little confusing. Stross uses second-person narrative coming from multiple viewpoints, so each chapter addresses you, the reader, but from a different character's head each time, a technique which I think worked rather more smoothly in Halting State... So to stick with third-person for the purposes of this review, Liz is (this from p.15): "Detective Inspector Liz Kavanaugh, age 38. Born in Newcastle, went to a decent state grammar school: university for a BSc in Crime and Criminology in Portsmouth, then graduate entry into Lothian and Borders Police on Accelerated Promotion Scheme for Graduates, aged 22." Et cetera, et cetera. But then, at 31... things for Liz went rather a bit pear-shaped, as it were, leading to her current posting in the Innovative Crime Investigation Unit, otherwise known as the Rule 34 Squad.

Which is why Liz gets pulled in on the oddly poetic demise of one Michael Blair, ex-spammer, who is discovered in his bathroom having succumbed to a mixture of Viagra and other prescription medications applied, shall we say, retroactively. It's a "two-wetsuit job" (one of many phrases in Rule 34 that I suggest one not Google up at work), and of course Blair's not the only one...

Stross piles quite a few interesting new technologies into the hopper, from the CopSpace virtual environment that Kavanaugh uses to the ubiquitous 3D printers to solid-state nanotechnological methamphetamine factories. In that way this book reminded me a bit more of Accelerando than of its own predecessor. But underneath that flash is a solid, tightly-paced narrative that keeps you—yes, you—guessing until almost the very end... and a truly creepy final page that gave me a shiver when I read it.(less)

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Feb 07, 2012 KG rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ehhh, I was pretty much underwhelmed! It was NOT (by a longshot) as dynamic as I expected it to be...based on the title. I guess I just had higher expectations for the level of oddity (which was minimal) in a book with this title. As a result, it had quite a few things that just didn't work...for me.

First - the thick, heavy Scottish brogue - which was used, almost exclusely during only the first several dozen pages of the book - was off-putting, and almost unintelligible (okay, for an American...more Ehhh, I was pretty much underwhelmed! It was NOT (by a longshot) as dynamic as I expected it to be...based on the title. I guess I just had higher expectations for the level of oddity (which was minimal) in a book with this title. As a result, it had quite a few things that just didn't work...for me.

First - the thick, heavy Scottish brogue - which was used, almost exclusely during only the first several dozen pages of the book - was off-putting, and almost unintelligible (okay, for an American audience - I'll grant that!). But, unless you are from Edinburgh (where the book is set), I'd suspect that ANY other audience would have a tough time with getting into this book because of this device! Instead of flavor, it added confusion and stiltedness. Even if you have travelled to/thru E-burgh, it would be tough to understand many of the references. And, unfortunately (mainly since I have not HAD the fortune to travel to E-burgh...yet), the book didn't paint a sufficient picture of this grand city in a way that I was able to have a clear mental image that would pique my imagination, curiosity, or interest. A shame!

Second - the plot seemed unnecessarily complicated. It was almost like the book was trying too hard to be an international intrigue novel. But, the multi-country mechanations just seemed to confuse matters. As it is, the international intrigue only barely lent a shred of value to the base action-line. It certainly didn't enhance it much! Well, okay - I guess it gave the overall message of the book a grander/wider (more ominous?) scope...so, I'll give it that - but only to a limited degree!

Third - (and unless I'm missing my mark on this, and the plot of this book was NOT suppose to be about the internet's running joke, whereby "Rule 34" states that any subject - regardless of how innoncent or tame - can be traced to an internet site/topic/blog/etc. that twists that subject into a porn-related theme, i.e. "If it exists, there IS porn of it!") the plot was only loosely based on "Rule 34". It almost seems like the author heard about this internet concept, and quickly threw-in some internet-related twists into an existing storyline upon which he was already writing, just to capitalize on the viral nature of the term "Rule 34"...and be the first to claim it as a book title. One has to wonder about that!

Fourth - the structure lacked...the action wasn't all that great, the characters weren't all that exciting/interesting, and the flow of the book was choppy and confusing. I think it was probably going for "intentionally vague" in order to keep from giving away some plot points - but, if that was the case...it didn't work all that well.

Fifth - it just wasn't riviting! I'll give it that it WASN'T bad, it wasn't agonizingly slow, and it had some fairly interesting characters (Liz had potential, if developed). But, if the idea was to use the title to suck in readers...then, mea culpa...it worked! And, sticking with the Latin theme (for no good reason, actually!) - Caveat Lector - - Reader beware!

Nevertheless, I think it almost worked as a, "What would it be like if..." book - but "The Terminator" movies have already taken us down that speculative road - and this book certainly didn't cut any sideroads into that existing creative highway!

