Book Review: Glasshouse

Glasshouse by Charles Stross tells the story of Robin/Reeve in a world where intelligent beings have reached a point that traveling through space is as simple as sending packets across a router. You can live forever, but there are still hazards that could kill you or worse, steal your identity. Robin has recently gone through a procedure to remove large segments of his memory. This is a pretty common procedure for people. Robin believes he has specific horrible events that he needs to remove either from recent virus wars or some other traumatic feature. As part of his recovery, he has decided to enter an experiment that should help him find new focus and life. Instead he finds himself in a prison run by the things he is trying to forget.

I have found this sequel to Accelerando to be a good read. Mr. Stross has taken basic networking concepts and applied them to the life and movement of humans in the future. When you can take a backup of who you are now, you definitely would live your life differently. In addition, the problems you face are drastically different when you start learning of viruses and firewalls. He takes the idea of hacking to body types, memories, behavioral reward systems, and transport worm holes.