You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A loose follow up to the excellent Halting State, Rule 34 features some of the secondary characters from that book and the same setting. But don't let that put you off. It could easily be read before reading Halting State. The connections aren't even clearly stated until about halfway through the book.
It also has a lot of the elements that made Halting State so enjoyable for me to read. Not least of which naturally is the Edinburgh setting and the refusal to dumb it down for people who won't get the local references.
I went to Edinburgh University and not only had lectures in Appleton Tower, but also used the computer science lab in there too. It was the place I learned to hate Apple Macs and appreciate Unix workstations. So the brief section that occurs in the building stirred up some memories.
However, I have to say I found this story less engaging than the previous one. In part I think it's just down to the fact there were fewer sympathetic viewpoint characters. A significant amount of time was spent seeing the world from a rather odious position.
The other problem was the ending, which was... abrupt. There was no real effort made to tie up the plot elements. Technically there was resolution, it just wasn't very satisfactory and I certainly didn't feel that any of the characters had progressed during the story.
For all that, its a fascinating exploration of a pretty credible near future where technology is ubiquitous and society is rapidly adapting to it.
It also has a lot of the elements that made Halting State so enjoyable for me to read. Not least of which naturally is the Edinburgh setting and the refusal to dumb it down for people who won't get the local references.
I went to Edinburgh University and not only had lectures in Appleton Tower, but also used the computer science lab in there too. It was the place I learned to hate Apple Macs and appreciate Unix workstations. So the brief section that occurs in the building stirred up some memories.
However, I have to say I found this story less engaging than the previous one. In part I think it's just down to the fact there were fewer sympathetic viewpoint characters. A significant amount of time was spent seeing the world from a rather odious position.
The other problem was the ending, which was... abrupt. There was no real effort made to tie up the plot elements. Technically there was resolution, it just wasn't very satisfactory and I certainly didn't feel that any of the characters had progressed during the story.
For all that, its a fascinating exploration of a pretty credible near future where technology is ubiquitous and society is rapidly adapting to it.