However, that said, I don't regret reading it - but, I don't know if I'd recommend that a friend read it. It really was a bit of a struggle. It did NOT drawn me along, nor make me want to stay up late to read farther - except, perhaps a LITTLE, to see if the book would finally go beyond merely strange, and into the darker realms of weird, twisted, or warped - - you know, the fun stuff! I probably won't be willing to give the author another chance anytime real soon...but, you never know! He isn't a BAD writer, after all! It's just that the title didn't seem to fit the story. Like I said in the beginning - I expected something very different.(less)

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Dec 05, 2011 Libby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Charles Stross envisions a not too distant future in which our social networks, our data sources and our use of an increasingly complex internet have created a rather grungy dystopia. The story is narrated by several viewpoint characters, but Detective Liz Kavanagh is perhaps the most important. The story begins when Liz is called to the scene of a truly nasty, kinky death. The victim is strapped up in leather and attached to an electric colonic irrigation machine. The victim is already known to...more

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Oct 25, 2011 M rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stross is a visionary
and his books often just make you just stunned because you can not grasp the ideas he is coming up with...
I think Accelerando, Glasshouse and Saturns Children belong amonst the most ambitions must reads written in recent times. So the man has somethign of a Genious.

But I also think he is not necessarily a Poet.
I feel quite often does he struggle with plot (in most books actually) - it feels as if he has ideas for world building and details, but not for the over arching plot....more

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Jul 31, 2011 Tim Niland rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Tim Horras

Shelves: 2011-reads

It's near future Edinburgh, Scotland and DI Liz Cavanaugh is in charge of a special computer-crimes unit that tries to sniff out illegal Internet crime before it can get a foothold. Meanwhile, Anwar Hussein, recently out of prison for computer related crime, is recruited to run the Scottish embassy of a previously unknown central Asian republic. Charles Stross, one of the premier science fiction authors in the genre ties all of these threads and many more involving rouge artificial intelligence,...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Laura by: Amy

Shelves: madness, mystery, science-fiction

“I didna want to spread this’un around, skipper, but it’s a two-wetsuit job. I don’ like to bug you, but I need a second opinion.”
“Wow, that’s something out of the ordinary. A two-wetsuit job means kinky beyond the call of duty.” (4).

And so Detective Liz Kavanaugh begins investigating a wave of murders that involve repurposed house hold appliances and criminals, seemingly petty and not, worldwide. She’s assigned to the Rule 34 squad, specializing in meme-crime – memes that may jump from the ima...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Michael Burnam-fink rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, 2011

Stross is back in form with the sequel to Halting State, a grimly humorous cyberpunk police procedural set in Tomorrow's Scotland, where nobody knows what an honest job is anymore, and household appliances are murdering spammers.

I won't spoil the book, but Stross is at his best when he takes Big Ideas, twists them upside down, and shows you how they could happen. In Rule 34, he on the relationship between the police state and the Panopticon, and how at the end of the day, our system of laws requ...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Jon Swanson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Any who liked Halting State or Virtual Light

Shelves: sci-fi, near-future

Rule 34

Stross is one of my favorite authors. Saturn's Children was a good read, and Halting State was flat out brilliant. Rule 34 is even better.

Each chapter takes the second person viewpoint of a different character, and is told in the second person. This is an uncommon approach, but Stross pulls it off and after the first few chapters it seems natural.

Each character appears unrelated at the start and their actions gradually start to affect each other. Each sees how events progress from a diff...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Chris Cline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are writers who can world build, and there are writers who build worlds. Stross is one of the latter, a writer who can build a world full of characters, places, and ideas. A writer who can then present said world to the reader without an overload of information, and just a pinch of theater.

His newest book, Rule 34 is no exception. For the short review, I can say that the book itself is very well crafted piece, and a very thoroughly enjoyable read.

Set in the same milieu, for lack of a bett...more There are writers who can world build, and there are writers who build worlds. Stross is one of the latter, a writer who can build a world full of characters, places, and ideas. A writer who can then present said world to the reader without an overload of information, and just a pinch of theater.

His newest book, Rule 34 is no exception. For the short review, I can say that the book itself is very well crafted piece, and a very thoroughly enjoyable read.

Set in the same milieu, for lack of a better term, as a previous book Halting State, it's only about 20 down the road and the world has progressed into a technological wonderland, all be it a wonderland in the middle of a economic depression. No, no nanite or technology as magic, just the technology of today, more refined and omnipresent then before. With UAV patrolling for dog shit, and everyone with their own personal HUD or virtual reality overlay. However, you don't have to had read his previous book to be able to read this one, as only one or two characters from the previous really make any sort of appearance, and they are essentially standalone novels.

