The Quantum Thief (The Quantum Thief Trilogy #1)

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The Quantum Thief (The Jean le Flambeur Series #1)

3.82 of 5 stars 3.82 · rating details · 4,296 ratings · 640 reviews

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits are known throughout the Heterarchy— from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Now he’s confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to

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Hardcover, 331 pages

Published May 10th 2011 by Tor Books (first published 2010)

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May 19, 2013 Megan Baxter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Quantum Thief is bursting with so many ideas that it is an exhilarating read. What it needs is just a little more finesse, a slightly better pace for doling out information, for letting us play in this wonderful playground he's created. It is so complete, but so alien, and I needed just a little bit more of a guide. I like to flatter myself that I'm not an unperceptive reader, and I certainly don't mind it when authors don't tip their hands all at once and want me to work for it.

But where I...more The Quantum Thief is bursting with so many ideas that it is an exhilarating read. What it needs is just a little more finesse, a slightly better pace for doling out information, for letting us play in this wonderful playground he's created. It is so complete, but so alien, and I needed just a little bit more of a guide. I like to flatter myself that I'm not an unperceptive reader, and I certainly don't mind it when authors don't tip their hands all at once and want me to work for it.

But where I had a few problems was where there weren't explanations (or weren't particularly good ones) of some core concepts, so later, when I was supposed to find this particular use of a core concept horrifying, it didn't have the emotional punch it needed to.

Just a little bit more of not expecting all your readers to have all your specialized knowledge in the next book, Hannu Rajaniemi? Don't talk down to us, just learn how to pace your reveals about how this world works. Specifically, I'm talking about gogols. I always thought I knew what that meant, in general, but implications of that in this fictional universe, why they were and could be horrifying I could only guess at. And that made some emotional punches fall flat.

What I'm saying is, I want to play too. But you have to explain the rules. Even if you're playing Calvinball and the rule is that the rules are constantly changing.

This reminds me very much of a show I saw some friends in, years ago. It was a comedy. They had overrehearsed. And because they had, they'd forgotten where the original laughs were, and were adding extra stuff in to make each other laugh. What this did was make it inaccessible to the audience, who hadn't been there through two+ months of rehearsals. The underlying jokes were obscured by in-jokes. And that was funny for them, but not for us.

That aside, this is a dizzying exploration of ideas that tumble free and fast, one after another. The sheer exhilaration of the new ideas is breathtaking, when I could keep up with them. And while I find there are some first-book problems, characters are, thankfully, not one of them. I found them complex and compelling.

Jean le Flambeur, master thief, is sprung from prison by Mieli, a warrior from an Oortian culture. (A little more on what that means? The tastes we get are very interesting, but they're not much.) She is doing this to help her find a lost love, working for one of those who seem to play with reality on a galactic scale. (Again, not much detail on what this means in practice.) She takes him to the Oubliette on Mars where he has to recover information he left for himself. But to get it, he'll have to choose to pay a terrible price. Or not to pay it.

The Oubliette was the most fleshed out concept in the book, and it was fascinating - proving Rajaniemi can explain things interestingly, and with emotional punch, when he wants to. It is a total privacy society in the midst of total surveillance. While everything is recorded, control over who can see or do what extends even to who can perceive you when walking down the street, and whether the two participants in a conversation allow each other to remember it happened at all, let alone the contents.

And when we get into what memories might be accessible or inaccessible, what might be tainting them, and who might be behind the scenes - not to mention revelations about the nature of the Oubliette itself, I was at my most enthralled. This book turned me on my head several times.

I've heard the next book is even better, and I hope that's true. I hope he does more of what he does so very very well in the next one, and less withholding just to withhold. This is an excellent first novel, but it's challenging, and not without fault. I love that he's trying to do so much. Next comes the skill to manage so many elements. Rajaniemi is almost there. I can taste it.

Crossposted to Smorgasbook (less)

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Jan 28, 2012 Dan Schwent rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf, 2012

After being busted out of the Dilemma Prison by an Oortian warrior named Mieli, legendary master thief Jean Le Flambeur is taken to the Oubliette, one of the Moving Cities of Mars, and is tasked with the ultimate heist. Opposing him is a brilliant young detective named Isidore Beautrelet. But there is more to each man's quest than meets the eye...

My summary doesn't do the book justice. There are so many ideas crammed in it's slim 331 pages. Before Le Flambeur can even get started on his quest, h...more

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Oct 07, 2011 Joel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, audiobooks, sci-fi-fantasy

There are authors who don't cotton to hand-holding, and then there are authors who drop you off in the middle of Times Square on New Year's Eve, distract you with a party favor, and then run the other way as fast as they can. Maybe you'll eventually find your way in the throng, even if you are tear-streaked and sniffling by the time you do (did I mention you are 5?). Maybe at the end of it you've learned something (most likely that there are a bunch of people in Times Square who desperately want...more There are authors who don't cotton to hand-holding, and then there are authors who drop you off in the middle of Times Square on New Year's Eve, distract you with a party favor, and then run the other way as fast as they can. Maybe you'll eventually find your way in the throng, even if you are tear-streaked and sniffling by the time you do (did I mention you are 5?). Maybe at the end of it you've learned something (most likely that there are a bunch of people in Times Square who desperately want you to attend a comedy show) and are a little stronger for it. Or your mind has snapped and you have been reduced to a blubbering, shell-shocked simpleton. Fifty-fifty.

