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Glasshouse
When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn’t take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It’s the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees’ personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew.
On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse, constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture. Participants are assigned anonymized identities: It looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment, Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters—and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche...
On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse, constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture. Participants are assigned anonymized identities: It looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment, Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters—and at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche...
335 pages, Hardcover
First published June 27, 2006
194 people are currently reading
8785 people want to read
About the author
Charles Stross
158 books5,815 followersCharles 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.
SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...
Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...
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.
SF Encyclopedia: http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/...
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_...
Tor: http://us.macmillan.com/author/charle...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 668 reviews
December 25, 2015
John Scalzi claims to be a gateway drug into science fiction literature, I suppose he may well be but I believe Charles Stross is almost the opposite of that. Stross is deservedly one of the most popular active sci- fi authors today but readers not familiar with the genre may find him a little bewildering. His target readership seems to be those who are quite au fait with the common tropes of the genre and also some computer programming terms. Those “in the know” love the science he puts in books like Accelerando and The Atrocity Archives while the likes of me struggle. I certainly had problems understanding much of these two books but less so with Singularity Sky. It did occur to me that his fiction is probably not for me but I keep coming back to try again because I like his wit and imagination, plus he is a great guy and very approachable to readers in online forums and such. Today I am happy to say I have finally found a Stross novel that I absolutely love and works completely for me. It is Glasshouse.
This Hugo nominated novel is set in the 27th century when our 21st century is viewed as part of “The Dark Ages”, presumably pre-singularity (called “the acceleration” here). Most of the book takes place in a sealed experimental environment where participants sign up to reenact life in the 21st century for research purposes. The protagonist starts off as a man named Robin who has part of his memory deleted for reasons unknown, presumably to forget some traumatic experience that he wants to do without. After he signed up for the isolated social experiment he backs himself up and his backed up personality wakes up inside the experiment as a woman called Reeve who has no idea why she has chosen to change her gender. She soon settles down to a married life of a nuclear family as part of the experiment, but begins to feel that the “experiment” is not really an experiment and some very disturbing things are going on.
Io9 calls Glasshouse “One of Stross' most challenging books”, I have not read enough of his books to confirm or deny this but I do find it to be his most accessible book so far. Certainly some tech expositions still go over my head but they never impede the storytelling. Whenever I don’t feel inclined to Google the programming terms I was able to gloss over them and enjoy the story. I do hope many more Stross books are like this, and I intend to find out.
I don’t remember any of Stross’ characters from his other books that I have read but I doubt I will forget the main characters in this book. This is particularly true for Robin/Reeve whose experience and character growth is unlike anything I have read before. The book is surprisingly feministic in tone after Robin becomes Reeve. Stross seems to have a lot of empathy for the trials and tribulations of womanhood. The emotions, the interactions with other women, the social pressure etc. are all convincingly portrayed (I hesitate to say accurately portrayed as I am not of the gender). Interestingly once Robin’s backup is activated as Reeve we have no idea what becomes of the original Robin, but with all these backups and restores we don’t even know whether the original Robin ever appears in this book. As for Reeve, she has to be one of the most unreliable narrators ever (I won't tell you why though).
Of course regularly readers of Charles Stross are probably not exactly looking for books that deal with feminist issues, I imagine the cool tech to be his main attraction. Glasshouse is stuffed to the gills with cool sci-fi tech. The posthumanism reminds me of both Altered Carbon and Permutation City*, the memory editing is similar to PKD’s short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (filmed a couple of times as “Total Recall”). However, this is not a derivative novel, the sum of the different influences make for a very original book which is mind blowing, thought provoking and even poignant at times. The wilds ideas and amazing tech are underpinned by a surprisingly touching story of a loving relationship.
Glasshouse is definitely the best Charles Stross book I have read so far and I hope that even better ones are in store for me.
__________________________
* Unlike the virtual world featured in Permutation City, the social experiment of Glasshouse takes place in an actual physical environment where the activated digitized personalities are stored in human bodies.
This Hugo nominated novel is set in the 27th century when our 21st century is viewed as part of “The Dark Ages”, presumably pre-singularity (called “the acceleration” here). Most of the book takes place in a sealed experimental environment where participants sign up to reenact life in the 21st century for research purposes. The protagonist starts off as a man named Robin who has part of his memory deleted for reasons unknown, presumably to forget some traumatic experience that he wants to do without. After he signed up for the isolated social experiment he backs himself up and his backed up personality wakes up inside the experiment as a woman called Reeve who has no idea why she has chosen to change her gender. She soon settles down to a married life of a nuclear family as part of the experiment, but begins to feel that the “experiment” is not really an experiment and some very disturbing things are going on.
Io9 calls Glasshouse “One of Stross' most challenging books”, I have not read enough of his books to confirm or deny this but I do find it to be his most accessible book so far. Certainly some tech expositions still go over my head but they never impede the storytelling. Whenever I don’t feel inclined to Google the programming terms I was able to gloss over them and enjoy the story. I do hope many more Stross books are like this, and I intend to find out.
I don’t remember any of Stross’ characters from his other books that I have read but I doubt I will forget the main characters in this book. This is particularly true for Robin/Reeve whose experience and character growth is unlike anything I have read before. The book is surprisingly feministic in tone after Robin becomes Reeve. Stross seems to have a lot of empathy for the trials and tribulations of womanhood. The emotions, the interactions with other women, the social pressure etc. are all convincingly portrayed (I hesitate to say accurately portrayed as I am not of the gender). Interestingly once Robin’s backup is activated as Reeve we have no idea what becomes of the original Robin, but with all these backups and restores we don’t even know whether the original Robin ever appears in this book. As for Reeve, she has to be one of the most unreliable narrators ever (I won't tell you why though).
Of course regularly readers of Charles Stross are probably not exactly looking for books that deal with feminist issues, I imagine the cool tech to be his main attraction. Glasshouse is stuffed to the gills with cool sci-fi tech. The posthumanism reminds me of both Altered Carbon and Permutation City*, the memory editing is similar to PKD’s short story We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (filmed a couple of times as “Total Recall”). However, this is not a derivative novel, the sum of the different influences make for a very original book which is mind blowing, thought provoking and even poignant at times. The wilds ideas and amazing tech are underpinned by a surprisingly touching story of a loving relationship.
Glasshouse is definitely the best Charles Stross book I have read so far and I hope that even better ones are in store for me.
__________________________
* Unlike the virtual world featured in Permutation City, the social experiment of Glasshouse takes place in an actual physical environment where the activated digitized personalities are stored in human bodies.
November 13, 2018
I can be very creative when comes time to get violent.
Hmm... bit of a sleeper. Starts off with the gorgeous, wild panorama of unbridled awesome futuristic visions and then veers wildly into archaic visions--visions much more like now. Don't be fooled, it's just lulling you into complacency. Stay alert, and read on.
Leans towards geeky tech speak, the fact that I actually followed along means I've been infected. It's hard for me to judge how geeky, I spend most of my time with people who have advanced degrees in engineering and computer science, and trying to explain that while I'm really interested in this work they've been doing, that no, I don't have the horses to follow their tensor mathematics. All of this made sense to me, but not sure if that's everyone's takeaway.
I also wonder if dudes read this and go, that's interesting, and chicks go, let me out--let me out!
Commentary of society and technology. Reward mechanisms of societies, how states use power to control, kind of Marxy. Examination of gender roles, sexuality, and free agency. IF all our dreams of technology were to come true, and there were no longer enforced mortality or scarcity would we be better? Would we? Or would we still be kicking the same problems down the road? Different can, different street.
[A]n island of thinking jelly trapped in a bony carapace endless milliseconds away from its lovers, forced to squeeze every meaning through a low-bandwidth speech channel.
3.5 / 4 stars: Didn't write like I was an idiot, decent execution, but nothing I haven't seen before. Nicely wrapped though and I laughed, usually at all the inappropriate times, so keep that in mind when considering my rating.
*Thanks, Geoff for the recommendation. I know 3 stars seems low, but I did like it and I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I might end up rounding up the stars.
May 8, 2023
Although initially hard to penetrate, this tale is really amazing once Stross hits his rhythm.
May 24, 2019
Stross masterfully blends an engaging, fast paced conspiracy thriller with a wildly imaginative and engrossing vision of far future humanity.
A central focus here is memory editing and cloning/consciousness transfer technologies run amok. When you can't trust your own memories to be complete, or rely on the constancy of the physical form of your own body, you are truly unanchored. Yanking out pieces in the Jenga tower that is your identity. Unknowingly susceptible to external manipulation. Scary stuff.
This is a future where distances, both small and stellar, are irrelevant. Human biology, death and disease have been totally reshaped and are practically meaningless. Resources are in near infinite supply. It sounds Utopian. Yet humans remain as fallible and prone to conflict, fear and rivalries as ever. It reminds me of that age old nugget of wisdom that says you can move to a better neighborhood, or a better house, but you'll still be you, with pretty much the same problems you've got now. True that. So is this an optimistic or pessimistic view of humanity's future? Both. The story also courageously tackles issues of gender equality and social conformity in contemporary society.
Stross often gets knocked for an excess of technobabble and putting his concepts before his story. That was certainly my feeling about Accelerando. While there's no lack of Stross' patented conceptual genius here, he does a masterful job of crafting the story.
A central focus here is memory editing and cloning/consciousness transfer technologies run amok. When you can't trust your own memories to be complete, or rely on the constancy of the physical form of your own body, you are truly unanchored. Yanking out pieces in the Jenga tower that is your identity. Unknowingly susceptible to external manipulation. Scary stuff.
This is a future where distances, both small and stellar, are irrelevant. Human biology, death and disease have been totally reshaped and are practically meaningless. Resources are in near infinite supply. It sounds Utopian. Yet humans remain as fallible and prone to conflict, fear and rivalries as ever. It reminds me of that age old nugget of wisdom that says you can move to a better neighborhood, or a better house, but you'll still be you, with pretty much the same problems you've got now. True that. So is this an optimistic or pessimistic view of humanity's future? Both. The story also courageously tackles issues of gender equality and social conformity in contemporary society.
Stross often gets knocked for an excess of technobabble and putting his concepts before his story. That was certainly my feeling about Accelerando. While there's no lack of Stross' patented conceptual genius here, he does a masterful job of crafting the story.
March 27, 2012
If I had to pick one word for this book, it would be "smug." I don't have a lot of tolerance for smugness at the best of times, and Glasshouse did nothing to earn its attitude. The worldbuilding was flimsy (if your characters are going to be motivated to horrific acts in pursuit of money, you need to tell me what, in your post-scarcity economy, money is for), the characterization shallow (unsurprisingly so, I guess, when all the characters are suffering from various grades of amnesiac dissociative psychosis, but it doesn't make for compelling emotional investment), and the plot driven by coincidences.