For the uninitiated, Rule 34 is an internet meme that states, "If it exists, there is porn of it.". In the world of Charles Stross' this becomes more a fact, and sets the stage for discussion on how Internet meme's could affect a future that's not just wired in, but wired to the bone. Where a German cannibal with the ability to manufacture cloned meat, could spawn dinner parties where the guest of honor is the main course. In such a world, how can you then tell the difference between coincidence and horrifying new trend in murder, and how do you stop it? When a trend is international, how would your local police force even cope? For Rule 34, you have the Innovative Crime Investigation Unit. The misfit in a nip Police force, set to patrol the dregs of the Internet and try to stay sane. So when a new murder, with unique twists comes across your desk, what are you going to do?

The biggest trouble I had with the novel was mostly in trying to wrap my head around some of the thick Scottish accents, and how they come across in print. Being not Scottish myself, naturally, the shortened words and adjacent spellings threw a metaphysical monkey wrench in to my thought processes. As this is heaviest in the beginning of the book, I found myself having to pause a lot, and attempt to translate what the characters were saying. Luckily its appear the accents get less hurtful as the book progresses, probably due to both adapting to the writing, and some additional characters who have less full on Scottish-ness.

Beyond the accents, the jumping viewpoint was also slightly disconcerting. That is until you started to grasp that all the different viewpoints are like the old adage about five blind men and an elephant, who could describe what they touched, but until you added in all their view points you didn't know it was an elephant. One the things Stross is really good at in his novels, is that he can weave multiple big ideas in to one coherent story. By this I mean that where a story could serve as a warning on the overabundance of some technology, there is also an idea about internet memes, the rise of fabrication in the home, and national economics. Normally such big ideas can be the sole focus of a novel just by themselves, but Stross likes to use ALL the ideas to craft a story that complex squared.

Which leads to, What the heck genre is this novel? Is it Science Fiction? A Mystery? A Thriller? The short answer is all three. As I have noticed over the last ten years, most books I can tag with what I call a Primary Genre, and then I have to add two or three sub-genres just to label it for people who only read certain things. In this case, I would dub Rule 34's Primary as Science Fiction (non-Space), with a Sub-genre of Mystery/Police Investigation and a sub-sub-genre of Political Thriller. So if you like one of these genres, and don't absolutely hate the others then I'd say dig in and have fun.(less)

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Jul 06, 2011 John Carter McKnight rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Stross's weakest work in a long time. Sequel to the brilliant _Halting State_, this lacks the unleashed imagination, the gleeful sense of wonder, however twisted, that make reading Stross so much fun.

It's written in a nearly impenetrable mix of Scottish dialect and internet meme-speak: I found myself wanting to turn on subtitles, or read the wikified version.

I have to wonder if the future has just become tedious and pedestrian since 2007, or if Stross has just gotten bored. I'm inclined to ass...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Jayaprakash Satyamurthy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction

I didn't care much for Singularity Sky and had sort of dismissed Stross as someone who dealt in a nerd-friendly thriller-mode SF that was of little interest to me. Still, when one of my favourite booksellers showed me this shiny new trade paperback with its title ripped straight from yesterday's internet memes, I was intrigued.

So what we have here is a near-future police procedural, broadly put. It revolves around a police detective from the internet porn tracking squad who gets involved in a m...more I didn't care much for Singularity Sky and had sort of dismissed Stross as someone who dealt in a nerd-friendly thriller-mode SF that was of little interest to me. Still, when one of my favourite booksellers showed me this shiny new trade paperback with its title ripped straight from yesterday's internet memes, I was intrigued.

So what we have here is a near-future police procedural, broadly put. It revolves around a police detective from the internet porn tracking squad who gets involved in a murder investigation that turns out to be nothing less than an investigation into the simultaneous deaths of large numbers of people who are somehow connected with net-related illegal activities. Along the way, Stross skewers conventional notions of AI and the singularity while offering interesting ideas about how both natural and artificial intelligence and consciousness might work and be subverted.

This takes a long time to kick in though; for more than half this novel I saw it as something enjoyable but not deeply engaging. I have nothing against unlikable characters in fiction, but Stross has this knack for creating characters who are both unlikable and deeply uninteresting. Then there's his style - good at moving things along and making an impact, but with a marked tendency to get lost in too-cool details, sidebars and annoying metephors assembled from corporate jargon.

Somewhere on page 286 though, I finally caught sight of that larger-scale view that is one of the typical pay-offs one looks for in an SF novel. While I didn't eventually feel this was anything more than a good SF thriller with a sprinkling of up-to-the-second cool concepts and one or two really interesting ideas, I didn't hate it either.