Hannu Rajaniemi is, clearly, the latter type, and I'm still not quite sure what my trek through this book has done to me. Not since Neuromancer has a sci-fi book left me questioning how a bunch of words could be strung together in logical, well-crafted sentences and still not make any sense. Both books made me feel dumb and slow and a bad reader. I don't think this is my fault, but I also doubt it was the writers' intention.

See, they both create richly imagined new worlds out of reassembled bits and pieces of what we recognize as reality, mixing things up with new gadgets and technology and the repercussions of fictional disasters. And they just plop us down into these worlds and never, ever tell us what is going on.

I totally get avoiding exposition dumps and telling versus showing, but seriously, this book hurt my brain. There are concepts -- key plot concepts -- that the characters take as rote parts of their everyday lives that are introduced on page 1 and not clearly explained until maybe 75 percent of the way through the book. The primary antagonists are roughly sketched at best, and even though all the characters know who they are and what they're about, we don't get anything but hints up until the epilogue. But it's not just that -- technology is referenced again and again before we get an idea of what it does. For about half the book, I wasn't sure if it was happening inside of a computer or not. See what I mean about feeling dumb?

But it's ok for a few reasons. One, Hannu Rajaniemi lays down some of the sharpest prose I've encountered in genre writing, dense without feeling mannered, spare and yet evocative. This is a short novel by space opera standards, and he shows those bloated quasi-epics how it's done. (Of course, snipping out all that exposition is a good way to start.)

Two, the plot is a fairly straightforward Whodunnit mixed with elements of One Last Job, with a thief and a detective squaring off, sprinkled with a Mysterious Backstory and some small-r romance. When books make me work this hard, I don't mind if I can see some of the structure poking through. It's nice to have a clue if it's going to be able to support my weight.

Three, the SFnal ideas here are pretty great. Novel twists on familiar concepts (including a nifty take on the "uploading consciousness into the cloud" trope) are just the start; there's also this wonderful riff on our growing concern for privacy through the invention of a system that allows you to control what you share with people all the time. You can walk down the street cloaked in privacy, so anyone passing won't recognize you unless you want them to. You can even edit what parts of a conversation someone will be able to remember (which removes a lot of the potential awkwardness from one-night stands). Lots of sci-fi has explored they way memory shapes reality, but Rajaniemi manages to find a fresh angle.

So, should you read this? I'd say it depends on A) your comfort level with having no idea what the hell is happening for hundreds of pages, and B) your familiarity with the genre. Because while not the trickiest book I've ever read, this is hardly elementary school SF. That's what you get when you let Finnish mathematical physicists write books. (less)

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Feb 12, 2013 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012, e-books, read-2013, reread

5 Super big stars

This is an unusual case for me in that I really found that I loved and appreciated this book so much more after reading it a second time through…Wow, was the complexity and depth to this hard science fiction novel lost on me during my first read. Before beginning this a second time through, I visited the Wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quan...

I was shocked at the amount of vocabulary, creatures, science terminology, and other far out made up words that I took in at f...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Kevin Hearne rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the strangest book I have ever read. Here is why: I did't know what the hell was going on...but I loved it. Normally when I don't understand something—physics and calculus textbooks, for example—I stop reading and go have a beer instead. But somehow this book grabbed me and wouldn't let go.

That's not to say I never put it down. I had to put it down once in a while to let my brain heal. And my brain couldn't wait to get better and dive back in for some more words that made it hurt so good...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Stephanie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, mystery

This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com.

The Quantum Thief, the debut novel from Finnish speculative fiction author (and uber-smart string theory expert) Hannu Rajaniemi, has been the source of much gossip and speculation since selling on the strength of its first chapter for a number involving plenty of zeroes. It’s a novel I’ve been eagerly anticipating, so I was rather delighted when the lovely team at Gollancz Australia sent me a copy for review. Needless to say, havin...more This review originally appeared at www.readinasinglesitting.com.

The Quantum Thief, the debut novel from Finnish speculative fiction author (and uber-smart string theory expert) Hannu Rajaniemi, has been the source of much gossip and speculation since selling on the strength of its first chapter for a number involving plenty of zeroes. It’s a novel I’ve been eagerly anticipating, so I was rather delighted when the lovely team at Gollancz Australia sent me a copy for review. Needless to say, having spent the past day trying to get my tiny humanities-oriented brain around this complex slab of techno-zaniness, I can see why the book has become such a sensation, but at the same time I’m rather intimidated by the thing.