There's also a lot of stuff about gender that I feel is poorly done. It's unclear why these people, who shift bodies and species at the drop of a hat, have firm senses of gender identity or any conception of gender roles. Yet after about a page of confusion, they slot into the Glasshouse's 1950s stereotypes almost without question. There are some deliberate rejections of the norms, but none of the inadvertent errors you'd expect to see among a bunch of people playing with an utterly foreign concept. Meanwhile, the main character's observations on having a female body are pretty much limited to the fact that menstruation and the lack of pockets suck.
The pages turn quickly enough, and you could do worse for a plane trip or day at the beach, but you could also do a whole lot better. I'm told it's one of Stross's lesser works, and I should give him another chance. Maybe I will. But Glasshouse does nothing to push him toward the front of my to-read queue.
There's also a lot of stuff about gender that I feel is poorly done. It's unclear why these people, who shift bodies and species at the drop of a hat, have firm senses of gender identity or any conception of gender roles. Yet after about a page of confusion, they slot into the Glasshouse's 1950s stereotypes almost without question. There are some deliberate rejections of the norms, but none of the inadvertent errors you'd expect to see among a bunch of people playing with an utterly foreign concept. Meanwhile, the main character's observations on having a female body are pretty much limited to the fact that menstruation and the lack of pockets suck.
The pages turn quickly enough, and you could do worse for a plane trip or day at the beach, but you could also do a whole lot better. I'm told it's one of Stross's lesser works, and I should give him another chance. Maybe I will. But Glasshouse does nothing to push him toward the front of my to-read queue.
November 25, 2007
(My full review of this book is larger than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find it at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
As I've mentioned here before, although as an adult I try to maintain as varied a reading list as possible, I do naturally gravitate regularly towards the science-fiction (or SF) genre on which I was raised, as well as the "weird-lit" novels of our contemporary times that have been influenced by the genre. And indeed, if you take a close look at the projects that are getting so much attention these days among the so-called "creative class" (the same people who mostly make up CCLaP's readership too, by the way), you'll see that now more than ever, mainstream and even academic literature is being influenced in subtle ways more and more by such fantastical genres as SF and weird-lit. When you look at the entertainment choices made by people who are comfortable with technology and spend a decent amount of time online, the world can indeed become a strange place; a place where even among mainstream novels and network television shows, some awfully odd things can happen within the middle of a supposedly straight-ahead character drama.
So it's natural, then, that we straight-ahead SF fans would of course especially appreciate so-called "hard" SF writers in this day and age, or those who write such head-scratchingly brilliant stuff that only SF fans in particular are going to appreciate and love it; and boy, you don't get much more fanboy-crazy than with author Charles Stross, a multiple award winner and favorite among fellow SF writers, who nonetheless is barely known beyond the SF community that worships him so much. I just had a chance to read his latest* novel, in fact, 2006's Glasshouse, which happens to be my first novel of his in my own life; and believe me, I now understand why people go so freaking nuts over him, and am already plotting a way to get ahold of one of his earlier novels as quickly as possible. It is a flabbergasting book, one so smart and complex you can scarcely believe it actually exists; one that has a 95-percent chance of officially blowing your mind by the time you're finished, even if you do have a guess at which way the story is headed.
So before anything else, I guess let's start with a truism about hard SF...
As I've mentioned here before, although as an adult I try to maintain as varied a reading list as possible, I do naturally gravitate regularly towards the science-fiction (or SF) genre on which I was raised, as well as the "weird-lit" novels of our contemporary times that have been influenced by the genre. And indeed, if you take a close look at the projects that are getting so much attention these days among the so-called "creative class" (the same people who mostly make up CCLaP's readership too, by the way), you'll see that now more than ever, mainstream and even academic literature is being influenced in subtle ways more and more by such fantastical genres as SF and weird-lit. When you look at the entertainment choices made by people who are comfortable with technology and spend a decent amount of time online, the world can indeed become a strange place; a place where even among mainstream novels and network television shows, some awfully odd things can happen within the middle of a supposedly straight-ahead character drama.
So it's natural, then, that we straight-ahead SF fans would of course especially appreciate so-called "hard" SF writers in this day and age, or those who write such head-scratchingly brilliant stuff that only SF fans in particular are going to appreciate and love it; and boy, you don't get much more fanboy-crazy than with author Charles Stross, a multiple award winner and favorite among fellow SF writers, who nonetheless is barely known beyond the SF community that worships him so much. I just had a chance to read his latest* novel, in fact, 2006's Glasshouse, which happens to be my first novel of his in my own life; and believe me, I now understand why people go so freaking nuts over him, and am already plotting a way to get ahold of one of his earlier novels as quickly as possible. It is a flabbergasting book, one so smart and complex you can scarcely believe it actually exists; one that has a 95-percent chance of officially blowing your mind by the time you're finished, even if you do have a guess at which way the story is headed.
So before anything else, I guess let's start with a truism about hard SF...
November 5, 2007
Every time I begin a new Charles Stross novel, I feel the same excitement as when I first read William Gibson's Neuromancer in 1985: I'm reading a work of science fiction that is so unique, so bleeding-edge, that I can barely get my head around it.
And then the excitement fades as I continue reading.
This is Stross's best work to-date because it is his most human; his observations on groupthink, peer pressure, and the irrationality of modern life are insightful and funny. But it is also inconsistent: Stross lacks the chops to craft a smooth narrative on top of his own unique premise and setting, and the ending is anti-climactic to say the least.
Stross has one or two classics within him. Unfortunately, one of them is not Glasshouse.
And then the excitement fades as I continue reading.
This is Stross's best work to-date because it is his most human; his observations on groupthink, peer pressure, and the irrationality of modern life are insightful and funny. But it is also inconsistent: Stross lacks the chops to craft a smooth narrative on top of his own unique premise and setting, and the ending is anti-climactic to say the least.
Stross has one or two classics within him. Unfortunately, one of them is not Glasshouse.
April 19, 2017
The first 30 pages are nigh on indigestible. If you can make it past those, it gets much more readable.
It also gets much, much worse.
I can't imagine someone saying gender is treated well in this universe, and yet here we are, with almost every review reacting glowingly.
There was a paragraph talking about how gross periods are, wondering how women survived in the dark ages cause ICK. Gosh. I'm sorry we have periods, Mr Author. We would surely stop just for you if we could.
She is constantly complaining about how weak and feminine her form is and whoever put her into a female body was playing a cruel joke. It sure is shitty to be a woman, isn't it?
It reads like EVERY character is some sort of strange Mary Sue. I'm not even sure how that is possible.
There's a lot of comments about how imaginative the book was and...yeah, I guess. It was also exhausting, like I was on a treadmill and ideas just kept being thrown at me and stop I want to get off NO, HAVE SOME MORE. I haven't read much cyberpunk but it always seems to come down to the same essential story - lax security makes human minds vulnerable. It started off as kind of a cool idea but by the time you reach Act 3 in this book the mind hacks are repetitive and boring.
Why were the dreams so incredibly detailed? Oh yeah, info dumps.
Things I liked:
1. It was the first book I've read where "Mono or poly?" is used as a pickup line.
2. It was readable.
3. I was taught to never have a list with only two things.
It also gets much, much worse.
I can't imagine someone saying gender is treated well in this universe, and yet here we are, with almost every review reacting glowingly.
There was a paragraph talking about how gross periods are, wondering how women survived in the dark ages cause ICK. Gosh. I'm sorry we have periods, Mr Author. We would surely stop just for you if we could.
She is constantly complaining about how weak and feminine her form is and whoever put her into a female body was playing a cruel joke. It sure is shitty to be a woman, isn't it?
It reads like EVERY character is some sort of strange Mary Sue. I'm not even sure how that is possible.
There's a lot of comments about how imaginative the book was and...yeah, I guess. It was also exhausting, like I was on a treadmill and ideas just kept being thrown at me and stop I want to get off NO, HAVE SOME MORE. I haven't read much cyberpunk but it always seems to come down to the same essential story - lax security makes human minds vulnerable. It started off as kind of a cool idea but by the time you reach Act 3 in this book the mind hacks are repetitive and boring.
Why were the dreams so incredibly detailed? Oh yeah, info dumps.
Things I liked:
1. It was the first book I've read where "Mono or poly?" is used as a pickup line.
2. It was readable.
3. I was taught to never have a list with only two things.
December 5, 2008
This was the most intriguing new science fiction book I've read in a long time. The plot was kinda standard mystery but everything else was really new. He took some modern technical paradigms, projected them into the future and created an amazingly well developed "world." In addition, the book takes place mostly in an anachronistic simulation of the 1990's. And since the main character is a participant in the experiment there's an interesting ethnographical aspect to the narrative. (eg. he keeps referring to the "tiny feathered dinosaurs" in the park. The author used a great voice for this character and uses a neat plot device to tell the backstory in flashback/dreams.
Overall, this was a great read. I would not suggest it to someone who is a straight fantasy fan, it comes off a little Hard Sci-Fi at times. Although it is not actually necessary that these moments make any sense to the reader, it may be a little off-putting to someone who is not generally a fan of the genre. I would recommend this to everyone else.
After reading about half of his works, this is my favorite Stross novel. I was kind of sad to read that he doesn't intend to write further in his "far future" universe.
Overall, this was a great read. I would not suggest it to someone who is a straight fantasy fan, it comes off a little Hard Sci-Fi at times. Although it is not actually necessary that these moments make any sense to the reader, it may be a little off-putting to someone who is not generally a fan of the genre. I would recommend this to everyone else.
After reading about half of his works, this is my favorite Stross novel. I was kind of sad to read that he doesn't intend to write further in his "far future" universe.
April 13, 2015
I have had such a complicated relationships with Charles Stross books, in that I have often wanted to like them more than I actually have. A few of his most out-there post-human Singularity books I have enjoyed, while understanding very little of them. The Atrocity Archives was the first book of his that I enjoyed, start to finish.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
May 25, 2016
It's the far future. Earth is a distant memory... most people don't even live on planets anymore, but rather small habitats linked by wormhole gates. And death's difficult to come by, because you can back yourself up as easily as taking a shower. If you want, you can change your body-plan or gender while you're at it. But there are still wars, and in the wake of one, many people have chosen to wipe their memories and start fresh. Some of these people, including Robin, an ex-spy who may have a mission so secret even he isn't aware of it, are recruited into what seems like an innocent three-year experiment, to examine how the society of the 20th century worked, by establishing a community following similar rules as they had to live under. No choosing your body. No instant repair. No ability to leave early if you don't like it. And a lot of expectations for how you behave. And Robin's worried the experiment may be run by war criminals with a nefarious agenda.
I've read this book at least four times now. That alone should tell you that I really enjoy it. In fact, it may be my favorite of Stross' novels that I've read (unfortunately, I believe it was also one of his lowest selling, which derailed chances of a follow-up or something in the same universe).
