You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
As shown by the four stars, I very much liked Rule 34, but...
Its predecessor, [b:Halting State|222472|Halting State|Charles Stross|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1232769480s/222472.jpg|930563], was better. Here, the ending felt a little bit rushed rather than tension-filled. And the imperative narration style ("You go into the room and see...") worked well with Halting State because that story dealt with gaming, and so the narration was reminiscent of D&D sessions. That isn't the case with Rule 34. Still, the characters are interesting and well-fleshed out. The plot is definitely not typical. And Stross' imagination is so fecund, he can turn out a one-paragraph sidebar that could easily become a novel on its own. (See the bit about the "Morningside Cannibals"). Even though it stands on its own, if you haven't already, read Halting State first, then come and enjoy this story.
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
This book surprised me, and I love surprises. I was not expecting something that would make me deep think as much as I did while reading this. First off, it is mostly in second person, which took me off guard at first, but I quickly adjusted to it within a couple pages. What further caught me off guard was that the second person does not stick to one character, but we get the second person perspective of multiple characters in different chapters throughout the book, and once I got to the end I realized why. The moment I realized why this perspective fit so well, it changed how I viewed the whole book. I think this is one of those stories where you can go back and read it a second time and get a different experience, which is a great accomplishment for any author.
I do have to say that I didn't care much about the well-being of the characters. They all annoyed me to some extent, but not to a point where it distracted from the story. I almost feel like that might been intentional, but I guess that depends on how you want to interpret the message of the book.
I am definitely interested in picking up this author's other book set in the same world.
I do have to say that I didn't care much about the well-being of the characters. They all annoyed me to some extent, but not to a point where it distracted from the story. I almost feel like that might been intentional, but I guess that depends on how you want to interpret the message of the book.
I am definitely interested in picking up this author's other book set in the same world.
Marvellous!
Brilliant story set in a disturbingly plausible near future. Brilliantly written with references to Tom Lehrer, Monty Python and entirely relevant meanders into philosophy of mind and AI, and ethics and the free will problem.
As a computer geek with interests in 3D printing, AI, philosophy, psychology, crime fiction, expert systems, Scotland, dystopic futures and more, this pushed so many of my buttons, it might as well have been written for me!
Brilliant story set in a disturbingly plausible near future. Brilliantly written with references to Tom Lehrer, Monty Python and entirely relevant meanders into philosophy of mind and AI, and ethics and the free will problem.
As a computer geek with interests in 3D printing, AI, philosophy, psychology, crime fiction, expert systems, Scotland, dystopic futures and more, this pushed so many of my buttons, it might as well have been written for me!
Original 2011 review:
The sort of sequel to Halting State. Stross maintains the second person narrative that many found annoying in HS, but I, again, found it immersive.
The name of the book is a little off, since internet porn isn't as much of a feature as it would lead one to believe. Instead, it deals with some of the interesting questions that come up when you look at spam and the efforts to stop it.
There are plenty of small cool tech bits added to the augmented reality stuff that features so prominently in HS. Makerbots feature prominently, among other things.
My internal casting call is apparently still at work - I couldn't shake the mental image of Toby Jones as the Gnome.
Also of some interest is that most of the main characters are some flavour of GLBTetc., and as it's a near future book, some of the predictions for how that folds into Edinburgh society is interesting
in its subtlety.
Stylistically, I found myself noting echoes of William Gibson and Warren Ellis in Stross' prose. There was far less of the wall-of-Strossbabble that is so often noticeable in his work. That, combined with the lack of a unix geek/coder stereotype character makes Rule 34 feel a little
more mature - it seems to me that Stross is stretching his writerly muscles a bit here, and the result is lovely.
*********************************
2019 audiobook review
This holds up moderately well. The politics of queerness feel a little off in 2019, and the tech predictions are a bit ambitious for a world where google glass was a failure. The story is still solid, though, and the parts about policing and AI still work.
It's interesting going back through the late noughts/early teens of Stross' work and realizing how much of a focus he was putting on economics, with the Merchant Princes books, the Saturn's Children/Neptunes Brood books and the Halting State series here. I hadn't really picked up on how much of a theme it was in his work when I was reading them as they came out.
The audiobook component is pretty good. The reader is Scottish, and handles the UK accents well. His American accent is a bit dodgy, but I am willing to forgive that for the perfect voice he does for the Gnome.
The sort of sequel to Halting State. Stross maintains the second person narrative that many found annoying in HS, but I, again, found it immersive.
The name of the book is a little off, since internet porn isn't as much of a feature as it would lead one to believe. Instead, it deals with some of the interesting questions that come up when you look at spam and the efforts to stop it.
There are plenty of small cool tech bits added to the augmented reality stuff that features so prominently in HS. Makerbots feature prominently, among other things.