Summary

The Quantum Thief to me recalls a whole mish-mash of sci-fi notables, with Justina Robson’s post-human Natural History coming to mind first and foremost, followed by M John Harrison’s brilliant but utterly incomprehensible Light; there’s also a good old dose of Alfred Bester’s classic spec-fic mystery The Demolished Man (although here the whole mind-reading bit is replaced by techno-babble). Oddly enough, I found myself thinking also of Scott Lynch’s rich and darkly humorous The Lies of Locke Lamora, and Adam Roberts’s ultra-weird Stone, the prison setting of which I felt covered much of the same literary real estate. The Quantum Thief begins (if it begins at all, given the hapless manner in which time is thrown around in this book) with an utterly baffling scene in which thief Jean Le Flambeur continuously enacts a scene that I suspect draws on the famous prisoner dilemma, where he finds himself battling another version of himself time and time again until the appropriate empathetic outcome is eventually met. This never happens, however, as le Flambeur is sprung from prison by the tough-talking Miele, who has a mysterious assignment for him–one that involves forgetting any of the good that his empathetic efforts in prison might have done him, and that requires him to reacquaint himself with his thieving past. The Bester-esque crops up here, of course: pitted against le Flambeur is the architecture-student-turned-detective Isidore Beautrelet, who is determined to entrap the famed thief.

My thoughts

At least I think that’s what this story is about. To be honest, the whole thing flew a little bit over my head, and despite my having mentally gone over it a few times, I suspect that a re-read is necessary for me to truly understand the more complex machinations of the plot, and the various nods and hints along the way. Overall, I have to admit appreciated this book rather more than I enjoyed it, and despite my love of lexical calisthenics and my appreciation for non-linear plots, there’s something about The Quantum Thief that feels somewhat ersatz. At a sentence level it’s all very beautiful, and there’s all the whizz-bangery even Stephen Hawking could hope for, but really, beneath this sexy literary patina, this book is all a bit rickety. The opening section, for example, is all but incomprehensible, and takes up a good fifty or so pages of a book that comes in at just over three hundred–rather a lot of pages, one thinks, for a scene that has very little impact on the remainder of the novel. This emphasis on cool ideas over narrative relevance is an issue throughout the book: Beautrelet’s previous commission, the death of a chocolatier, for example, is given several chapters of page time despite it being, as noted, a previous commission, not the one that’s the focus of the book. And while I, like most readers, have a soft spot for all things cocoa, there are times when it should be stricken from one’s diet. Other plot-slowing issues include the gratuitous amounts of time spent at balls and at parties, and also the random chapter-long interjections from various characters whose relevance I couldn’t fathom (indeed, there’s an entire scene towards the end of the book involving two unnamed characters whose identity I still can’t determine).

But then on the flip-side, there’s the breathless shenanigans that comprise the rest of the book. While the novel is essentially detailing the cat-and-mouse game between the two main characters, this relatively straight-forward plot is hidden beneath layers and layers of thematic trickery and complex jargon. To be fair, some of this stuff is amongst the most interesting of the book–the concept of time as currency, for example, with those whose time is up being reduced to an existence as a Quiet. There’s also the Iron Council-esque idea of a moving city, and the notion of gevulot (“borders”), a sort of privacy shield used by citizens to shield their inner lives from others (a far cry from our own Facebook-obsessed society–or perhaps the result of it). But while all of this is quite fascinating, it plays little more than a middling role in the book, and serves sort of as a highly attractive if not especially functional window dressing. Indeed, with the combination of complex conceptual ideas and labyrinthine world-building, the book begins to collapse under its own weight–I can’t help but feel that if Rajaniemi had been allowed more than the debut novelist’s standard 80-100k words, and the narrative stretched out accordingly, The Quantum Thief would be quite a different beast again. Of course, given the highly abrupt ending and the “but wait, there’s more” epilogue, it looks as though there’s more to come in this particular world.

The onomastics that Rajaniemi employs throughout the novel can also be a problem, and I found myself a little bemused by some of his terminology. I won’t bother trying to tease out the techy q-bits and the what have you, because I’ll be the first to admit that my mathematical ability extends only as far as to be able to do my taxes in as acceptable a manner as needed to not be arrested, but some of the other choices felt odd to begin with, and then further disjointed when contrasted with the others. The gogols, for example, clearly come from the famous (and fabulous) novel Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, and while it’s a fun little nod, it feels too clever for its own good. Dead Souls is such an underappreciated and rarely read novel even now that it seems utterly bizarre that this term should have any sort of relevance in a post-Earth world. There’s also the use of various clan names: “zoku”, from the Japanese, “sobornost’” from the Russian, and “tazaddkim” from the Hebrew; and certain characters who are named for those in other novels, or for concepts (Mieli, meaning mind, for example). It’s sort of like reading A Clockwork Orange without the internal consistency.
Finally, and this to me is the major downfall of the book, the emphasis on techno-geekery and quantum-whatsits is to the distinct detriment of the characters. We’re given little more than a fleeting understanding of even the main players in the book, and though there are a few moving scenes where they become humanised, such as Beautrelet’s falling for Raymonde (again), these are few and far between. And without deep or likeable characters, a book like this becomes a tremendous slog.