It's got a nice mix of different things I love in SF, things that don't always go together... wildly imaginative (but still somehow feeling plausible) speculation about the future and what kinds of technologies we'll have and how they'll shape our lives, as well as an engaging, easily relatable story. It's at time funny, fascinating, chilling, and making important points in a rather subtle way.
Of particular note is the look at how things we consider natural are often mostly matters of social comformity that can be manipulated from the top down, and how hard it is to fight it from the bottom when everyone else has bought in. I also really loved the brief glimpses we get at the censorship wars and wanted more about that, somehow, though I suppose it's hard to tell a satisfying complete story about a war where the people fighting it aren't allowed to remember why.
The book does have a few bumps, moments where either something felt obvious to me, the reader (even on the first read) but characters remained ignorant, or where interactions just felt slightly off... and, for that matter, there were times where the author handwaves reasons for the enemies to be defeatable. At least several times in the book, I was thinking, "Okay, but, really, if they wanted to, they could monitor that," and the reason given for why they wouldn't I just had to accept even though I didn't entirely buy into it.
There's also some treatment of gender that sometimes felt, at first glance, a little broad, even near the point of stereotypical. I do think it's a lot more nuanced than it looks, but the fact that it's a society where gender roles are being deliberately enforced and also that characters are sometimes in bodies specifically what they wouldn't choose (and so, the more unpleasant aspects would certainly weigh more heavily on their minds), but the first few reads I counted it as more of a (very slight) negative than I do now.
Still, I enjoy rereading this book every once in a while. I also think it could make a great TV or Netflix series. That's not to say books need that to be considered good, but part of the fun I get out of rereading in general is, since I don't have to spend as much effort undertanding what's going on, I can use some of the spare thinkspace to imagine how it might be adapted, if it were going to happen. I enjoy it. But I reread a lot of books, and while I might play this game with many of them, I think this could be one of the easier ones to do that way. Even though it's got big, complex SF ideas in there, most of it could be done on a budget of any non-genre show. That seems like a recipe for success (although, ignorant people would probably call it a Wayward Pines knock off or something. :P).
I've read this book at least four times now. That alone should tell you that I really enjoy it. In fact, it may be my favorite of Stross' novels that I've read (unfortunately, I believe it was also one of his lowest selling, which derailed chances of a follow-up or something in the same universe).
It's got a nice mix of different things I love in SF, things that don't always go together... wildly imaginative (but still somehow feeling plausible) speculation about the future and what kinds of technologies we'll have and how they'll shape our lives, as well as an engaging, easily relatable story. It's at time funny, fascinating, chilling, and making important points in a rather subtle way.
Of particular note is the look at how things we consider natural are often mostly matters of social comformity that can be manipulated from the top down, and how hard it is to fight it from the bottom when everyone else has bought in. I also really loved the brief glimpses we get at the censorship wars and wanted more about that, somehow, though I suppose it's hard to tell a satisfying complete story about a war where the people fighting it aren't allowed to remember why.
The book does have a few bumps, moments where either something felt obvious to me, the reader (even on the first read) but characters remained ignorant, or where interactions just felt slightly off... and, for that matter, there were times where the author handwaves reasons for the enemies to be defeatable. At least several times in the book, I was thinking, "Okay, but, really, if they wanted to, they could monitor that," and the reason given for why they wouldn't I just had to accept even though I didn't entirely buy into it.
There's also some treatment of gender that sometimes felt, at first glance, a little broad, even near the point of stereotypical. I do think it's a lot more nuanced than it looks, but the fact that it's a society where gender roles are being deliberately enforced and also that characters are sometimes in bodies specifically what they wouldn't choose (and so, the more unpleasant aspects would certainly weigh more heavily on their minds), but the first few reads I counted it as more of a (very slight) negative than I do now.
Still, I enjoy rereading this book every once in a while. I also think it could make a great TV or Netflix series. That's not to say books need that to be considered good, but part of the fun I get out of rereading in general is, since I don't have to spend as much effort undertanding what's going on, I can use some of the spare thinkspace to imagine how it might be adapted, if it were going to happen. I enjoy it. But I reread a lot of books, and while I might play this game with many of them, I think this could be one of the easier ones to do that way. Even though it's got big, complex SF ideas in there, most of it could be done on a budget of any non-genre show. That seems like a recipe for success (although, ignorant people would probably call it a Wayward Pines knock off or something. :P).
December 27, 2007
The one where Robin wakes up after having a full memory wipe -- which, for obvious reasons, he doesn't remember -- and comes to believe someone from his past is trying to kill him, and volunteers for an experiment re-creating twentieth-century life.
OMG, so boring. I gave it my usual fifty pages, and sometimes I'd look at the page number and I'd still be on the same page.
Robin isn't really a character, and of course there's a good reason for this -- he's had his memory wiped. But every time he shows some sign of a personality that isn't totally generic, two lines later someone explains it as a standard side effect of the memory wipe.
His relationship with Kay is built of nothing whatsoever. The two of them meet in a bar; he finds her attractive, but since people can change bodies in the time it takes for a bathroom break, attraction is almost impersonal; two pages later he's saying things like, "I discovered I had a lot of self-esteem tied up in making her approve of me." In other words, "The author needed me to have a major human tie so I'd have a reason to do strange things, and something to lose if things went wrong."
And every time the author needs him to remember something, conveniently a little trickle of wiped-out memory comes back; this way there doesn't need to be any action for him to come to believe he's still a target, because he can just kind of remember, but not remember enough to give him any tools to protect himself. Very convenient.
I got really bored with the long explanations of Big Futuristic Tech, and they were especially annoying because there was no in-text reason why this first-person narrator would be explaining things that presumably were familiar to him; it would be like writing a contemporary story in which the character stopped the action to say, "I started up my laptop, a small computer able to connect wirelessly to a network known as the 'web' or 'internet' ..."
And then the twentieth century re-creation started. For some reason, the century that fascinates these people of the far future is the very one that readers are most familiar with; isn't that convenient? By this time I was already bored with Robin, and it didn't take long for me to get bored with having things like 'cheese' and 'bathrooms' described to me in agonizing detail.
(2007 Locus poll: #2 SF)
OMG, so boring. I gave it my usual fifty pages, and sometimes I'd look at the page number and I'd still be on the same page.
Robin isn't really a character, and of course there's a good reason for this -- he's had his memory wiped. But every time he shows some sign of a personality that isn't totally generic, two lines later someone explains it as a standard side effect of the memory wipe.
His relationship with Kay is built of nothing whatsoever. The two of them meet in a bar; he finds her attractive, but since people can change bodies in the time it takes for a bathroom break, attraction is almost impersonal; two pages later he's saying things like, "I discovered I had a lot of self-esteem tied up in making her approve of me." In other words, "The author needed me to have a major human tie so I'd have a reason to do strange things, and something to lose if things went wrong."
And every time the author needs him to remember something, conveniently a little trickle of wiped-out memory comes back; this way there doesn't need to be any action for him to come to believe he's still a target, because he can just kind of remember, but not remember enough to give him any tools to protect himself. Very convenient.
I got really bored with the long explanations of Big Futuristic Tech, and they were especially annoying because there was no in-text reason why this first-person narrator would be explaining things that presumably were familiar to him; it would be like writing a contemporary story in which the character stopped the action to say, "I started up my laptop, a small computer able to connect wirelessly to a network known as the 'web' or 'internet' ..."
And then the twentieth century re-creation started. For some reason, the century that fascinates these people of the far future is the very one that readers are most familiar with; isn't that convenient? By this time I was already bored with Robin, and it didn't take long for me to get bored with having things like 'cheese' and 'bathrooms' described to me in agonizing detail.
(2007 Locus poll: #2 SF)
July 10, 2019
On first read (in 2006), I thought this was a terrific book:
"A dark-skinned human with four arms walks towards me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls. Her hair forms a smoky wreath around her open and curious face. She's interested in me."
So opens GLASSHOUSE, Stross's [then] latest and best novel, set in the Invisible Republic, a splinter-polity recovering from the Censorship Wars. Here's Robin, the protagonist: "When people ask me what I did during the war, I tell them I used to be a tank regiment. Or maybe I was a counter-intelligence agent. I'm not exactly sure: my memory isn't what it used to be."
Robin has hot monkey-love with skull-clad Kay, and they both sign up for an experimental historical-roleplaying project, which has the stated objective of recreating one of the historic Dark Ages, c. 1950-2040 AD. You won't be surprised to hear that (cue ominous music) Things are Not as they Seem. A twisty, engrossing and very well-done paranoia-thriller ensues.
I started to reread GLASSHOUSE in June 2014, and didn't get far. My guess is, paranoia-thrillers tend to be read-once books? Or else I was in a bad mood. Who knows? But Stross is a great writer, so give it a shot.
Here's my 2006 review: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2HPUIW...
"A dark-skinned human with four arms walks towards me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls. Her hair forms a smoky wreath around her open and curious face. She's interested in me."
So opens GLASSHOUSE, Stross's [then] latest and best novel, set in the Invisible Republic, a splinter-polity recovering from the Censorship Wars. Here's Robin, the protagonist: "When people ask me what I did during the war, I tell them I used to be a tank regiment. Or maybe I was a counter-intelligence agent. I'm not exactly sure: my memory isn't what it used to be."
Robin has hot monkey-love with skull-clad Kay, and they both sign up for an experimental historical-roleplaying project, which has the stated objective of recreating one of the historic Dark Ages, c. 1950-2040 AD. You won't be surprised to hear that (cue ominous music) Things are Not as they Seem. A twisty, engrossing and very well-done paranoia-thriller ensues.
I started to reread GLASSHOUSE in June 2014, and didn't get far. My guess is, paranoia-thrillers tend to be read-once books? Or else I was in a bad mood. Who knows? But Stross is a great writer, so give it a shot.
Here's my 2006 review: https://www.amazon.com/review/R2HPUIW...
February 18, 2022
What would you do if you could edit your memories—or more precisely, if others could edit your memories? This is one of the fundamental questions of Glasshouse, one of the earlier novels by Charles Stross. Still firmly within the posthuman stage of his oeuvre, this book is less about the implications of the existence of strong AI and more about the implications of mind uploading and an ability to alter physiology and neurology at an atomic level.
Robin has just undergone a radical neurosurgery that has excised most of his memories. Thanks to a letter from his past self, he has a vague sense of who he is, but no detailed memories of his family, profession, or anything from his past. He lives in a galaxy of loosely organized human polities fractured after a vicious “censorship war,” a post-scarcity world where you can be backed up by molecular (dis)assemblers, create duplicates of yourself in a bewildering variety of forms, and gate between star systems thanks to wormhole technology. In short: sufficiently advanced society, indistinguishable from magic.
