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In the world of TQF/TFP it may not matter too much. But yeah, Jean had a life before the Aun, the Aun were definitely created by Matjek (whether or not his hand was guided by something in the creation remains to be seen, but I felt like the author hinted at a more complex existence for the Aun than just being personalities created by a child genius, there's very little mysticism so far in this series, just technology as magic). The way these people incorporate and shed brains and personalities probably doesn't make for too much distinction after awhile. Either Jean is the Flower Prince posing as a thief, or the thief is still the thief who has taken on characteristics and powers of the Flower Prince. What those powers are remains to be seen, but Matjek's founder codes seem extremely valuable, and if most of the technology in the world came from advances by the Sobernost, it stands to reason that gaining that kind of access over things would give you amazing powers.
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May 10, 2013 00:50
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I remember reading the Quantum Thief on a whim purchase a few months back and absolutely loving it. So glad to rediscover this thread and remember it so I can read it again and pick up The Fractal Prince. Thanks Goons. 
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May 10, 2013 01:22
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Has anyone heard anything about book 3?
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May 10, 2013 01:52
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MRC48B posted:Has anyone heard anything about book 3? I don't see anything on a book 3 yet. Though he did Quantum Thief in 2010, and Fractal Prince in 2012, that seems like a fast turn around. Maybe we can hope for the 3rd book in 2014? Loving Life Partner posted:In the world of TQF/TFP it may not matter too much. But yeah, Jean had a life before the Aun, the Aun were definitely created by Matjek (whether or not his hand was guided by something in the creation remains to be seen, but I felt like the author hinted at a more complex existence for the Aun than just being personalities created by a child genius, there's very little mysticism so far in this series, just technology as magic). The way these people incorporate and shed brains and personalities probably doesn't make for too much distinction after awhile. Either Jean is the Flower Prince posing as a thief, or the thief is still the thief who has taken on characteristics and powers of the Flower Prince. What those powers are remains to be seen, but Matjek's founder codes seem extremely valuable, and if most of the technology in the world came from advances by the Sobernost, it stands to reason that gaining that kind of access over things would give you amazing powers. Yeah, I think it also implies the Aun aren't quite the same thing as Matjek's fantasy childhood creations. There was something about them being around before the first major upload or something, it's hard to say. It seems like the two major technology powers are the Zoku and the Sobornost, and they're fighting over which way to organize the universe...though the second book seemed to heavily imply the Sobornost are the main aggressors in this? One thing I was confused about was the Sobornost seem to have serious issues with manufacturing 'new experiences', which is why they'd go to the length of stealing Oubliette Gogols (at least it's implied in book 1). In book 2, the Sobornost, or at least Matjek seems to straight up hate quantum mechanics, but it also implies that vir have trouble simulating the minutia of reality so they need it in some sense. Though I guess each of the Sobornost Primes have different goals, and we've really only seen the goals of The Hsein-Ku and Matjek at this point. Which is something that kind of bugged me with book 2, there was a lot of wheel spinning filler. A major critique I've read is that these books need more exposition, which I don't think is true. I just think the second book in particular suffered from not having as tight of a narrative. Then again if he turned it out in only two years...
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May 10, 2013 02:53
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The Aun implying they'd been around beforehand was because they are archetypes which are pervasive throughout humankind, but before they perished when any given human did. They pretty much straight out state that.
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May 10, 2013 11:47
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I just finished Quantum Thief and came in for some clarification on the ending/situations and I kinda have a differing perspective on it, though I think I need to reread the relevant sections, I'm starting to doubt I got it right myself now - I read it as Le Flambeur was the one to transform the prison of Mars to a functional, happy society, then he left Le Roi and some others to take care of it. Le Roi calls himself the Gardener a couple of times and says there used to be more gardeners. Le Flambeur spends a while just chillin' on Mars, hanging out, taking a break from stealing Gods and the like, then he decides to leave, builds the memory palace and forgets all of his memories of everything he did there. I've not read FP yet so maybe that contradicts what I'm thinking, or maybe I missed something somewhere. The OP wasn't lying when they said these books punish a lazy reader. Looking forward to FP though. These are some of the best Sci-Fi I've read. I like how deeply they revel in the old Sci-Fi problem of having to introduce a thousand concepts and weirdness. Early on it feels like its just randomly throwing terms at you with no care in the world for if you can put together what the hell they're trying to say or not. It makes it hard for someone who doesn't read Sci-Fi much, but makes for an awesome reading if you're already sold on mind uploads and multi-bodies and Q-Dots and whatever.