Conclusions

The Quantum Thief is no doubt the speculative fiction debut of 2010: it’s a complex and zany creation that is yelling as loudly as it possibly can that science fiction can be proper literature, too. But the downside is that amongst all of this crazy techiness and creative worldbuilding the plot and the characters are distinctly underwhelming: not only is the novel challenging to the point of being hopelessly confusing, but there’s nary a sympathetic character with whom to share the ride. As noted before, I appreciated this novel for its creativity and novel approach to the post-human world, but I can’t truly say I enjoyed it–but hard sci-fi buffs with a stronger understanding of all things quantum may feel differently.(less)

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Feb 27, 2013 aPriL MEOWS often with scratching rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, science-fiction, literary

O_o

I used Google to find out the meanings of some words and names because they are non-English. Plus, I read the first 100 pages, then I went back and started reading from the beginning once more.

Speaking for myself, if I hadn't studied programming and database concepts in college, and currently maintain a subscription to New Scientist magazine, I would not have understood most of this book. Not only does it throw you bodily and without apology or explanation into a future world of digital li...more

O_o

I used Google to find out the meanings of some words and names because they are non-English. Plus, I read the first 100 pages, then I went back and started reading from the beginning once more.

Speaking for myself, if I hadn't studied programming and database concepts in college, and currently maintain a subscription to New Scientist magazine, I would not have understood most of this book. Not only does it throw you bodily and without apology or explanation into a future world of digital life akin to living within the Internet, it does so with author-created language and theoretical physics made into actual plot design. I suggest you also bone up on the latest black hole hologram/information articles for the general reader, not because you'll need that, but just because. Knowing something about myths and a little game theory is helpful.

That said, I loved this book! It projects itself as a mystery/science fiction mixed genre, but underneath it's a playful literary novel written by a Ph.D. who holds a doctorate in string theory. The author certainly doesn't talk us down or talk down to us - but it is a fully-fleshed novel with the digital world as the stage and quantum mechanics setting the rules.

Yikes!

However, difficult it is to start, I found the novel worth the effort. It is so full of ideas, the kind of ideas that give you that breathlessness similar to standing at the edge of an airplane's door preparing to jump, or looking down from a mountaintop just before you ski off several cliffs. Archons are gleeful Prisoner's Dilemma game creators who barely understand that they maintain prisons. Mieli, an extremely teched-out winged beauty, rescues a certain thief, called Jean le Flambeur, from such a prison. Mieli's ship, Perhonen, grown from coral, is sentient. Isidore Beautrelet is a city detective. The tzaddiks are a League of superheroes, patrolling Oubliette. Oubliette is a Martian city with legs. In it resides thousands of citizens, connected to the exomemory system, but fortunately everyone also possesses gevulot which permits the setting of mind privacy limits. Life would be ordinary, except for the danger of the Sobornost, whom no one knows much about. There are also the phoboi, things let lose on Mars during the civil war. Isidore, while pursuing a murder case, becomes aware something much scarier is brewing in exomemory, and while pursuing leads, becomes involved with Mieli and the thief. Meanwhile, his girlfriend, Pixil, a zoku, who are immigrants who were permitted to move to Mars after a war, perhaps with the Sobernost, which destroyed their home world, is showing elements of her race's social beliefs that disturb Isidore. Plus, the zuko know more than they are telling.

Again, speaking for myself, I think I'll pass when the Singularity is here. The only way I'd be convinced to participate is if I get Engineering skills.
(less)

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Jun 07, 2011 Kathleen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction

I originally included the plot summary from Amazon in this review, but you know what? You can click up there and read it for yourself if you want, right? So let's shorten this up a bit.

I quite enjoyed this book; however, I can see that it would be annoying to someone who is not into hard sci-fi. The reader is dumped into confusing action and unfamiliar vocabulary and jargon without pause for explanation. About a third of the way in, the reader is handed some background, so if they hang on until...more

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May 27, 2012 Victor Tatarskii rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really don't remember last time when I was excited in such way by a book.
The story is set in a post-human future, where the humankind had achieved digital immortality and god-like powers, and splitted into fractions, each with a different vision of its future. A thief, Jean le Flambeur, escapes a prison of one of the fractions and tries to find his memories on Mars, in a moving city of Oubliette, where he had hidden them from himself.
The story is stuffed (thanks to the author's physics backg...more

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May 16, 2012 Chance Maree rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first chapter was one of the best I've read in a long time. Initially, I found it a bit of a struggle to adapt to the concepts and visuals, but the challenge was worthwhile. I ignored the glossary and list of characters on Wikipedia because I trust a good show-don't-tell style of writing. At times I had to re-read sections that twisted and fried my mind, but I consider that fun, if and only if, the reward is gratifying. And it was.

The elements of the story include a dense and fine mix of cu...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Every now and again, when you finish reading a book, you want to turn back to page one and start all over again. This can happen for a number of reasons; sheer enjoyment, a lack of comprehension, a guilty feeling that you have read something good too quickly. All of these reasons contributed to my desire to turn back to the beginning when I finished this fantastic book earlier today.