Robin agrees to enter an immersive experiment designed to replicate a society lost to time—that is, ours. He finds himself in a female body, at the mercy of the experimenters who, of course, do not actually have his best interests at heart. It turns out Robin’s past self might have ulterior motives that he can only speculate at. Now assigned the identity of Reeve, she needs to get to the bottom of this experiment—without alerting the experimenters—and also hopefully locate the person she met prior to going into the experiment and with whom she might have been falling in love.
This is a strange novel, albeit perhaps not for the reasons one might think after reading my summary. Stross does a kind of bait and switch wherein he first leads the reader to believe that the threat to Robin/Reeve comes from without the experiment; in reality, and without spoiling it, the threat is as much from Reeve’s own uncertain mental state as anything else. In this way, Stross can explore several interesting ideas.
First is the extent to which embodiment affects identity. This has always been one of my favourite philosophical questions. Realizing I’m trans went a long way towards explaining my ambivalence towards embodiment in general (it was a lowkey manifestation of gender incongruence). We see a few examples of this in Glasshouse. Although Reeve is not opposed to being a female body, she is appalled by the primitiveness of an unaltered human body of any gender, the way she menstruates, is fertile, needs to work out in order to build muscle. Sam, on the other hand, is extremely uncomfortable with the male form because of negative associations from his past. And in general, all of them are uncomfortable with living in this ersatz representation of our contemporary society, simply because we lack the freedom to be whoever we want to be.
Second, and related, is the nature of autonomy and liberty. Reeve’s enemies want to unilaterally impose a new structure on society that is modelled after our own, with these enemies in charge. Now of course this sounds like a bad idea. But as Reeve points out at one point, the ability to edit memories introduces a wrinkle. If someone can edit your memory so that you remember having consented, even though you didn’t, does it matter that you didn’t consent? (Because as far as you remember, you did.) I know this is mind-bending stuff, but the end result is similar to the thesis of Dollhouse—namely, the ability to edit memory might be more dangerous than wielding physical weapons of mass destruction.
On a side note, I feel like if this novel were ten years younger Stross would have worked in connections to social media. While we aren’t quite capable of editing our memories yet, we are living in a golden age of misinformation thanks to social networks. With deepfake video, it’s possible to mislead even the most careful person these days. Two people can “remember” an event differenty thanks to exposure to misinformation, which can have very real consequences on our actions.
While the ideas are, as usual, high quality, I admit to some disappointment regarding the ending. After a lengthy build-up, the ending feels very rushed. The actual action is related in a confusing way, with a lot of things withheld from the reader (though easy to predict). I think I understand what Stross was trying to get at with the ending, as Robin and Kay attempt to build a new life together that allows them to escape the horrors of their past at war. Nevertheless, the execution left me wanting more than we are given.
So like a lot of posthuman science fiction, high marks for the big ideas but needs work on the implementation!
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
Robin has just undergone a radical neurosurgery that has excised most of his memories. Thanks to a letter from his past self, he has a vague sense of who he is, but no detailed memories of his family, profession, or anything from his past. He lives in a galaxy of loosely organized human polities fractured after a vicious “censorship war,” a post-scarcity world where you can be backed up by molecular (dis)assemblers, create duplicates of yourself in a bewildering variety of forms, and gate between star systems thanks to wormhole technology. In short: sufficiently advanced society, indistinguishable from magic.
Robin agrees to enter an immersive experiment designed to replicate a society lost to time—that is, ours. He finds himself in a female body, at the mercy of the experimenters who, of course, do not actually have his best interests at heart. It turns out Robin’s past self might have ulterior motives that he can only speculate at. Now assigned the identity of Reeve, she needs to get to the bottom of this experiment—without alerting the experimenters—and also hopefully locate the person she met prior to going into the experiment and with whom she might have been falling in love.
This is a strange novel, albeit perhaps not for the reasons one might think after reading my summary. Stross does a kind of bait and switch wherein he first leads the reader to believe that the threat to Robin/Reeve comes from without the experiment; in reality, and without spoiling it, the threat is as much from Reeve’s own uncertain mental state as anything else. In this way, Stross can explore several interesting ideas.
First is the extent to which embodiment affects identity. This has always been one of my favourite philosophical questions. Realizing I’m trans went a long way towards explaining my ambivalence towards embodiment in general (it was a lowkey manifestation of gender incongruence). We see a few examples of this in Glasshouse. Although Reeve is not opposed to being a female body, she is appalled by the primitiveness of an unaltered human body of any gender, the way she menstruates, is fertile, needs to work out in order to build muscle. Sam, on the other hand, is extremely uncomfortable with the male form because of negative associations from his past. And in general, all of them are uncomfortable with living in this ersatz representation of our contemporary society, simply because we lack the freedom to be whoever we want to be.
Second, and related, is the nature of autonomy and liberty. Reeve’s enemies want to unilaterally impose a new structure on society that is modelled after our own, with these enemies in charge. Now of course this sounds like a bad idea. But as Reeve points out at one point, the ability to edit memories introduces a wrinkle. If someone can edit your memory so that you remember having consented, even though you didn’t, does it matter that you didn’t consent? (Because as far as you remember, you did.) I know this is mind-bending stuff, but the end result is similar to the thesis of Dollhouse—namely, the ability to edit memory might be more dangerous than wielding physical weapons of mass destruction.
On a side note, I feel like if this novel were ten years younger Stross would have worked in connections to social media. While we aren’t quite capable of editing our memories yet, we are living in a golden age of misinformation thanks to social networks. With deepfake video, it’s possible to mislead even the most careful person these days. Two people can “remember” an event differenty thanks to exposure to misinformation, which can have very real consequences on our actions.
While the ideas are, as usual, high quality, I admit to some disappointment regarding the ending. After a lengthy build-up, the ending feels very rushed. The actual action is related in a confusing way, with a lot of things withheld from the reader (though easy to predict). I think I understand what Stross was trying to get at with the ending, as Robin and Kay attempt to build a new life together that allows them to escape the horrors of their past at war. Nevertheless, the execution left me wanting more than we are given.
So like a lot of posthuman science fiction, high marks for the big ideas but needs work on the implementation!
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
May 8, 2021
What seemed like a good idea at the time is now turning out to be stressful.This was my second run through Glasshouse. The first was in 2007, and I don't think I was quite ready for Charles Stross' prickly posthuman mind games back then. Frankly, I'm not sure I was entirely ready for them now. But I have to say I got a lot more out of this novel, this time through.
—p.120
When Stross drops a Hitler quote as an epigram at the very beginning, though, that kinda sets the tone: this is one royally fucked-up future, depraved and amnesiac, anchorless and bereft despite wallowing amid post-scarcity material plenty. And that's all outside the Glasshouse, before our fearless narrator Robin signs up to enter Historian-Professor Yourdon's experimental community for reasons even he doesn't fully understand.
I saw a man on a stage
Scream, "Put me back in my cage!"
—"Planet Earth," on the album Freedom of Choice by DEVO
Robin is an unreliable narrator—that much you can trust. He tells us so, right up front. Robin can't even rely on his own self—the same "I" may appear from page to page, but that lends only an illusion of continuity. Robin, and his instantiation as Reeve within the Glasshouse, are similar but not identical entities, malleable and vulnerable—whatever they may believe to the contrary.
Remember that, if nothing else, as you make your own way through the Glasshouse.
*
"No advanced society expects half its workforce to stay home and divides labor on arbitrary lines."Employing not one but two radical changes of viewpoint—Robin's transhuman Invisible Republic, and Reeve's contrived circumstances inside the Glasshouse—gives Stross multiple opportunities to comment on some of the sillier aspects of our own society. Glasshouse reminded me of Frederick Pohl's classic short story "Day Million," that way.
—p.60
In fact, Glasshouse contains numerous allusions to previous works of science fiction—many that I noticed and appreciated, and I'm sure quite a few more that I missed. Robin's military service in the "Linebarger Cats" (p.13) is one of the earliest of many nods; Paul Linebarger's work as Cordwainer Smith was a great influence on SF as a whole, and on me personally as well. I also caught a brief reference to another influential Pohl classic, "The Tunnel Under the World," if I'm not mistaken.
And then there's a character named Harshaw, introduced on page 120—a not-so-subtle nod to Robert A. Heinlein's character Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land. All along, in fact, I was reading Charles Stross' Glasshouse as a direct homage to Heinlein's late-period novel Friday—similar to Stross' later novel Saturn's Children—but I guess I was wrong. Neither the Wikipedia page about the book nor his own crib sheet even mention Heinlein as an influence on this one! Stross instead attributes the inspiration for Glasshouse to John Varley's Eight Worlds stories, but while Varley is certainly a very Heinleinian SF author, I was still surprised by the absence of any more explicit acknowledgement of Heinlein's influence.
Some things, I suppose, just need to be taken as read.
*
Despite everything, Glasshouse ends well—or, at least, as well as could be expected. From the epigram at the front of the next book I read, which dovetails neatly here:
Our histories lie in rubble, buried upon a dead
rock spinning under a forgotten sky. Our futures
lie in waiting, buried within this magnificent beast
traversing the stars we now call home.
—Matris Otoasa, 438 years after Exodus
In Escaping Exodus, by Nicky Drayden.
Gotta love a happy ending...
dnf
October 14, 2021dnf @ 36% because it just straight up had a rape scene that was. not treated as a rape scene at all and i don’t feel like getting any more Surprises
August 5, 2021
This was an excellent modern science fiction novel from an author that is new to me. It was a strong modern science fiction, I guess I would think of it as 'hard' sci-fi in that the technology was key and well defined although the characterisations and the plot were not in any way neglected - a thing that can occur in some hard sci-fi.
The plot dynamics really impressed me. There were a few things about the way Glasshouse was laid out that I think many other sci-fi books could learn from.
We start with our main protagonist, Robin. Robin has just come out of memory dump and is currently inhabiting a male, orthohuman body. So, in this first chapter the story does an excellent job of introducing us to our leading character and through them, the very alien, far future universe they inhabit which is within the Invisible Republic. There is a lot of social/world building are happens very fast but very efficiently in this first chapter. The reader (me) is constantly on their toes trying to decide what is happening but the narrative never left me behind and because the main character's experience post memory dump is also, to some extent new it is easy to follow the very complex world we find ourselves in.
In Robin's world, where death is pretty much eradicated, it is not unusual for people to take 'memory dumps' where some of their past is deleted. There are worlds where these types of operations seem to be the main source of industry and very well defined systems in which the person rehabilitate themselves afterwards. Robin has had a significantly and unusually large memory dump: he remembers very little. Also, someone is trying to kill him.