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May 12, 2013 17:05
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coffeetable posted:The opening for TQT stopped me short the first time round. I find it kind of surprising that he chose to open with the prison, as on page 1 it requires a leap of faith on behalf of the reader to continue even though they're drowning in jargon and don't have a damned clue what's happening. By half-way through the book that's fine, as you've realised that Rajaniemi will explain things eventually, but at the very start it's jarring. I'm glad I came in here and read this post because I just started TQT, and was about to return it to the store. Although I have to say that even if he does end up explaining everything, I think the over-abundance of weird future stuff is just bad form. We get it, you can make up really weird poo poo, now get on with the story please.
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May 13, 2013 07:34
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Mr.48 posted:I'm glad I came in here and read this post because I just started TQT, and was about to return it to the store. Although I have to say that even if he does end up explaining everything, I think the over-abundance of weird future stuff is just bad form. We get it, you can make up really weird poo poo, now get on with the story please. If anything I'd say most science fiction doesn't go far enough to create 'weird future stuff'. One of the best things about this series, to me at least, is it's willing to explore some out there concepts about the potential of a post-human society. In order to do that, you can either drop new terms in and respect your readers enough to catch on, or you can put in a bunch of belabored exposition. The Quantum Thief makes the right choice in my opinion. All too often a lot of science fiction ends up being just space opera, or worse, derivative fiction based off of other established things, which is why a lot of genre fiction is completely written off. Without all the 'weird poo poo' it would have just been Arsene Lupin in space. with its follow up sequel 'arabian space nights'.
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May 13, 2013 13:39
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Space-Bird posted:Without all the 'weird poo poo' it would have just been Arsene Lupin in space. with its follow up sequel 'arabian space nights'. He should use my "Tales of Transhuman Nights meets Quantum Starship Boogaloo" from page 1 as a cover blurb.
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May 13, 2013 19:59
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Space-Bird posted:If anything I'd say most science fiction doesn't go far enough to create 'weird future stuff'. One of the best things about this series, to me at least, is it's willing to explore some out there concepts about the potential of a post-human society. In order to do that, you can either drop new terms in and respect your readers enough to catch on, or you can put in a bunch of belabored exposition. The Quantum Thief makes the right choice in my opinion. All too often a lot of science fiction ends up being just space opera, or worse, derivative fiction based off of other established things, which is why a lot of genre fiction is completely written off. Without all the 'weird poo poo' it would have just been Arsene Lupin in space. with its follow up sequel 'arabian space nights'. Weird future stuff is good when its important for the story or for making the author's universe work, but when its just thrown around in throwaway lines it just gets on my nerves.
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May 13, 2013 22:48
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Dunno, I think Rajaniemi incorporates it almost poetically. I love the way he writes prose, especially with "weird future poo poo", I like to pick apart the concepts myself and imagine what they look like and what their implementation is. When I started TQF, it was a bit overwhelming, but then about a quarter of the way in, I just let it wash over me and enjoyed the story, which is really really good itself. Then later I'd find myself looking at particular passages or chewing on different things he talked about to figure out exactly what they were. It's great brain candy that way.
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May 13, 2013 23:08
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What I really like about Rajaniemi's implementation of "weird future poo poo" is that he throws a lot of it at you, but he only pauses to explain the stuff when knowledge of it is required for the plot to make sense to the reader. The rest is left for the reader to figure out through context. Obviously it's not something that will work for everyone, but it's something that hits the right notes for me.