My internal casting call is apparently still at work - I couldn't shake the mental image of Toby Jones as the Gnome.
Also of some interest is that most of the main characters are some flavour of GLBTetc., and as it's a near future book, some of the predictions for how that folds into Edinburgh society is interesting
in its subtlety.
Stylistically, I found myself noting echoes of William Gibson and Warren Ellis in Stross' prose. There was far less of the wall-of-Strossbabble that is so often noticeable in his work. That, combined with the lack of a unix geek/coder stereotype character makes Rule 34 feel a little
more mature - it seems to me that Stross is stretching his writerly muscles a bit here, and the result is lovely.
*********************************
2019 audiobook review
This holds up moderately well. The politics of queerness feel a little off in 2019, and the tech predictions are a bit ambitious for a world where google glass was a failure. The story is still solid, though, and the parts about policing and AI still work.
It's interesting going back through the late noughts/early teens of Stross' work and realizing how much of a focus he was putting on economics, with the Merchant Princes books, the Saturn's Children/Neptunes Brood books and the Halting State series here. I hadn't really picked up on how much of a theme it was in his work when I was reading them as they came out.
The audiobook component is pretty good. The reader is Scottish, and handles the UK accents well. His American accent is a bit dodgy, but I am willing to forgive that for the perfect voice he does for the Gnome.
http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1917683.html[return][return]Rule 34 ticked a lot of my boxes, dealing with the relationships between small state-like entities (in this case, a near-future Scotland and a fictional Central Asian republic) and also with the relationships between law enforcement, social networks and artificial intelligence, as well as quite deliberately referencing Ian Rankin's excellent Rebus novels. My only serious stylistic quibble is that the second person voice, which was appropriate for Halting State, the game-centred previous novel in this sequence, seems a bit more forced here. But otherwise it's an effective mix of techno-horror and black humour, and I enjoyed it more than any of the other books on the shortlist.
I thought this book was fascinating but too short for the author to really explain his ideas. The ending seemed abrupt.
I really, REALLY wanted to like this book, but I just couldn't penetrate the second person perspective. I love Stross' other books, but I think that 2nd person should be left to instruction manuals.
Wow, I'm glad I read this after Stephenson's REAMDE, because I probably would have given the former a much lower star-score if I'd read this first.
I loved Halting State, and I love the way Stross gets his world-building across, the quirks and all-too-human natures of his characters, and the sardonic wit that permeates his work.
Stross writes for geeks, and here we have Sue presiding over the Rule 34 squad, a motley collection of cops who patrol the outer fringes of the interwebs in search of undesireables. She's called out at end of shift to a "two wetsuit job" and finds herself tumbling head-first down a rabbit hole into a world where internet memes, murderous household appliances, a psychopathic upper manager for an Organised crime group and a newly "liberated" nation collide.
Simply put, the book is tons of fun: brimful of laughs, pathos and with a plot as tight as a newly tautened drum-head. I'm already looking forward to the next in the series.
I loved Halting State, and I love the way Stross gets his world-building across, the quirks and all-too-human natures of his characters, and the sardonic wit that permeates his work.
Stross writes for geeks, and here we have Sue presiding over the Rule 34 squad, a motley collection of cops who patrol the outer fringes of the interwebs in search of undesireables. She's called out at end of shift to a "two wetsuit job" and finds herself tumbling head-first down a rabbit hole into a world where internet memes, murderous household appliances, a psychopathic upper manager for an Organised crime group and a newly "liberated" nation collide.
Simply put, the book is tons of fun: brimful of laughs, pathos and with a plot as tight as a newly tautened drum-head. I'm already looking forward to the next in the series.
The problem with most sci-fi books is the future they depict: too alien, too unfamiliar. Even though Rule 34 is set in the future, it's actually very near-future, resulting in a world that feels like you and I might be living in... now or maybe a couple of years from now.
I like the implications here. It's familiar territory, the nerd-speak is accessible, no mumbo jumbo that authors go crazy over, and a future that we are quite possibly headed at.
Other than that, the characters were okay, the plot cool, and the execution snappy. There's a problem though: the voices sort of meld together, which can cause problems as you go deeper into the book.
I highly recommend the book, but be prepared for a seriously carbon-friendly, net-savvy, augmented reality-wielding, bitter and cynical future. Have fun.
I like the implications here. It's familiar territory, the nerd-speak is accessible, no mumbo jumbo that authors go crazy over, and a future that we are quite possibly headed at.
Other than that, the characters were okay, the plot cool, and the execution snappy. There's a problem though: the voices sort of meld together, which can cause problems as you go deeper into the book.
I highly recommend the book, but be prepared for a seriously carbon-friendly, net-savvy, augmented reality-wielding, bitter and cynical future. Have fun.
This post singularity novel is Stross is very witty. The moral, of course, is be careful what you wish for.