As he is not sure who is trying to kill him or why when his therapist , a mesomorphic drone, suggests he enter a closed social experimental group which is based in a historical era they know little about; one which ends in 2050. Robin is somewhat suspicious, he feels like he is being given a hard sell but while he is in this group no assassin should be able to reach him and when he finds that Kay (a non-orothohuman woman he has bonded with), is thinking of going in he considers it.
Robin does end up in the experiment though he/we are never entirely sure how much consent was involved. And the experience is creepy in the extreme, the society has been recreated from few fragments of knowledge and the closed system is kind of like a 1950's American, Stepford wives gone wrong. Robin has been sent in within a female body, which he finds distressing, is unable to locate Kay and is increasingly suspicious of what exactly this experiment is all about
A excellent plot dynamic of this book, this 'social experiment' is! First we were given an introduction to the Invisible Republic, enough so we can see where Robin and his cohort are coming from. Not so much as to make our heads hurt though. The Invisible Republic is so different from the modern world it would be hard to read a whole book from it's point of view. Other sci-fi books have tried this, I am often bored by them. Glasshouse gives us enough to intrigue and set the scene but then scenarios which we are better equipped to follow. Love it.
Though this experiment seemed like a perfect solution for Robin, it is becoming more and more threatening inside. As Robin and his ersatz husband feel more and more threatened by the controllers of the experiment, Robin starts looking for a way out. This is complicated by the fact that his/her memories are bubbling up in ways that make him/her even more suspicious of the experiment and he is finding more and more reason to believe that many of his cohort are also trying to escape brutal pasts in the wars their civilization has had.
And, yet again, a great plot building dynamic! This is where the narrative structure really gets going, it describes the worm/computer virus which used HUMANS to infect tech and plunged the entire society into war. Tech wars with great concepts on a scope that is excellently written. But what really impressed me was where this was situated in the story. Too many books that I have read would try and dump all this background knowledge on you too fast, right at the start of the novel. This is almost always tedious and makes you feel like you are reading an imaginary history book. In Glasshouse, we have already bonded to the main characters, we are involved in their story and their back history feels relevant. I loved the way this was organised and was immensely impressed by the thriller mystery element of the story and how well it was handled.
I'll not say any more about it, except that the ending was a fine one.
The plot dynamics really impressed me. There were a few things about the way Glasshouse was laid out that I think many other sci-fi books could learn from.
We start with our main protagonist, Robin. Robin has just come out of memory dump and is currently inhabiting a male, orthohuman body. So, in this first chapter the story does an excellent job of introducing us to our leading character and through them, the very alien, far future universe they inhabit which is within the Invisible Republic. There is a lot of social/world building are happens very fast but very efficiently in this first chapter. The reader (me) is constantly on their toes trying to decide what is happening but the narrative never left me behind and because the main character's experience post memory dump is also, to some extent new it is easy to follow the very complex world we find ourselves in.
In Robin's world, where death is pretty much eradicated, it is not unusual for people to take 'memory dumps' where some of their past is deleted. There are worlds where these types of operations seem to be the main source of industry and very well defined systems in which the person rehabilitate themselves afterwards. Robin has had a significantly and unusually large memory dump: he remembers very little. Also, someone is trying to kill him.
As he is not sure who is trying to kill him or why when his therapist , a mesomorphic drone, suggests he enter a closed social experimental group which is based in a historical era they know little about; one which ends in 2050. Robin is somewhat suspicious, he feels like he is being given a hard sell but while he is in this group no assassin should be able to reach him and when he finds that Kay (a non-orothohuman woman he has bonded with), is thinking of going in he considers it.
Robin does end up in the experiment though he/we are never entirely sure how much consent was involved. And the experience is creepy in the extreme, the society has been recreated from few fragments of knowledge and the closed system is kind of like a 1950's American, Stepford wives gone wrong. Robin has been sent in within a female body, which he finds distressing, is unable to locate Kay and is increasingly suspicious of what exactly this experiment is all about
A excellent plot dynamic of this book, this 'social experiment' is! First we were given an introduction to the Invisible Republic, enough so we can see where Robin and his cohort are coming from. Not so much as to make our heads hurt though. The Invisible Republic is so different from the modern world it would be hard to read a whole book from it's point of view. Other sci-fi books have tried this, I am often bored by them. Glasshouse gives us enough to intrigue and set the scene but then scenarios which we are better equipped to follow. Love it.
Though this experiment seemed like a perfect solution for Robin, it is becoming more and more threatening inside. As Robin and his ersatz husband feel more and more threatened by the controllers of the experiment, Robin starts looking for a way out. This is complicated by the fact that his/her memories are bubbling up in ways that make him/her even more suspicious of the experiment and he is finding more and more reason to believe that many of his cohort are also trying to escape brutal pasts in the wars their civilization has had.
And, yet again, a great plot building dynamic! This is where the narrative structure really gets going, it describes the worm/computer virus which used HUMANS to infect tech and plunged the entire society into war. Tech wars with great concepts on a scope that is excellently written. But what really impressed me was where this was situated in the story. Too many books that I have read would try and dump all this background knowledge on you too fast, right at the start of the novel. This is almost always tedious and makes you feel like you are reading an imaginary history book. In Glasshouse, we have already bonded to the main characters, we are involved in their story and their back history feels relevant. I loved the way this was organised and was immensely impressed by the thriller mystery element of the story and how well it was handled.
I'll not say any more about it, except that the ending was a fine one.
September 28, 2014
With this book, Charles Stross has established himself as one of my favourite authors.
Previously, I have read quite a few of his novels, including several of the Merchant Princes series, one of the Bob Howard – Laundry books, Halting State and Saturn’s Children. With the exception of Saturn’s Children and perhaps the first of the Merchant Princes novels, I’ve had a hard time immersing myself in his stories and actually liking his characters. I keep picking up his books, however, as I like his concepts.
Then I read Saturn’s Children. What a fabulous book. The mixture of hard science and futuristic culture with a treatise on what it is to be human fascinated me. I loved the concept. And, the author’s sense of humour made the characters leap off the page. The main character, Freya, wasn’t entirely loveable, she had her faults. But that’s the point of a good book, isn’t it? To take a character and have them evolve.
Which is exactly what happens in The Glasshouse.
Robin has just emerged from radical memory surgery. It’s the far future and people live for a long time, a century or two (it’s hard to figure out exactly how long as time is measured in groups of seconds with names like teraquad and I’m just not good at math), and people with a lifetime’s worth of memories sometimes need a fresh start to go with their consistently youthful bodies. Unlike most people who emerge from such a procedure, however, Robin literally has no idea who he is. He hasn’t just had the memory of a love affair gone wrong excised, he’s lost entire lifetimes and people. Concepts, even.
While he’s in recovery, he meets Kay, a woman who has had a much less radical procedure to help her forget the impact of having lived among (and studied) a less advanced culture for several generations.
Together, they decide to check into an experimental polity (city-state in space) designed to emulate twentieth century Earth. The time period is considered a dark age of human history and most records of the how and why (we even survived such a travesty of existence) have long since disappeared. Robin and Kay, unencumbered by memory, are perfect candidates for the experiment.
Following Robin and Kay’s progress through the experiment would be an interesting enough story. There are complications, however. The experiment is not what it seems, Robin is not who he thought he was (I know, this is funny because no one knows who he is) and Kay has her own trials.
The novel is an adventure story, an exploration of a possible future with all sorts of scientific concepts that are nothing short of awesome, a comment on our own history and fallibility as a species and culture, a summation of the history of a universe created by Charles Stross and, finally, it’s a love story. I liked Robin at the beginning of the book, I loved him at the end. He discovered himself (his memories) and himself, who he was as a person. And then, he evolved. It was fascinating to see who he became.
As the mystery unfolded, it became harder and harder to put this book down. The plot kept thickening and I wanted to keep reading. The author’s humour, as always, continued to delight me, coming at unexpected turns and entirely welcome after tense moments. The writing is just superb. Charles Stross communicates his concepts, his ideas and his characters so well. A lot of science fiction (fiction) is social commentary. Stross manages to convey his point of view without arrogance. He has a quietly confident opinion and it makes sense. Well, to me it does. I like his point of view.
I’ve also decided I really like his books. I’ve just started reading Singularity Sky and I’m enjoying it and I’m optimistic enough to go back and try to read Halting State all over again, particularly as he’s just released a sequel.
Previously, I have read quite a few of his novels, including several of the Merchant Princes series, one of the Bob Howard – Laundry books, Halting State and Saturn’s Children. With the exception of Saturn’s Children and perhaps the first of the Merchant Princes novels, I’ve had a hard time immersing myself in his stories and actually liking his characters. I keep picking up his books, however, as I like his concepts.
Then I read Saturn’s Children. What a fabulous book. The mixture of hard science and futuristic culture with a treatise on what it is to be human fascinated me. I loved the concept. And, the author’s sense of humour made the characters leap off the page. The main character, Freya, wasn’t entirely loveable, she had her faults. But that’s the point of a good book, isn’t it? To take a character and have them evolve.
Which is exactly what happens in The Glasshouse.
Robin has just emerged from radical memory surgery. It’s the far future and people live for a long time, a century or two (it’s hard to figure out exactly how long as time is measured in groups of seconds with names like teraquad and I’m just not good at math), and people with a lifetime’s worth of memories sometimes need a fresh start to go with their consistently youthful bodies. Unlike most people who emerge from such a procedure, however, Robin literally has no idea who he is. He hasn’t just had the memory of a love affair gone wrong excised, he’s lost entire lifetimes and people. Concepts, even.
While he’s in recovery, he meets Kay, a woman who has had a much less radical procedure to help her forget the impact of having lived among (and studied) a less advanced culture for several generations.
Together, they decide to check into an experimental polity (city-state in space) designed to emulate twentieth century Earth. The time period is considered a dark age of human history and most records of the how and why (we even survived such a travesty of existence) have long since disappeared. Robin and Kay, unencumbered by memory, are perfect candidates for the experiment.
Following Robin and Kay’s progress through the experiment would be an interesting enough story. There are complications, however. The experiment is not what it seems, Robin is not who he thought he was (I know, this is funny because no one knows who he is) and Kay has her own trials.
The novel is an adventure story, an exploration of a possible future with all sorts of scientific concepts that are nothing short of awesome, a comment on our own history and fallibility as a species and culture, a summation of the history of a universe created by Charles Stross and, finally, it’s a love story. I liked Robin at the beginning of the book, I loved him at the end. He discovered himself (his memories) and himself, who he was as a person. And then, he evolved. It was fascinating to see who he became.
As the mystery unfolded, it became harder and harder to put this book down. The plot kept thickening and I wanted to keep reading. The author’s humour, as always, continued to delight me, coming at unexpected turns and entirely welcome after tense moments. The writing is just superb. Charles Stross communicates his concepts, his ideas and his characters so well. A lot of science fiction (fiction) is social commentary. Stross manages to convey his point of view without arrogance. He has a quietly confident opinion and it makes sense. Well, to me it does. I like his point of view.