The first novel of a Finnish mathematician, this Sci-fi novel - one of my favourite and oft-derided genres - is un...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Bryan added it · review of another edition

An intriguing debut novel. Hannu Rajaniemi is an amazingly creative author, who has invented 3 or 4 different societies and an entire new vocabulary as backdrops. There's enough material in here for a series of 5-6 books, rather than just one 300-page story. Individual threads of the book are fascinating, but it gets hard to put the whole story together, partly because the text keeps jumping from first- to third-person from one paragraph to the next, and also because the motivations of the main...more

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May 01, 2013 Andy Love rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction-fantasy

This is a complex book, but worth the effort (I read it twice in a week and a half, just to make sure I understood the plot). In 260 pages (on my e-reader) it introduces characters from four (very) different future societies - focusing on the strange privacy-obsessed Oubliette, where interactions between people are mediated by a system that allows them to strictly control what information is exchanged or remembered afterwards, but also featuring a society apparently descended from a MMORPG guild...more

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Apr 14, 2013 flickr rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure-mystery-quest, alternative-pov, scifi

2,5 stars.

Liked:
- present tense narration made it much more interesting to read and stay focused
- adventure & mystery quests: finding the thief's real identity + of course the investigations of detective Isidore are interesting
- the concept of a forever life (view spoiler)...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Sahil Raina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, science-fiction, thriller

It's hard to even describe this book. There's just so much going on. At a most basic level, it's a heist story (sort of) in that the main character is a thief. He's been in prison for quite a while (a Dilemma Prison, which is funny when you learn more about the prison). Somebody rescues him, for which he owes that person a debt. The repayment of said debt = heist. Pretty reasonable plot, I would contend.

But the best part of the book is the sheer number and breadth of ideas explored in it, which...more

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Jan 08, 2013 Sonja Peterson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy

I love it when a science fiction world feels real to you even though its fundamental assumptions are uncertain, when the world itself is mystery that you know you can't quite solve, that perhaps even the author hasn't solved, but that you believe has a solution. Rajaniemi's world slowly takes shape, is constantly alienating but in a way that made me curious rather than frustrated. The novel's reality is infected by cyberspace--it seems that humans have hacked into physical reality itself (someth...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Doc Opp rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a class on quantum physics from the Swedish Chef? If so, this is the book for you. It almost reads like English. You can almost understand it. There are tantalizing glimpses of incredibly creative ideas and memorable characters. And then you get sentences like:

He set his gevulet to q-bomb the sapornov. Nano gogols shot through the web of the quantum lattice, setting a self-replicating sequence into his assailant's exomemory. Only 2 terrasecond...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read2012, sci-fi-fantasy, science, techie

GR ate my first review, but no matter, it was a bit of a mess. This book is hard to explain to someone who hasn't read it.

In the world of The Quantum Thief, several species have made Mars their home, most living in what is called The Oubliette. Through quantum technology, people can choose what others can know, see, or remember about them. The entire planet is made of architecture that is constantly moving and changing in order to escape the phoboi, which are always trying to reinfest the landsc...more

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Nov 16, 2012 Ben Thurley rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The debut "hard sci-fi" novel by Finnish author, Hannu Rajaniemi is wondrous and frustrating in equal measure.

It's whirlwind ride through various levels of quantum and un-reality on The Oubliette, the walking city of Mars, through the eyes of Jean le Flambeur, a post-human thief and conman, Isidore Bachelet, a detective seeking to do justice, and Mieli –a warrior bonded to the service of a post-human "goddess". Rajaniemi's vision is complex, with the vast technological and sociological shifts th...more The debut "hard sci-fi" novel by Finnish author, Hannu Rajaniemi is wondrous and frustrating in equal measure.

It's whirlwind ride through various levels of quantum and un-reality on The Oubliette, the walking city of Mars, through the eyes of Jean le Flambeur, a post-human thief and conman, Isidore Bachelet, a detective seeking to do justice, and Mieli – a warrior bonded to the service of a post-human "goddess". Rajaniemi's vision is complex, with the vast technological and sociological shifts that lie between the reader and his imagined world hinted at in jargon, names, and a fury of action that takes no prisoners and offers no quarter through exposition or explanation. So expect to feel lost for much of the novel.

Some of this experience of being lost is an enjoyable adrenalin rush of trying not only to align your assumptions with those of the novel's worlds but even to work out what those assumptions are. From the beginning, Rajaniemi creates a sense of vast stakes, without – frankly – ever quite allowing you to be clear what those stakes are, who sits on which side of the table, or even what game they are playing exactly. Some of the 'lostness', though, is the result of a real opacity about motivations of key characters and factions. Maybe some of this will be addressed in later novels – it's definitely set up as the first in a series – but maybe there are just some craters here that won't be filled in.

It touches on big themes, privacy and surveillance, death and immortality, freedom and control, with all the technological geekery you could possible hope for, and possibly more than is strictly good for you.

