Halting State ~Charles Stross
–published 2007
–351 pages, Ace Books
–4.5/5 stars

A post cyberpunk, near-future caper. A spy-vs-spy story of greed, fraud and deception set in and among the world of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games). A police procedural techno-thriller with undercurrents of espionage and a healthy dose of so-near-you-can-almost-taste-it technology. A tale filled with hi-tech big-brother-is-watching-you gadgetry and gaming in-jokes with a dash of geek-on-geek romance thrown in for good measure.

These run on sentence, sound bite descriptions of Hugo and Locus award-winning author Charles Stross’ novel Halting State barely scratch the surface of the genres and sub-genres of storytelling that Stross successively incorporates into this arresting (pardon the pun) tale. Halting State is a novel whose technical achievement and craft is no doubt more readily apparent to those with a heady knowledge of computer science and online gaming and yet the novel maintains a sense of accessibility for the newbie throughout because of the backbone that this structure is built on: a good old fashioned heist story.

Halting State was an intriguing novel for so many reasons. For instance it is a story told in the second person narrative voice, something I am not sure that I ever recall reading previously. I was initially taken aback, however, it was not long before I was jacked in to the flow of this narrative structure . A quick Wiki search revealed that Stross wrote in this narrative voice as an homage to adventure games. The obviousness of this revelation nearly convinced me that I should surrender my gamer card to the first nerd I came in contact with. Looking back I can envision the entire novel unfolding in classic gaming narrative.

Charles Stross tells the story through a handful of characters, most notably a female police sergeant (whose Scottish accent and vocabulary become more pronounced as her stress level rises), a sword-fighting bank auditor, and a brilliant though unemployed computer programmer as they attempt to solve the theft of virtual property stolen from a virtual bank in an online gaming world. In successive chapters we see these three characters, and others, alternately brought together and moved apart in ways that build the story layer by layer, with a nice creamy filling of tension between each layer. This proves to be an effective story-telling method that uses the first 100 or so pages of the novel to give the reader a grip on just who these characters are while allowing the story to progress at a rate that maintains tension without overpowering character development. Stross earns kudos here. A novel this far off the beaten path in terms of its future-tech could have become overwhelming if the story had been pushed forward at the same breakneck speed as the technology curve the reader is asked to assimilate. As it was I found myself getting to know the characters while being able to appreciate the beautiful harmonization of Stross’ techno-speak.

Like any good mystery, there are ample twists and turns, lies and deceptions that allow the reader to experience the increasing suspense and paranoia that the characters are experiencing. In a novel like this, one must realize that red herrings abound. To Charles Stross’ credit he carries any moments of confusion just long enough to make the story interesting before revealing just enough to keep you turning the pages. In the later third of the book the story briefly bogs down with a few info dumps (and I do mean briefly) before Stross returns to the flow of the story. For a novel predicated on future technology I found the presence of a mere two obvious info dumps to be only a minor quibble.

Most novels of this kind, about an uncertain future, hit you over the head with the governmental-control-is-bad message so hard that it can take away from the other messages the story may be trying to convey. Not so with Halting State. The spying..the spook future referred to throughout the story…should by all rights feel heavy handed, and would so in the hands of a less experienced author. However Stross has the reader so caught up in the thriller aspects of the story that he/she doe not realize how truly terrifying it would be to live in that kind of world until it is too late. The true machines-are-taking-over-the-world, people-can-control-our-lives-with-computers fear sneaks up on you while you are lost in a tale of intrigue. Along the way the reader is treated to two separate but satisfying romances, one of which is a love note to Edinburgh, Scotland that Stross’ reveals if one reads between the lines of his text.

While certainly not entry-level science fiction, Halting State is an accessible story with a lyrical beat that is distinct and worth experiencing. The book’s eye-catching cover, illustrated by Sophie Toulouse, and its effusive praise from authors William Gibson and Vernor Vinge, from Doom and Quake developer John Carmack, and from The New York Times, among others, raises the bar pretty high and I can say with satisfaction that Halting State makes the grade.

One of my goals this year is to read more current science fiction. If only a few of the books that have recently been published or soon will be published are this entertaining, current science fiction has nothing to fear: a grand future is ahead. Charles Stross will be an author whose other works will be firmly attached to my to-read-in-the-future pile.