A review by beckylbrydon
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi

3.0

One of the most confusing books I've read, mainly because Rajaniemi doesn't explain key concepts that he introduces at the start of the book until much later. It starts out really strong and interesting but then slowly everything is introduced without very much explanation so at some point, things stopped making sense anymore....
When they finally made sense again (thanks to an online glossary, which I recommend you have open.... http://www.karangill.com/glossary-quantum-thief-fractal-prince-jean-le-flambeur/) the ending came and made it vaguelly confusing all over again.

The next bit isn't really a spoiler, more context... but if you want the joy of trying to figure it all out by yourself then do skip this bit.

Spoiler

This all takes place in the Oubliette, which is a moving city on Mars, where Time is currency stored in Watches. When your Time runs out you're mind is transfered (uploaded and downloaded) into a robot-Quiet-thing which does manual labour to earn more Time. At some point you are then transferred back into a humanoid-robot-body to spend your Time as a human. As a human, change your privacy settings dependent on the situation using something called gevelout, determining how much people see or remember of their time with you. Public memories are stored to the exomemory and can be accessed by anyone by 'blinking. Then theres things called gogols, which something to do with the uploaded minds which can apparently be used as a weapon, which people steal by forcibly uploading peoples minds...

Spoiler

In all it was an interesting book with a very intricate plot line, but because most of the time I didn't know what was going on I have no idea as to whether I would pick up the sequel for fear of it making even less sense