I’ve also decided I really like his books. I’ve just started reading Singularity Sky and I’m enjoying it and I’m optimistic enough to go back and try to read Halting State all over again, particularly as he’s just released a sequel.
October 30, 2007
It was really hard to get into at first. For some reason Stross insists on using a different timescale even though their bear a slight linguistic resemblance to terms we use today. It was frustrating and unnecessary. Although it got off to a slow start, it did pick up after the first few chapters (basically when the main character joins the experiment).
I had some of the same problems with this book that I have with similar books where a person's consciousness is treated as though it were basically software with the attendant backups. If people are basically immortal, then death is no longer meaningful. You don't care if characters die because they can simply be reconstructed with only a relatively short time of memory missing. Even when characters suffer a true death, the other characters don't really seem all that affected by it.
Gender is a similar problem. I get the impression that Stross may have been trying to play with gender. Some male characters are put into female bodies and vice versa. The problem is that gender roles no longer exist when anyone can have any body they choose so everyone may as well be androgynous or hermaphroditic.
The experiment tries to recreate the gender roles, but because they aren't internalized it doesn't work very well. I was very aware of gender roles as a social construct in this book. On the other hand, it did allow for what I thought was one of the better lines and points of the book which was that the designers of the experiment took prescriptive literature and treated it as though it were descriptive. I know that's something we do in real life all the time. Just study any ancient society, particularly how they treat women. Ancient Greek women ideally stayed at home and weren't seen by unrelated men but few women could match that ideal.
And because people could slip out of bodies so easily and become whoever they wanted I didn't buy one character having large body issues.
Even when the characters first start the experiment it's a little slow at first because the author is clearly trying to describe things we take for granted from an outside perspective but it gets dull and annoying. Yes, our clothes have to be washed, no, they don't change color or automatically fit right, etc. Without the social context it just isn't all that interesting. Similarly, characters use certain words like new ideas ("whore") for example, and have trouble figuring out what that is, and yet later the same character blithely refers to someone as a scorewhore.
And if murder wasn't that big a deal, why feel guilty for temporarily murdering someone in war? And why does the same person not feel guilty for engaging in duels to the temporary death? And how does one character not know what rape is? The present they come from is hardly Utopian.
I still want to know how it all functions. Yes, they have A gates or T gates to assemble everything, but physics tells us that you can't make something from nothing so they must have to have some kind of raw materials and presumably the gates have some kind of power source.
Overall it was uneven and the very end was predictable.
I had some of the same problems with this book that I have with similar books where a person's consciousness is treated as though it were basically software with the attendant backups. If people are basically immortal, then death is no longer meaningful. You don't care if characters die because they can simply be reconstructed with only a relatively short time of memory missing. Even when characters suffer a true death, the other characters don't really seem all that affected by it.
Gender is a similar problem. I get the impression that Stross may have been trying to play with gender. Some male characters are put into female bodies and vice versa. The problem is that gender roles no longer exist when anyone can have any body they choose so everyone may as well be androgynous or hermaphroditic.
The experiment tries to recreate the gender roles, but because they aren't internalized it doesn't work very well. I was very aware of gender roles as a social construct in this book. On the other hand, it did allow for what I thought was one of the better lines and points of the book which was that the designers of the experiment took prescriptive literature and treated it as though it were descriptive. I know that's something we do in real life all the time. Just study any ancient society, particularly how they treat women. Ancient Greek women ideally stayed at home and weren't seen by unrelated men but few women could match that ideal.
And because people could slip out of bodies so easily and become whoever they wanted I didn't buy one character having large body issues.
Even when the characters first start the experiment it's a little slow at first because the author is clearly trying to describe things we take for granted from an outside perspective but it gets dull and annoying. Yes, our clothes have to be washed, no, they don't change color or automatically fit right, etc. Without the social context it just isn't all that interesting. Similarly, characters use certain words like new ideas ("whore") for example, and have trouble figuring out what that is, and yet later the same character blithely refers to someone as a scorewhore.
And if murder wasn't that big a deal, why feel guilty for temporarily murdering someone in war? And why does the same person not feel guilty for engaging in duels to the temporary death? And how does one character not know what rape is? The present they come from is hardly Utopian.
I still want to know how it all functions. Yes, they have A gates or T gates to assemble everything, but physics tells us that you can't make something from nothing so they must have to have some kind of raw materials and presumably the gates have some kind of power source.
Overall it was uneven and the very end was predictable.
August 6, 2013
This could have been really dull because there's really nothing new in it by way of SF ideas; it relies on wormholes/teleporting, nanobots, uploading your mind then downloading it to any body you fancy, editing your memories in the process, and not much else. You can find all these elements in many other places. The odd thing is that this doesn't necessarily matter. Individual authors' speculations about where these scientific or engineering advances might take humanity physically and culturally can be radically different and the wider themes they may wish to treat can be equally diverse. Usually the problems lie with a single author trying to mine out the same vein in a zillion sequels. Ultimately certain ideas get tired no matter who is writing them and it's time for the genre as a whole to move on. We are perhaps approaching that point with some of these technological ideas, at least as ends in themselves, but this particular novel feels pretty fresh. If Alastair Reynolds wrote another book in which forgetting one's own past drove the plot as much as it does in this book I'd probably go nuts, but here it works fine.
And that's the situation; self-inflicted amnesia bloke is the victim of an attempted assassination and he runs off to a bizarre psychological/archaeological experiment to hide while he gathers his wits...but much is not as it seems and an exciting 'friller ensues. At least, it ensues after the slightly over-long scene-setting part where we get a future citizen suffering past-shock as he stumbles around a fake 21st Century trying to figure out how those quaint barbarians (i.e. us) coped with such an irrational, inefficient and technologically and socially backward society. Once that bit is past...well, I read it at break-neck pace and whilst I guessed some of the plot points ahead of time, greatly enjoyed it. I was slightly disappointed with the denouement which I felt was handled too hastily but over-all I think this is as good as anything I've read by Stross and better than several.
And that's the situation; self-inflicted amnesia bloke is the victim of an attempted assassination and he runs off to a bizarre psychological/archaeological experiment to hide while he gathers his wits...but much is not as it seems and an exciting 'friller ensues. At least, it ensues after the slightly over-long scene-setting part where we get a future citizen suffering past-shock as he stumbles around a fake 21st Century trying to figure out how those quaint barbarians (i.e. us) coped with such an irrational, inefficient and technologically and socially backward society. Once that bit is past...well, I read it at break-neck pace and whilst I guessed some of the plot points ahead of time, greatly enjoyed it. I was slightly disappointed with the denouement which I felt was handled too hastily but over-all I think this is as good as anything I've read by Stross and better than several.
July 31, 2007
Shockingly, I like the first chapter. I expect things will devolve from here. That's the standard Stross formula.
Well, with the exception of having a good first chapter.
***
And as it turns out, I loved this book. I've read several of his novels before, all the Hugo-nominated ones, anyway, and this is by far the best. It's also the best of the nominees this year and should win the award.
Stross does an excellent job of keeping the focus of the novel not only on the main character, but also in his/her head. It almost feels claustrophic in places because we only know what the main character knows, and because of circumstances within the novel, that's often not much.
Excellent. I can't recommend this enough and it is this year's clear winner.
Well, with the exception of having a good first chapter.
***
And as it turns out, I loved this book. I've read several of his novels before, all the Hugo-nominated ones, anyway, and this is by far the best. It's also the best of the nominees this year and should win the award.
Stross does an excellent job of keeping the focus of the novel not only on the main character, but also in his/her head. It almost feels claustrophic in places because we only know what the main character knows, and because of circumstances within the novel, that's often not much.
Excellent. I can't recommend this enough and it is this year's clear winner.
July 30, 2015
Don’t worry, this book might appear daunting as you begin to peruse the first chapter, but thankfully it doesn’t maintain that level of borderline impenetrability throughout. Yes, Charles Stross (no, I have never read anything else by him), does enjoy in those early stages combining a bizarre mix of archaic language and technological gobbledygook. Okay, that might sound fun to some in a challenging sort of way, but I always like my sci-fi to welcome me, rather than try to baffle me at the outset with made-up jargon. However it does settle down dramatically after the second chapter, when it actually becomes almost a completely different novel.
Suddenly we change from a tale of a grim, mentally-scarred killer in a dystopian future millions of miles from Earth (or, Urth, as the book would charmingly have it), to having that same grim, mentally-scarred killer finding himself trapped in the body of a 1950s suburban housewife and so having to worry about cooking, shopping and social standing. It’s a bit of a head-spin then, and I’ll freely confess that for a moment or two in the transition I suspected that my Kindle had malfunctioned and launched me into a totally different book. But the two parts – even though they feel in language, tone and subject diametrically opposed – do complement each other well. For most of the mid-section this is a smart and quite funny read, your bass out of the ocean story of this hired killer trying to survive in the dangerous terrain of small-town America (the conceit is that he’s caught in a simulation of – what in the future are known as – ‘the dark ages’). That’s the best part of the novel, after the off-putting opening and before the complicated machinations of the end.
And yet…
Publishing a novel in 2006 that’s a satirical take on 1950s conformity and mores just feels like the satire has gone a bit astray of its target. Surely if one is going to write a story like this, then its focus has to be a lot more contemporary – as writing about the 1950s is about as relevant to us now (or us in 2006) as having these characters caught in a simulation of Victoriana. And that’s the main problem here, the town clearly isn’t real to the characters but it isn’t that real to the readers either. Indeed the locale it reminded me of most was Seahaven from ‘The Truman Show’, which was the fake approximation of a 1950s’ sitcom town. I liked ‘The Truman Show’, but thought the satire was blunt and toothless. And I quite liked ‘Glasshouse’ too, but have exactly the same issue with it.
Suddenly we change from a tale of a grim, mentally-scarred killer in a dystopian future millions of miles from Earth (or, Urth, as the book would charmingly have it), to having that same grim, mentally-scarred killer finding himself trapped in the body of a 1950s suburban housewife and so having to worry about cooking, shopping and social standing. It’s a bit of a head-spin then, and I’ll freely confess that for a moment or two in the transition I suspected that my Kindle had malfunctioned and launched me into a totally different book. But the two parts – even though they feel in language, tone and subject diametrically opposed – do complement each other well. For most of the mid-section this is a smart and quite funny read, your bass out of the ocean story of this hired killer trying to survive in the dangerous terrain of small-town America (the conceit is that he’s caught in a simulation of – what in the future are known as – ‘the dark ages’). That’s the best part of the novel, after the off-putting opening and before the complicated machinations of the end.