But I'd still say that the surface of Stross' work is too concerned with doing things in a thriller or, in this case, police-procedural mode to add up to the kind of SF narrative I like the best. A number of ideas are waved about, but the real strangeness at the heart of this novel is submerged under all the infodumps and ultimately hollow characterisation. Good for some values of good then. (less)

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Sep 02, 2011 Claudia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow--Charlie is really coming into his own. Most excellent (obvious disclaimer: I do know the author socially).

The book works as a straight-up thriller, and it weaves multiple point of views together well. But the really fun, unsettling thing is the world as Charlie sees it, which is to say our everyday world in too few years, with certain elements extrapolated just far enough out to make one really uncomfortable. International intrigue and corporate crime, murder and sex, Internet memes and soc...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Joel Neff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A loose sequel to Halting State, Rule 34 finds DI Liz Kavanaugh on the trail of a whole slew of weirdness involving a newly created political state, a small time repeat offender, an experimental A.I. botnet, and an ex-girlfriend. All the pieces start to come together amidst a dozen connected murders and Liz sets out to find whodunnit.

This book is written in second person, a move which was a bit controversial in the first novel in the series, but seems more natural and more comfortable here. Whet...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Melody rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 20, 2012 Kris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rule 34 could be loosely called a sequel to Halting State. Loosely because the setting in the near future in Scotland is the same and the Edinburgh police are main characters but that is about the only connection. This makes the background things going on a little more accessable if you read Halting State as well as puzzling out the near future Stross is representing in the book. I enjoyed Rule 34 though not as much as Halting State but I think the two stories subject matter is the biggest reaso...more Rule 34 could be loosely called a sequel to Halting State. Loosely because the setting in the near future in Scotland is the same and the Edinburgh police are main characters but that is about the only connection. This makes the background things going on a little more accessable if you read Halting State as well as puzzling out the near future Stross is representing in the book. I enjoyed Rule 34 though not as much as Halting State but I think the two stories subject matter is the biggest reason for that. Halting State had a Ready Player One vibe with on line gaming being central to the plot while the new book Rule 34 has sexual themes that creates a disburbing vibe for the reader that would be hard to "enjoy". Stross writes with a mild undertone of snark in my opinion that I like and I think it is a subtle way for him to poke at the near future he has built that has a police state through ubiquitous technology as the tool of control. Stross also will highlight the seamy side of human nature and how the internet could let that "flower" in all of its perverse and horrible ways with sex bots of any kind and no idea unachievable as long as you can pay for some one to realize it for you. To me Rule 34 was on the surface a CSI SVU type cop drama with a touch of techno thriller thrown in but underlying that was the social commentary on several memes Stross touches on around over policing the populous, sexual mores in a environment that allows anything to be simulated, and emergent AI that may or may not be self aware. This was a book I was glad I read but maybe some time before I pick up again because it makes me uneasy and I mainly read for relaxation not to be unsettled. That being said just like exercising is good for the body though I find that tedious and uncomfortable reading books that unsettle my view of the world has it's place and can be rewarding if it stimulates thought and discussion.

Pithy review: Rule 34 is a good story as long as you don't mind squirming while you read.(less)

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Oct 31, 2011 Tim Hicks rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hugo. Nebula.

But you might not like it. I happen to be quite comfortable with techspeak, and Scottish slang (thank you, Inspector Rebus). If you're not, you might get lost in this complex book. If you prefer sex to be mentioned as no more than a raised eyebrow and waves crashing on a beach, you might be offended.

If you read and liked Stross's Halting State, you'll probably like this more.
If you liked Ian McDonald's Dervish House, you'll probably like this.

If you read Stross's Merchants serie...more

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Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
I get the twist, but I don't get how it happened. Anyone?	3	6	May 09, 2013 12:05pm
The Sword and Laser: Clarke Award shortlist	1	30	Mar 26, 2012 02:25am
The Sword and Laser: shocked by the sexual content?	27	253	Mar 17, 2012 08:59am
The Sword and Laser: Can't finish	21	279	Feb 19, 2012 08:07am
The Sword and Laser: Memes in Rule 34	6	109	Feb 14, 2012 10:01am
The Sword and Laser: Scottish accent	12	113	Feb 07, 2012 11:36am

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About Charles Stross

Charles David George "Charlie" Stross is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His works range from science fiction and Lovecraftian horror to fantasy.

Stross is sometimes regarded as being part of a new generation of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Alastair Reynolds, Ken MacLeod, Liz Williams and Richard Morgan.

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Quotes from Rule 34

“The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour.” — 3 people liked it

“Some say the Internet is for porn but you know that in truth the Internet is for spam.” — 3 people liked it

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Rule 34 (Halting State #2)

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