Glasshouse (Leather Bound)

~ Charles Stross (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Signed by author. Brand new! LEATHER BOUND book accented in 22kt gold!

Product Details

• Leather Bound
• Publisher: Easton Press; 1st edition (2005)
• ASIN: B000KWC2KO
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #7,284,835 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Stross's best novel yet? Don't miss, July 31, 2007

By	Peter D. Tillman (Taos, NM USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"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 latest and best (so far) 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.

It's the 27th century. People have moved to space, in habitats around brown-dwarf stars, linked by instantaneous T-gate wormholes. Their health, wealth and daily sundries are supplied by A-gates, nanotech assemblers that can store, edit and recreate most anything, including the posthumans. But the security on the gate network, well, wasn't....

I had a whole lot of fun reading GLASSHOUSE, which is a spicy blend of bleeding-edge SF extrapolation, cool, complex characters, an amazing number of plot-twists, and wonderful storytelling. This is a mature work, with the author in full control of his tools. The book has the feel of Robert Heinlein at his best: a matter-of-fact recounting of daily life in a far-future world that's taken some very strange turns.

Stross's energy and imagination never flag, and the book comes to a satisfying (if a bit formulaic) conclusion. Look for it on next year's award-ballots. Highly recommended.

Here is Amazon's main entry for Glasshouse.

Happy reading--
Peter D. Tillman