Over all I quite enjoyed it, though always found myself expecting to enjoy it more than I actually did. The writing is not always pretty, though it often aspires to be. But I think the main problem with this kind of fiction – this post-human and sometimes post-material worldbuilding – is that there often seem not to be any real consequences. Technology and virtual realities remove any sense of gravity from actions, up to and including death. And if it is hard to care for consequences that may befall the characters, this makes it harder to make your way through the novel's fragmented plot, baroque setting, unfamiliar science and opaque politics. (less)

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Aug 27, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The ideas/story in this book seemed to be all over the place at times, but after adjusting my understanding of this book while still trying to read it and enjoy at the same time, everything just seemed to surprisingly click together. Yes this book is a hard read to get through but if you stick with it I am sure that everything will come together for you by the time you hit the last chapter, some concepts seem to go right over your head at first but after a few chapter you begin to understand wha...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Jane Mitchell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Overall, an excellent book. The action is fast-paced, the characters are enjoyable, and the future societies are delightful. It's so refreshing to see a book that posits very different technology, and that technology is actually the foundation of an equally different society, with different ways for individuals to interact. And this isn't wooly science -- I felt like I was in the right mind-frame for this book after having picked up Brian Greene's The Fabric of the Cosmos and reading a couple of...more

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Jul 28, 2012 Adam Callaway rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads, favorites

Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date: September 2010 (UK)
Title: The Quantum Thief
Author: Hannu Rajaniemi (Twitter: @hannu)
Subgenre: Hard SF
Pages: 330

The Good: Blows the top off of your f***in skull.

I switched to short fiction reviews because I am not good at summarizing the merits (or lack thereof) an entire novel. Sometimes, however, a novel comes along that is so satisfying, so progressive, that I would have my Speculicensure revoked if I didn't at least attempt to review it. Of course, The Quantum...more

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Jul 20, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, favorites

Fast-Paced Blend of Crime Noir and Space Opera From An Exciting New Talent

A fast-paced blend of crime noir and space opera science fiction, Hannu Rajaniemi’s “The Quantum Thief”, is a bold, brash novel of ideas and action that represents all that is great about science fiction, coupled with a kinetic literary style which echoes Iain M. Banks’ “Culture” and Alastair Reynolds’ “Revelation Space” space opera science fiction in its descriptive, eloquent prose. It’s a clever, quite entertaining, blen...more Fast-Paced Blend of Crime Noir and Space Opera From An Exciting New Talent

A fast-paced blend of crime noir and space opera science fiction, Hannu Rajaniemi’s “The Quantum Thief”, is a bold, brash novel of ideas and action that represents all that is great about science fiction, coupled with a kinetic literary style which echoes Iain M. Banks’ “Culture” and Alastair Reynolds’ “Revelation Space” space opera science fiction in its descriptive, eloquent prose. It’s a clever, quite entertaining, blend of Charles Stross’ early post-cyberpunk science fiction and Dan Simmons’ British literature literary-referenced space opera (“Hyperion Cantos”, “Ilium” and “Olympos”), especially in its ample references to French and Hebrew literature, in a grippingly intense pace reminiscent of Richard K. Morgan’s “Takeshi Kovacs” post-cyberpunk space opera novels. While “The Quantum Thief” is traditional hard science fiction in the mode of Alfred Bester, it is hard science fiction that is also highly literate and will make tremendous demands upon the reader. Rajaniemi draws extensively on his backgrounds in string theory and mathematics to pose difficult philosophical questions about life and the nature of human existence that will delight devoted Ayn Rand libertarian fans and infuriate the most militant of Marxists and other, less radical, Socialists. If nothing else, within the confines of what others may view as a more routine crime noirish-science fiction mystery in which protagonist Jean le Flambleur must come to terms with different versions of himself as he finds himself pitted against a Martian Hercule Poirot, Isidore Beautrelet, Rajaniemi dares to ask whether we, as individuals, are important because we exist, or because we’ve chosen to make ourselves important by virtue of whatever talents we possess. Without question, “The Quantum Thief” is among the most important debut novels of science fiction published in decades, introducing us to a brand new writer worthy of comparison with the likes of William Gibson, China Mieville and Neal Stephenson. Rajaniemi has definitely thrown down a literary gauntlet that few native speaking writers of Anglo-American mainstream literary and classic science fiction can ever dare to match.
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Jun 20, 2012 Allan Dyen-shapiro rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

To say that this book is hard to follow is an understatement. The author employs the approach of virtually never offering the reader backstory or any other sort of explanation. When a word is used many times, it eventually becomes clear what he means. SPOILER ALERT!!!!

He draws some words from science--sometimes they mean roughly what they do as science, sometimes it's a fantastical elaboration. Sometimes words are drawn from other languages. It really helps if you know the original meanings of t...more To say that this book is hard to follow is an understatement. The author employs the approach of virtually never offering the reader backstory or any other sort of explanation. When a word is used many times, it eventually becomes clear what he means. SPOILER ALERT!!!!

He draws some words from science--sometimes they mean roughly what they do as science, sometimes it's a fantastical elaboration. Sometimes words are drawn from other languages. It really helps if you know the original meanings of these words. The first part would be near incomprehensible if you didn't understand that the word gevulot is Hebrew for borders--this is the level of protocol-based permissions that every interpersonal interaction involves. Opening ones gevulot to another exposes ones secrets and allows one to share co-memory. There is also an exomemory, a collective memory of the entire planet. And that's being falsified by one of the races of superhumans--the Archons. Their defeated enemies in the Protocol Wars--the zukos, posthumans that evolved from an Earth gaming society, have set up tzaddikim (it really helps to realize that's Hebrew for righteous and wise ones) to try to run the affairs of all the others on the Oubliette--the mobile society on Mars that is all that is left from the failure of terraforming projects and is really an ancient prison (again it helps to realize that the French word for forget is Oublier--the exomemory has been tempored with so the real nature of the society is not apparent).

