Glasshouse

[sawyl]

In between thinking deep thoughts, cooking, flipping the radio from station to station and generally mooching, I was able to use part of today's day off to finish Glasshouse by Charlie Stross — something I picked up at the weekend with my Waterstones loyalty points. Here are a few thoughts.

It is the 27th century and humanity is slowly recovering from a particularly brutal conflict. After a seriously heavy memory edit, Robin can no longer remember who he is. He has vague memories of being involved in the Censorship Wars and, thanks to a letter from his unredacted self, a nasty feeling that someone wants to kill him. When he mentions this to Kay, his new girlfriend, she has a suggestion: why not send a copy of his personality into a closed experimental society for a few years.

Waking after a routine backup, Robin is surprised to find himself in a woman's body, trapped in a simulacrum of the 21st century. Robin, now called Reeve, sets up home with a depressive called Sam and starts to learn the rules of society: points are awarded for rampant consumerism, working, having children, deducted for negative actions and everything is enforced by a big score comparison meeting at church every Sunday. Rejecting the life of a conformist score-whore, Reeve devotes herself to uncovering Kay's new identity and finding a way to escape the existential horror of it all.

Glasshouse really worked for me. I was intrigued by some of the ideas about identity, I found the concept of an information virus designed to edit events out of history wonderfully bleak, and, as ever, I greatly appreciated all the little titbits Stross left lying around around to demonstrate his geeky erudition. I also was extremely impressed by the way that Stross managed to capture the existential horror of 21st century life by presenting it from outsider's perspective — Reeve's descriptions of the pointlessness of it all was almost enough to cast me into my very own slough of despond.

I liked the main characters and found that for all their dysfunctionality and 27th century outlook, their worries and concerns seemed very real — I found it very easy to root for Reeve and found, on the occasions when her focus slipped, that I wanted to sit down and tell her to concentration on the important things.The plot really rattles along, nicely served by Robin/Reeve's ignorance of their own past, which make it possible to tie in a series of historical flashbacks in a convincing way. Most enjoyable.