Glasshouse

"Glasshouse" by Charles Stross, published by Ace. ONE NIGHTMARISH PANOPTICON. *The New York Times * When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesnt take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. Its the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees personalitiesincluding Robins earlier self. On the run from a ruthless pursuer and searching for a place to hide, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity: the Glasshouse, a simulated pre-accelerated culture where participants are assigned anonymized identities. But what looks like the perfect sanctuary turns into a trap, placing Robin at the mercy of the experimentersand at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche ** From Publishers Weekly The censorship wars''during which the Curious Yellow virus devastated the network of wormhole gates connecting humanity across the cosmos''are finally over at the start of Hugo-winner Stross's brilliant new novel, set in the same far-future universe as 2005's Accelerando . Robin is one of millions who have had a mind wipe, to forget wartime memories that are too painful''or too dangerously inconvenient for someone else. To evade the enemies who don't think his mind wipe was enough, Robin volunteers to live in the experimental Glasshouse, a former prison for deranged war criminals that will recreate Earth's ''dark ages'' (c. 1950''2040). Entering the community as a female, Robin is initially appalled by life as a suburban housewife, then he realizes the other participants are all either retired spies or soldiers. Worse yet, fragments of old memories return''extremely dangerous in the Glasshouse, where the experimenters' intentions are as murky as Robin's grasp of his own identity. With nods to Kafka, James Tiptree and others, Stross's wry SF thriller satisfies on all levels, with memorable characters and enough brain-twisting extrapolation for five novels. (July) Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Hard on the heels of his acclaimed novel of mankind's evolving technological destiny, Accelerando (2005), Stross turns in another bravura performance with a fanciful glimpse at life in the twenty-seventh century. In an era of virtual immortality, where computer backups of human consciousness have become as routine as unlimited body modification, Robin is a patient in a rehab clinic for convalescents of voluntary memory erasure. With only scant clues, contained in a letter from his former self, to his previous and possibly espionage-related career, Robin quickly discovers his new identity offers little protection from several would-be assassins. Seizing the chance to evade his pursuers for good, he volunteers for a three-year experiment, devised by history professors, to simulate the ''dark ages'' of early-twenty-first-century society. As a participant in the guise of a middle-class housewife, Robin initially feels secure but soon suspects the experiment may simply be a clever front for his, or her, enemies. Stross amusingly recasts our own era into one of ''meaningless customs'' while blending suspenseful action with inventive, futuristic technology. Carl Hays Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved Formats : EPUB Pages : 394.0 Book details: published 2006. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.