I'm not good at doing traditional reviews. My mind is too parallel and my thoughts on work too tangled. So instead of doing a review, I'm going to vomit up my thoughts on The Fractal Prince cause PEEPS NEED TO KNOW.
The Fractal Prince is the most important science fiction book of 2012 in the same way that The Quantum Thief was of 2011. Hannu Rajaniemi is the most important science fiction writer since Gene Wolfe was forged from the primordial godfire and gifted unto us, and his first series is the most important series since The Book of the New Sun. Yes, you read that correctly. I'm not being hyperbolic about this either. You only need to read his excellent short (set in the same universe) "The Server and the Dragon" to recognize the depth of genius this young man has. I mean it is good. As a reader, it melts your brain with its depth and complexity. As a writer, it's intimidating just to imagine someone writing it.
Fractal Prince improves on the almost near-perfect Quantum Thief in almost every way. The characters are deeper; the settings more wild; the plot more complex; the themes more abundant. Fractal Prince uses multiple POVs, multiple types of POV, multiple tenses, nonlinearity of main plots, an Inception-level of stories within stories, and the prose of a Nobel laureate to paint a vivid, concrete dreamland of a post-Singularity Solar System. Living representations of code and mathematical formulae obfuscate the meatspace reality from the far more real spimescape and virtual realms that populate the system. The concept of a "gray goo scenario" is twisted and explored to a conclusion that no one could for-see. There is also a heavy influence of The Arabian Nights, somewhat reflecting the influence of neo-noir on Quantum Thief.
It would be false to say that the main theme is identity, although it's the closest words can express. Whether it's the morality of creating a million slave-copies of yourself only to feed them to a ravenous digital virus or occupying the mind of others, Fractal Prince really messes with your sense of who's who, right up to the final pages of the book.
The difference between these books and the other "Hard" science fiction books being published is that Hannu has created a future that is at once plausible and whimsical, extrapolated from our modern world in a very realistic way. However, even as I look around and think about when these concepts will come to pass, I can only help thinking that when (and I do mean when) some transhuman in the year 2500 downloads the thoughtform of this book into their diamond mind, they'll also wonder when these miracles will come to pass. He has made a future-proof science fiction novel, which I didn't believe possible.
In The Fractal Prince doesn't win every major genre award next year, I will be incredibly disappointed. Genre needs to wake up and be smacked in the face by what these books have accomplished. They are brave and innovative and beautiful and hopeful. They are helping to fix everything that's wrong with genre literature, and yes, they're difficult reads, but that's what makes it worth it. They don't look back like so many genre books (including many award winners) providing homage after allusion after trope; they don't have a thousand references to Asimov and Clarke and Heinlein; they don't poke fun at cliche, nor delve into that shallow well that is satire. This series has torn science fiction apart and is serving to remake it in its own image. Let's hope that the community will allow it to succeed.
In the most succinct way I can put it, the writing of Hannu Rajaniemi leaves all other science fiction impotent. Now go read while I nurse a serious case of post-book depression.
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Top reviews from other countries
SVS
Easy to read, complex to understand, but that's good
Reviewed in France on October 27, 2019
Tim
Great hard SF read. Excellent characters and plot.
Reviewed in Australia on October 12, 2021