This information is dribbled out at various times, not being clear until the end of the book. We follow numerous characters--Jean le Flambeur, trapped in a Prisoner's Dilemma-style prison and having hid his memory of who he used to be on Mars from himself, Mieli--a being who sometimes appears with wings and at other times seems humanoid who breaks him out of the prison, her spaceship--sentient, snarky and flirtatious, probably the only character presented in a straightforward fashion, Isidor--a detective who solves mysteries largely for fun and is attracted to Judaism because of its irrationality, Raymonde/the Gentleman--the abandoned ex-lover of Jean, now a tzaddik...

What the hell was this book about? The interlocking patische of stories, all with fascinating use of science fiction tropes--some classic, some novel, the odd societies...

It certainly wasn't suspense, because for suspense to work, the reader has to be following what's going on. That's not a given in this book. It's not a character study, because one doesn't grasp any of the characters well enough to root for them. It's not social criticism--I see no parallels to the real world or its issues.

This book is about the odd world that Rajaniemi has built and the struggle on the part of the reader to follow what's going on. If you like literature as puzzle (and I do, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas was fun for me), you'll like this. Rajaniemi said online that this was every idea he could possibly have crammed into a synopsis and then broken back out into a trilogy. This is the first part. Will it all come together and make sense at the end? I don't even pretend to be able to predict. (less)

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Feb 24, 2012 Neal Asher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In a way this was more like a fast tour of the post singularity world rather than a story set in it. I’ve been reading science and science fiction for a very long time, but I often felt the need to hold up a finger and say, ‘Hang on Hannu, if you could explain –’ … but no, he’s gone like a tour guide on speed. The ideas hit you like cars in a motorway pile-up giving you no time to deal with them, absorb them. And, of course, while the ideas are hitting you like that you’re not properly processin...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Tanmay Tathagat rated it 2 of 5 stars

Sometimes in the matter of a sentence or two, a book can achieve a moment of pure beauty, which can elevate it to something beyond just a heist novel, Hard SF or any other conservative branding. Example:
I take her hand. She embraces me. She beats her wings and we rise up, through the glass sky, away from guns, memories and kings.
Similar sentences and passages of great beauty and wonder pepper this the narrative of this debut novel-which would be a great debut novel, if the people the sentences...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Josh rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This one is just about perfect. An excellent combination of questions about objective reality and questions about what it means to be human (objective humanity, as it were).

This compares best to Charles Stross's Accelerando, but is better written and overall a better read. (As a side note, this is one of the very few hard sci-fi books where I prefer the American cover to the British one.)

The inner portions of the solar system, inside the orbit of Mars, are controlled by the Founders - massively...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars

Although I would consider myself a fan of science fiction films and fiction, I only read a handful of science fiction novels a year. Around five or so, and those I've liked best in recent years are by writers like Ian MacDonald, Richard Morgan, and Connie Willis. I was drawn to this one partly due to the effusive critical reception it seemed to be getting, and partly because the plot summary invoked a kind of swashbuckling rogue at the center of the plot, and I love rogues as protagonists (think...more Although I would consider myself a fan of science fiction films and fiction, I only read a handful of science fiction novels a year. Around five or so, and those I've liked best in recent years are by writers like Ian MacDonald, Richard Morgan, and Connie Willis. I was drawn to this one partly due to the effusive critical reception it seemed to be getting, and partly because the plot summary invoked a kind of swashbuckling rogue at the center of the plot, and I love rogues as protagonists (think Flashman, think Captain Blood, think the Grey Mouser). So I thought I'd make this one of my few science fiction books of the year -- big mistake.

To be sure, this debut is chock full of interesting ideas, and yet it's entirely unentertaining -- I can't recall the last book that I fell asleep to so many times. The protagonists barely register as characters, and since the consciousness of individuals exist in the book in various iterations of uploads, restores, and copies, it's even harder to become invested in any character's story or development. Meanwhile, the plot is an entirely convoluted caper that is both (A) exceedingly hard to decipher, and (B) ultimately kind of meaningless. The best precis of the book comes from one character's summation on page 293: "An interplanetary thief is building a picotech machine out of the city itself while the cyptarchs take over people's minds to try to destroy the zoku colony to stop the tzaddikim from breaking their power."

Uh...yeah... Maybe part of my problem is that I don't have much of a head for science, and all the stuff in this book about quantum particles and whatnot all just flies over my head. There's a whole ton of singularity, AI, social networking, privacy theories and ideas pumped up on steroids throughout. Sometimes these are really interesting (such as the concept that the Martian economy revolves around time, and once a person's time is all gone, they are turned into a worker drone for a number of years), but most just rattled past me at breakneck speed. I suppose that's the main problem I had -- so many elements were so conceptual that I had a very hard time picturing the setting, the action, and the people in my head. I mean, I generally have no problem with imagination (heck, I played paper and pencil RPGs for a solid 15 years of my life), but this book just never came alive in my head.