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May 14, 2013 03:58
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Xenix posted:If that's true then why were Raymonde and Gilbertine so pissed at Jean-who-was-Paul instead of Le Roi? I don't think anyone else answered this, so: he implies that he altered Raymonde's memories of the situation when she entered the quiet so she'd believe that Jean-who-was-Paul abandoned their child.
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May 17, 2013 04:40
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I just finished TFP last night and while I managed to understand almost everything by the end, there are a few lingering questions, most of which I'm sure stem from the fact that I read the book over the course of a few months, so I forgot a few details along the way. 1.) Can someone explain the course that the Kaminari Jewel takes during the story? It seems to travel randomly from one point of the narrative to the other. I gathered that The Sumanguru warmind recovered it from the wreckage of the zoku fleet he destroyed and brought it to the Chen prior to his being trapped in the Schroedinger's Box, but how did it get from there to Jean's possession, and from there, how did he manage to get the Pellegrini to take the fake while the real one remained onboard Perhonen? 2.) What was the significance of the story of the circle and square? 3.) Possibly related to the above: When the story refers to bootstrapping in reference to body stealing, what does that mean? Is that a repurposed computer science term?
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May 20, 2013 13:28
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Danhenge posted:I don't think anyone else answered this, so: he implies that he altered Raymonde's memories of the situation when she entered the quiet so she'd believe that Jean-who-was-Paul abandoned their child. I took it as Jean was the biological father, but he was never around to be a parent. Jean gave the man who raised Isidor the credit for being the "real" father because he was around to do the work in raising him. I could be wrong though, I had to go back more than a few times over the 2 books to re-clarify some things.
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May 21, 2013 23:02
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Neurosis posted:Regarding the requirement for a body in Altered Carbon: (Alterec Carbon and A Land Fit For Heroes spoilers) the far far future, where Kovacs and some other Envoys appear to be ethereal gods.
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May 22, 2013 04:29
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I finally bothered to start rereading and I'm almost through The Quantum Thief. Man, it's so much better the second time.
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Jun 12, 2013 15:56
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Third book is due in early 2014 and titled as The Casual Angel. Also a new trilogy on way, starting with Summerland, due late 2014. http://www.johnjarrold.co.uk/news/971/six-figure-world-rights-deal-for-hannu-rajaniemi/
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Jul 7, 2013 09:27
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Vaz posted:Third book is due in early 2014 and titled as The Casual Angel. Also a new trilogy on way, starting with Summerland, due late 2014.  Causal Angel though. Time travel ahoy! And it's funny how the agent quotes himself in his own press release.
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Jul 7, 2013 16:05
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Glad to see Rajaniemi getting another contract so soon. Two books in a single year is a very pleasant surprise and I can't wait to see what he has planned for his next trilogy.
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Jul 7, 2013 17:34
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drat! I really liked the idea of a casual angel. "Yeah, specialising in redemptions mostly. Pretty good contract work, while the market's healthy."
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Jul 8, 2013 00:50
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I'm so glad I discovered this book because it's the poo poo.
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Jul 29, 2013 13:13
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On a reread of the quantum thief I find I'm a bit confused about the nature of the oubliette vs mars as a whole. There are references to small towns and other moving cities but also references to the oubliette as though it's all of Martian society. Does the gevulot system encompass all of mars? If not part of the end of the book doesn't make sense to me.
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Aug 10, 2013 01:59
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andrew smash posted:On a reread of the quantum thief I find I'm a bit confused about the nature of the oubliette vs mars as a whole. There are references to small towns and other moving cities but also references to the oubliette as though it's all of Martian society. Does the gevulot system encompass all of mars? If not part of the end of the book doesn't make sense to me. The oubliette is all of Martian society and it is the gevulot system(gevulot I think is nano-tech/encryption software?). There's stuff outside the moving cities/oubliette/gevulot which is nutso angry replicant machines I believe.