And yet…
Publishing a novel in 2006 that’s a satirical take on 1950s conformity and mores just feels like the satire has gone a bit astray of its target. Surely if one is going to write a story like this, then its focus has to be a lot more contemporary – as writing about the 1950s is about as relevant to us now (or us in 2006) as having these characters caught in a simulation of Victoriana. And that’s the main problem here, the town clearly isn’t real to the characters but it isn’t that real to the readers either. Indeed the locale it reminded me of most was Seahaven from ‘The Truman Show’, which was the fake approximation of a 1950s’ sitcom town. I liked ‘The Truman Show’, but thought the satire was blunt and toothless. And I quite liked ‘Glasshouse’ too, but have exactly the same issue with it.
September 9, 2009
I started this particular book because it was sold to me as "far future thriller wherein the protagonist enters a reenactment of 1900s Earth in order to elude his attackers, only to discover and more sinister plot within the reenactment." Taking 1900s to mean Victorian/Edwardian period, I thought this book might be right up my alley. I have a fondness for far future science fiction, and a fondness for Victoriana, and a fondness for thrillers in general. How could this book possibly go wrong?
It turns out that 1900s actually translates to a rough approximation of the 1950s, so that was a bit disappointing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Stross's take on the far future, a weird, wonderful place with loving nods to the master of far future science fiction, Cordwainer Smith.
The story is well-paced, and the premise is intriguing. Ultimately, however, the plot doesn't make a lot of sense. This can be a problem in far future fictional settings where the scope of your technology outpaces the scope of your 21st-century human brain, and Stross blunders into this a number of times. The biggest problem with this book, as far as I'm concerned, is its treatment of gender identity. I felt it was badly handled all around, and that "women" (such as the term applies in this setting) in particular were often poorly characterized stereotypes. I don't know Charles Stross, but I couldn't help but get the impression that he was rubbing his hands together gleefully while writing this book, imagining the Tiptree award he was bound to win. He seemed to be intentionally pushing gender buttons for that effect. His ideas about gender and identity are interesting but ultimately unconvincing, and at times even troubling. This was the largest turn off for me. Not only did I feel the gender roles were poorly written from the perspective of a far future, gender optional society, I felt that they were poorly written in a 20th-century context. Stross doesn't seem to understand his female characters (his characters that WANT to be female, I should say), and I can't help but think this book would have been better if someone had pointed this out to him.
Where does that leave Glasshouse? It's an enjoyable yarn if you don't think about it too hard. There are lots of cool ideas to be had. If you're easily turned off by poorly written female characters, however, you might find Glasshouse isn't your cup of tea.
It turns out that 1900s actually translates to a rough approximation of the 1950s, so that was a bit disappointing. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Stross's take on the far future, a weird, wonderful place with loving nods to the master of far future science fiction, Cordwainer Smith.
The story is well-paced, and the premise is intriguing. Ultimately, however, the plot doesn't make a lot of sense. This can be a problem in far future fictional settings where the scope of your technology outpaces the scope of your 21st-century human brain, and Stross blunders into this a number of times. The biggest problem with this book, as far as I'm concerned, is its treatment of gender identity. I felt it was badly handled all around, and that "women" (such as the term applies in this setting) in particular were often poorly characterized stereotypes. I don't know Charles Stross, but I couldn't help but get the impression that he was rubbing his hands together gleefully while writing this book, imagining the Tiptree award he was bound to win. He seemed to be intentionally pushing gender buttons for that effect. His ideas about gender and identity are interesting but ultimately unconvincing, and at times even troubling. This was the largest turn off for me. Not only did I feel the gender roles were poorly written from the perspective of a far future, gender optional society, I felt that they were poorly written in a 20th-century context. Stross doesn't seem to understand his female characters (his characters that WANT to be female, I should say), and I can't help but think this book would have been better if someone had pointed this out to him.
Where does that leave Glasshouse? It's an enjoyable yarn if you don't think about it too hard. There are lots of cool ideas to be had. If you're easily turned off by poorly written female characters, however, you might find Glasshouse isn't your cup of tea.
January 3, 2016
It has been a while since I have read such a horribly uneven book. I greatly enjoyed Accelerando and this book has many of the same characterization and dialogue problems, but The Glasshouse flops where Accelerando transcends.
The novel is immediately bad. It is written in the present tense, in first person. The book also starts you right off with some four armed perenium stroking and zero-g space boning. Sex is intimately described several times in the novel, and it never gets not awkward.
The novel continues to evolve into something not just bad, but almost boring. When the main character is respawned as a woman in a simulation of life in the 1990s there are many opportunities for humor and intelligent social critique, but Stross fails to pull either off. The novel comes off as a jokeless fish out of water comedy, and circles the drain towards total snooze fest several times, but in the books defence I don't think it ever truly goes all the way.
Things the book does go all the way on: Sexual Assault, Lynch Mobs, and Pony People. I can't actually elaborate further without major spoilers, but if any of those words bother you I don't think you should read this novel.
Finally, there's the ending. I think Stross might actually have beaten Stephenson here. Glasshouse has perhaps the quickest and worst described ending I've ever read. As you approach the ending of this novel you'll think, I only have five pages left, I guess there's going to be a sequel or something because the climax (and what feels like most of the plot) hasn't happened yet. But no, half the plot, the climax, and the denoumont all transpire in a few paragraphs.
So why two (hell maybe even two and a half) stars, instead of one to negative stars? I just really like Stross, I even like bad Stross. I like his stupid future slang. I like his badly described ultra tolerant pluralism. I like his attempt to experiment with form, structure, and taste. For me bad Stross is still readable. This terrible book was a page turner. Ultimately I enjoyed it. If you like Charles Stross go out and read this terrible book!
The novel is immediately bad. It is written in the present tense, in first person. The book also starts you right off with some four armed perenium stroking and zero-g space boning. Sex is intimately described several times in the novel, and it never gets not awkward.
The novel continues to evolve into something not just bad, but almost boring. When the main character is respawned as a woman in a simulation of life in the 1990s there are many opportunities for humor and intelligent social critique, but Stross fails to pull either off. The novel comes off as a jokeless fish out of water comedy, and circles the drain towards total snooze fest several times, but in the books defence I don't think it ever truly goes all the way.
Things the book does go all the way on: Sexual Assault, Lynch Mobs, and Pony People. I can't actually elaborate further without major spoilers, but if any of those words bother you I don't think you should read this novel.
Finally, there's the ending. I think Stross might actually have beaten Stephenson here. Glasshouse has perhaps the quickest and worst described ending I've ever read. As you approach the ending of this novel you'll think, I only have five pages left, I guess there's going to be a sequel or something because the climax (and what feels like most of the plot) hasn't happened yet. But no, half the plot, the climax, and the denoumont all transpire in a few paragraphs.
So why two (hell maybe even two and a half) stars, instead of one to negative stars? I just really like Stross, I even like bad Stross. I like his stupid future slang. I like his badly described ultra tolerant pluralism. I like his attempt to experiment with form, structure, and taste. For me bad Stross is still readable. This terrible book was a page turner. Ultimately I enjoyed it. If you like Charles Stross go out and read this terrible book!
May 7, 2020
Glasshouse is an intense and mindstretching mixture of hard SF and satire in a psychological puzzle centered around memory and identity. Stross writes well but in a way that is often vague, confusing, and hard to understand. The narrator describes things from the setting's (future) present day point of view with little explanation. Additionally Stross only gives more information every once in a while. This keeps his extraordinary SF concepts and the plot just on the edge of comprehension most of the time. As long as there is something of substance to be found under this style of writing I really enjoy it. Stross does it very well. However, some readers may struggle with Glasshouse as Stross gives very little that is direct or even reliable. Things only take on certainty towards the conclusion.
Throughout Glasshouse, Stross offers an unique examination of identity, social structure, and gender in the "dark ages culture based on fear and insecurity." The majority of the book includes an experiment set in a polity built to resemble the decades of the 90's and 00's. This, along with the ability to have almost any body you can think of, provides an interesting way to look at these issues during this timeframe.
Although there isn't a lot of action this book had a really fast pace. The sense of intensity comes from constantly having to pay attention not to miss something important. I was always engrossed. After the amount of intensity and uncertainty throughout the book, the conclusion seems a little anti-climactic but is satisfactory. I'm really impressed with Glasshouse and I'm looking forward to finding more books with similar qualities.
Throughout Glasshouse, Stross offers an unique examination of identity, social structure, and gender in the "dark ages culture based on fear and insecurity." The majority of the book includes an experiment set in a polity built to resemble the decades of the 90's and 00's. This, along with the ability to have almost any body you can think of, provides an interesting way to look at these issues during this timeframe.
Although there isn't a lot of action this book had a really fast pace. The sense of intensity comes from constantly having to pay attention not to miss something important. I was always engrossed. After the amount of intensity and uncertainty throughout the book, the conclusion seems a little anti-climactic but is satisfactory. I'm really impressed with Glasshouse and I'm looking forward to finding more books with similar qualities.
May 1, 2018
Update: Oh man, I just re-read this and am blown away all over again. One of the benefits of a terrible memory for details is that when you go back and read a book 6 years later, it's almost like reading an entire new book. For example, I had forgotten almost everything after about the halfway point. There was a plot twist later that totally caught me off guard, even.
Also, I think the book benefits from being reread now, just because I'm a different (I'd like to think better) person than I was in 2012. It feels cheesy to say something like "I'm older and wiser" but that's pretty close. I feel like I "got" the book more this time around. I'm more familiar with things like body/gender dysphoria in reality now, so seeing it playing out in the book was more impactful. And while I understand Past Me's desire for a sequel, I also don't think one would really be justified. The ending is kind of beautiful.
After the re-read, the 5-star rating stands unchanged. I'm very glad I snagged the audiobook.
Original review: Holy cowwwwwwww I want a sequel. I want more of this. So much of this book was mind-bendy, but it was still very understandable, which just made it *cool*. I really enjoyed the universe of the book, and all of the history. I loved their ideas about "Urth". I don't even want to say too much, because so much of the fun of this book is discovering the world and the setting. It's also full of good thinking fuel, about identity and memory and Who We Are. I think this one definitely earned it's five stars.
Also, I think the book benefits from being reread now, just because I'm a different (I'd like to think better) person than I was in 2012. It feels cheesy to say something like "I'm older and wiser" but that's pretty close. I feel like I "got" the book more this time around. I'm more familiar with things like body/gender dysphoria in reality now, so seeing it playing out in the book was more impactful. And while I understand Past Me's desire for a sequel, I also don't think one would really be justified. The ending is kind of beautiful.
After the re-read, the 5-star rating stands unchanged. I'm very glad I snagged the audiobook.
Original review: Holy cowwwwwwww I want a sequel. I want more of this. So much of this book was mind-bendy, but it was still very understandable, which just made it *cool*. I really enjoyed the universe of the book, and all of the history. I loved their ideas about "Urth". I don't even want to say too much, because so much of the fun of this book is discovering the world and the setting. It's also full of good thinking fuel, about identity and memory and Who We Are. I think this one definitely earned it's five stars.