So while I really liked concepts such as the Martian social system of perception and memory sharing (you can instinctively fine tune your privacy settings per the situation, you can share a memory you've had with another person or group of people), I never found any stakes to make me care about what was going on. One reviewer really hit the nail on the head by calling it "the most tediously imaginative book in history" -- I'm not sure I would say "in history", but it's certainly the most tediously imaginative book I've read this year. Way too much technobabble and not enough people to care about.(less)

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Nov 27, 2011 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

OK. For those of you paying attention at home, this is something like my 8th book review today. That's what happens when you go on vacation and read a bunch of books and delay until the holiday weekend to review them all, so here goes.

I liked this book, I even really liked this book, at least enough to get over the hump from 3 to 4 stars. I really wish this book had been better.

This book has a great setting, and interesting plot, and reasonably well developed characters. This book also has some...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Cassandra Silva rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

I am putting this under the fantasy heading since I don't read enough science fiction to have a shelf for it, but guys keep in mind this is 100% Sci-fi. I don't know if it's fair to rate something solely on it not being your "cup of tea" per say but it certainly was not something that I really related to. I liked the science in it. I liked a lot of his futuristic ideas. I didn't like the brashness of so many of the characters, there was no lightness to it. I also had a hard time connecting with...more

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Beyond Reality: THE QUANTUM THIEF: roll call and initial impressions (NO SPOILERS)	30	59	Mar 07, 2013 09:08pm
Beyond Reality: THE QUANTUM THIEF: finished reading (SPOILERS)	10	32	Feb 27, 2013 06:22pm
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About Hannu Rajaniemi

EN: Hannu Rajaniemi is a Finnish author of science fiction and fantasy, who writes in both English and Finnish. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a founding director of a technology consultancy company, ThinkTank Maths.

Rajaniemi was born in Ylivieska, Finland. He holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Oulu, a Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics from the University of Ca...more EN: Hannu Rajaniemi is a Finnish author of science fiction and fantasy, who writes in both English and Finnish. He lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is a founding director of a technology consultancy company, ThinkTank Maths.

Rajaniemi was born in Ylivieska, Finland. He holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics from the University of Oulu, a Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics from the University of Edinburgh. Prior to starting his Ph.D. candidature, he completed his national service as a research scientist for the Finnish Defence Forces.

While pursuing his Ph.D. in Edinburgh, Rajaniemi joined Writers' Bloc, a writers' group in Edinburgh that organizes semi-regular spoken word performances and counts Charlie Stross amongst its members. Early works included his first published short story Shibuya no Love in 2003 and his short story Deus Ex Homine in Nova Scotia, a 2005 anthology of Scottish science fiction and fantasy, which caught the attention of his current literary agent, John Jarrold.

Rajaniemi gained attention in October 2008 when John Jarrold secured a three-book deal for him with Gollancz, on the basis of only twenty-four double-spaced pages. His debut novel, The Quantum Thief, was published in September 2010 by Gollancz in Britain and will be published in May 2011 by Tor Books in the U.S. A sequel, The Fractal Prince, is in progress.

FI: Hannu Rajaniemi on Edinburgissa, Skotlannissa asuva suomalainen tieteiskirjailija, joka kirjoittaa sekäs suomeksi että englanniksi. Rajaniemi on opiskellut matemaattista fysiikkaa Oulun ja Cambridgen yliopistoissa ja väitellyt säieteoriasta filosofian tohtoriksi Edinburghin yliopistossa. Hän on perustajajäsen matematiikan ja tekniikan konsulttiyhtiössä nimeltä ThinkTank Maths.

Opiskellessaan Edinburgissa Rajaniemi liittyi kirjoittajaryhmään, joka järjesti tekstien lukutilaisuuksia. Hänen varhaisia novellejaan on ilmestynyt englanniksi Interzone-lehdessä ja Nova Scotia -antologiassa. Näistä jälkimmäinen kiinnitti Rajaniemen nykyisen kirjallisuusagentin kiinnostuksen vuonna 2005.

Vuonna 2008 Rajaniemi solmi kustannussopimuksen kolmesta romaanista brittiläisen Gollancz-kustantamon kanssa. Valmiina oli silloin ainoastaan romaanin yksi luku. Esikoisromaani The Quantum Thief ilmestyi syyskuussa 2010. Hänellä on näiden kolmen romaanin julkaisusopimus myös yhdysvaltalaisen Tor-kustantamon kanssa. Suomeksi Rajamäen esikoisteoksen julkaisee Gummerus nimellä Kvanttivaras.(less)

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“The criminal is a creative artist; detectives are just critics.” — 10 people liked it

“Suokaa anteeksi, mutta minun on nyt mentävä, jotta ehdin irstailla kyllikseni ennen kuin kuolen.” — 5 people liked it

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The Quantum Thief (The Jean le Flambeur Series #1)

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