Submitted by Chris (The Book Swede) 
(Aug 17, 2007)Halting State is a forthcoming title and will be published by Orbit in the UK in January of next year. It should be in the US sometime later this year.
Charles Stross has quickly become one of my favourite authors of science-fiction, so you can imagine my pleasure when this bound proof turned up unannounced on my doorstep a week ago! Thanks go to George at Orbit.
A robbery at Hayek Associates--a robbery within one of their online games. An employee blabs to the police when he should have followed the correct procedural rules... Enter Sue Smith, a sergeant with the police, and a woman with much better things to be doing than chasing nerds round an office.
Until the first body shows up. Followed quickly by an EU elite anti-terrorism unit...
I've felt that too much was taken for granted of readers' knowledge in certain areas in previous Stross books--but this is not so with Halting State. There were occasional moments when I felt like I was about to drown in information, but it soon picked up again. Indeed, that was the only failing of this book, and a minute one at that. This book is the easiest of Stross' to sink into, and the pace is electrifying. Set in the near future, with the break-up of the United Kingdom, the main story takes place in Scotland (hence some of the slang and occasional weird spellings!), with a massive act of electronic terrorism urgently needing averting.
Halting State is, rather unusually told in second person narrative. That is to say, "You went" instead of "I went" or "He went". When I noticed that the multiple POVs were all to be told in this way, I was worried that it would become a bit too confusing. I was wrong. I got rather used to it, and it enmeshed the different story lines together rather well and much better than any other style of narrative would have.
The story and characterisation is typical Stross, that is to say, brilliant. There's no chance of second guessing all the twists and turns, which is what makes Stross such fun. A re-read will be necessary to put everything in order and that is something I look forward to greatly. It'll also be interesting in future years to see how things pan out--the events of this book are wildly unbelievable and yet totally plausible at the same time.
All in all, a cracking read, and the best book by Charles Stross I have ever read. A book definitely not to missed when it comes out to general release. Nothing seems capable of Halting Charles Stross; the State of his writing remains the same: getting better and better. Nine out of Ten.
This review first appeared on my blog: thebookswede.blogspot.com
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