June 11, 2007
In the future, a group of people volunteer for a scientific experiment in which they agree to immerse themselves in a community mimicking long-gone 20th Century life. The protagonist, Robin, signs up to escape people who are trying to kill her. I mean, him. Technically Robin is a dude. But he spends most of the book trapped in a female body, and he mostly just reads as a woman—as an awesome, interesting heroine. It's kind of sad that one of the few ways we get male SF/F writers writing interesting women is when they think they're writing men, but it works to our advantage in this case, I suppose.
This was generally a quite fun "fight the power" yarn (the experimenters are up to no good, surprise surprise). I enjoyed the hints of backstory—the history of the Censorship Wars and the genesis of the very creepy (and wonderfully named) virus Curious Yellow. There were also some neat tricks worked with Robin's first person POV. The book's ending, however, was rather too rushed and pat; saying "And then we fought a big battle and kicked some ass" is really not the same as showing a big battle being fought and some ass being kicked. In general, this was interesting and enjoyable sci-fi, but it really didn't transcend the genre.
This was generally a quite fun "fight the power" yarn (the experimenters are up to no good, surprise surprise). I enjoyed the hints of backstory—the history of the Censorship Wars and the genesis of the very creepy (and wonderfully named) virus Curious Yellow. There were also some neat tricks worked with Robin's first person POV. The book's ending, however, was rather too rushed and pat; saying "And then we fought a big battle and kicked some ass" is really not the same as showing a big battle being fought and some ass being kicked. In general, this was interesting and enjoyable sci-fi, but it really didn't transcend the genre.
April 15, 2020
Storyline: 2/5
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 4/5
World: 4/5
What Glasshouse does well, it does really, really well. What it does badly, it does ever so badly. The initial writing is excellent; dynamic sentences stuffed full with suggestive prefixes, creative compounds, and a recognizable science fiction argot. One slows to read and even rereads in order to appreciate all that is conveyed by the wild interplay of words. The reader is thrown headfirst into the deep, the world far from everyday experience and demonstrating a mind-blowing far future life. When one isn’t completely absorbed by trying to figure out the many reality-defying rules of society, the mind is lured further into a tale with shocking violence. And then there’s the hook, that provocative science fiction possibility full of ramifications. That creative idea anchored into a custom-fitted setting, demanding one’s attention. This is the kind of science fiction from which I derive delight.
Stross then decides to change things up. Our author is classed among those British, far future, hard science fiction writers that portray radical political ideas as realities in their envisioning. Much of their futures are concerned with freeing us 21st century Earthlings from our present constraints, whether they be technological, genetic, or cultural. Rather than show the reader those possibilities in the future, as the novel had so far proceeded, Stross decides to more directly confront the present. The fun to be had and the points to be made are still a form of juxtaposition, but instead of implicitly contrasting readers’ own subjective conditions with those written on the far future, Stross does so baldly. This replaces subtlety with directness, which might have been okay had Stross not been so hamfisted about our present. It was shocking to see someone so insightful and imaginative about the future to be so obvious and trite about the now. And not only did the inventive reversals and inside-out looks at culture stop, but a sloppiness slipped into the worldbuilding and plot as Stross tried to add in additional mysteries and revelations. For about 70 percent of the telling, I was aghast at what had become of the story and what we were being expected to accept. Those initial chapters, however, were just so fabulously engaging that this novel should not be written off entirely. In fact, one enjoying shocks and twists might find the bulk of the tale gratifying. I’ll look back on it as a story that ended up averaging out the stylishly portrayed post-human future with a ghastly political commentary and confused mystery/thriller.
Characters: 3/5
Writing Style: 4/5
World: 4/5
What Glasshouse does well, it does really, really well. What it does badly, it does ever so badly. The initial writing is excellent; dynamic sentences stuffed full with suggestive prefixes, creative compounds, and a recognizable science fiction argot. One slows to read and even rereads in order to appreciate all that is conveyed by the wild interplay of words. The reader is thrown headfirst into the deep, the world far from everyday experience and demonstrating a mind-blowing far future life. When one isn’t completely absorbed by trying to figure out the many reality-defying rules of society, the mind is lured further into a tale with shocking violence. And then there’s the hook, that provocative science fiction possibility full of ramifications. That creative idea anchored into a custom-fitted setting, demanding one’s attention. This is the kind of science fiction from which I derive delight.
Stross then decides to change things up. Our author is classed among those British, far future, hard science fiction writers that portray radical political ideas as realities in their envisioning. Much of their futures are concerned with freeing us 21st century Earthlings from our present constraints, whether they be technological, genetic, or cultural. Rather than show the reader those possibilities in the future, as the novel had so far proceeded, Stross decides to more directly confront the present. The fun to be had and the points to be made are still a form of juxtaposition, but instead of implicitly contrasting readers’ own subjective conditions with those written on the far future, Stross does so baldly. This replaces subtlety with directness, which might have been okay had Stross not been so hamfisted about our present. It was shocking to see someone so insightful and imaginative about the future to be so obvious and trite about the now. And not only did the inventive reversals and inside-out looks at culture stop, but a sloppiness slipped into the worldbuilding and plot as Stross tried to add in additional mysteries and revelations. For about 70 percent of the telling, I was aghast at what had become of the story and what we were being expected to accept. Those initial chapters, however, were just so fabulously engaging that this novel should not be written off entirely. In fact, one enjoying shocks and twists might find the bulk of the tale gratifying. I’ll look back on it as a story that ended up averaging out the stylishly portrayed post-human future with a ghastly political commentary and confused mystery/thriller.
November 22, 2019
With mind uploading, matter duplication, and computer worms that infect the human brain, this is mostly space opera, right up to the convenient ending. The writing is rough and characterizations of women even worse, and it took far too long to read.
The universe of this stand alone novel seems to be familiar to the author, though I haven't read anything from it. As a standalone novel, it is rough going at times, and I had to reread sections to understand the bits of history provided under the assumption that they were relevant. The writing is uneven, and the main character uses the majority of opportunities letting us know she doesn't like being female. This is set in a future with new time units, but the author slips back into archaic units often. Perhaps an editor could help?
The novel had bits of humor, and references to popular culture, from Zimbardo and Milgram to Leonard Cohen to the Prisoner. These references aren't subtle, striking the reader like a hammer at inconvenient times. Be seeing you, indeed. 2 stars (out of 5).
The universe of this stand alone novel seems to be familiar to the author, though I haven't read anything from it. As a standalone novel, it is rough going at times, and I had to reread sections to understand the bits of history provided under the assumption that they were relevant. The writing is uneven, and the main character uses the majority of opportunities letting us know she doesn't like being female. This is set in a future with new time units, but the author slips back into archaic units often. Perhaps an editor could help?
The novel had bits of humor, and references to popular culture, from Zimbardo and Milgram to Leonard Cohen to the Prisoner. These references aren't subtle, striking the reader like a hammer at inconvenient times. Be seeing you, indeed. 2 stars (out of 5).
December 24, 2012
Oh Charlie Stross. I forgive you for Accellerando.
Seriously though, this is a fantastically well-done sci-fi novel. Stross is not the first writer to try and tackle a story where characters aren't sure who they really are. But he handles it with aplomb.
Glasshouse takes place in a very distant future where human beings can change bodies, memories, even personalities in the blink of a few pages. Who am I? Am I really who I think I am? Are my memories real or implanted? Do I have free will at all?
These are the kinds of questions that make for great philosophy debates and (usually) terrible novels. The reader too quickly gets lost in a murky soup where the characters and the plot have no real meaning, because everything could just be a fever dream.
Somehow Stross sidesteps all these problems and manages to stay grounded even as his characters swap genders, die and are resurrected, and question their own identities.
The plot, briefly, concerns a character named Robin, a 'ortho-normal' man who has recently undergone radical memory excision surgery. He remembers very little of his past life and even less about why his former self subjected him to the procedure.
He soon comes to suspect that it may have something to do with an old neurological virus called Curious Yellow, which wipes out memories of certain past events and lead to the collapse of civilization and the outbreak of the Censorship Wars.
Robin meets a fellow amnesiac patient named Kay and they fall in love. Believing that enemies he can't even remember are pursuing him, Robin and Kay decide to enroll in an experimental project that will place them in new bodies in a recreation of the late twentieth century. There they will be safe from the outside world. The catch is that the won't initially be able to recognize each other.
However when Robin wakes up in the body of a woman named Reeve and finds himself trapped in a Stepford Wives-version of suburbia, the experiment quickly takes a sinister turn. What appeared to be an escape is rapidly turning into a prison. And Robin/Reeve can't be sure who Kay is, or if she's even in the experiment. And s/he definitely doesn't know who to trust.
But Robin/Reeve was a soldier in another life and she has no interest in playing house-wife. She is definitely not going to take this lying down.
Recommended for all sci-fi fans.
Seriously though, this is a fantastically well-done sci-fi novel. Stross is not the first writer to try and tackle a story where characters aren't sure who they really are. But he handles it with aplomb.
Glasshouse takes place in a very distant future where human beings can change bodies, memories, even personalities in the blink of a few pages. Who am I? Am I really who I think I am? Are my memories real or implanted? Do I have free will at all?
These are the kinds of questions that make for great philosophy debates and (usually) terrible novels. The reader too quickly gets lost in a murky soup where the characters and the plot have no real meaning, because everything could just be a fever dream.
Somehow Stross sidesteps all these problems and manages to stay grounded even as his characters swap genders, die and are resurrected, and question their own identities.
The plot, briefly, concerns a character named Robin, a 'ortho-normal' man who has recently undergone radical memory excision surgery. He remembers very little of his past life and even less about why his former self subjected him to the procedure.
He soon comes to suspect that it may have something to do with an old neurological virus called Curious Yellow, which wipes out memories of certain past events and lead to the collapse of civilization and the outbreak of the Censorship Wars.
Robin meets a fellow amnesiac patient named Kay and they fall in love. Believing that enemies he can't even remember are pursuing him, Robin and Kay decide to enroll in an experimental project that will place them in new bodies in a recreation of the late twentieth century. There they will be safe from the outside world. The catch is that the won't initially be able to recognize each other.
However when Robin wakes up in the body of a woman named Reeve and finds himself trapped in a Stepford Wives-version of suburbia, the experiment quickly takes a sinister turn. What appeared to be an escape is rapidly turning into a prison. And Robin/Reeve can't be sure who Kay is, or if she's even in the experiment. And s/he definitely doesn't know who to trust.
But Robin/Reeve was a soldier in another life and she has no interest in playing house-wife. She is definitely not going to take this lying down.
Recommended for all sci-fi fans.
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