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Aug 12, 2013 17:58
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Sil posted:The oubliette is all of Martian society and it is the gevulot system(gevulot I think is nano-tech/encryption software?). There's stuff outside the moving cities/oubliette/gevulot which is nutso angry replicant machines I believe. Yeah i guess the fact that customs Quiet work in orbit implies the general system functions all over mars. There is a reference though to Raymonde growing up in something other than one of the moving cities (of which the oubliette seems to be the archetype). There is definitely more than one moving city as well.
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Aug 13, 2013 02:53
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Keeping in mind that I'm only 60% through the Quantum Thief, I'm under the impression the moving cities are re-terraforming Mars after all the prior terraforming was undone by the Phoboi during The Revolution.
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Aug 14, 2013 00:49
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Snuffman posted:Keeping in mind that I'm only 60% through the Quantum Thief, I'm under the impression the moving cities are re-terraforming Mars after all the prior terraforming was undone by the Phoboi during The Revolution. You're not wrong but the process is not one with an end point. The cities and quiet continually terraform the surface in their path and the phoboi continually destroy their progress.
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Aug 14, 2013 01:52
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andrew smash posted:You're not wrong but the process is not one with an end point. The cities and quiet continually terraform the surface in their path and the phoboi continually destroy their progress. From how I read it, the Quiet are not terraforming so much as simply building defenses against the Phoboi to protect the cities from being over run. The Phoboi are terraforming machines run wild.
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Aug 15, 2013 03:14
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Bruxism posted:From how I read it, the Quiet are not terraforming so much as simply building defenses against the Phoboi to protect the cities from being over run. The Phoboi are terraforming machines run wild. It's implied based on the fact that there are farms and agriculture in the path of the city though. You're right about the source of the phoboi though i believe.
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Aug 15, 2013 03:36
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Finished "The Quantum Thief". Wow...someone earlier in the thread compared Rajaniemi to Gene Woolfe, and I'd say its a pretty apt comparison. I do think Gene Wolfe throws you way deeper into the "here's my setting FIGURE IT OUT" end of the pool but The Quantum Thief was engrossing and enjoyable. I love books like this where suddenly the setting just "clicks" and you "get it". Going to start the "Fractal Prince" tonight.
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Aug 17, 2013 01:35
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Snuffman posted:Finished "The Quantum Thief". I've read it twice in the past year and I really think it's my favorite book.
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Aug 17, 2013 03:08
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Snuffman posted:Finished "The Quantum Thief". I don't really agree with the comparison. Gene Wolfe is much more impermeable and buries things a lot deeper (to good effect, often). Rajaniemi lays it out there, you just have to be patient.
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Aug 17, 2013 05:17
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I finished The Quantum Thief a few weeks ago, really enjoyed his vision of melding physical and electronic worlds. I didn't find it dense so much as he hits you with a lot and expects the reader to remember something offhand that becomes more important later on. A lot of interesting takes on identity and split personas, it was pretty fun to try to figure it out ahead of time. Moving onto The Fractal Prince this week, really looking forward to it.
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Aug 17, 2013 15:49
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Just thought I'd stop in to say I've not read The Quantum Thief, as it was stolen shortly after I bought it. Guess someone couldn't resist the irony.
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Aug 17, 2013 15:53
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Snuffman posted:Finished "The Quantum Thief". Can you explain what you mean by that? How did the setting click and what did you get? I didn't think anything about it was confusing from page 1, but that is very much not the regular opinion.
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Aug 18, 2013 23:26
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Benson Cunningham posted:Can you explain what you mean by that? How did the setting click and what did you get? I didn't think anything about it was confusing from page 1, but that is very much not the regular opinion. I felt the same as you. I think a lot of people are used to genre fiction either having really heavy exposition, or it is so familiar (this is elves, and dwarfs, or analogue space napoleons) that being thrown into a new setting can be jarring for some. If you just go with the flow, stuff is revealed over time, and pretty easy to keep up with. If you're reading every new term and going "WHAT IS THIS I NEED TO KNOW NOW", I can see people getting frustrated.
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Aug 21, 2013 20:18
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Benson Cunningham posted:Can you explain what you mean by that? How did the setting click and what did you get? I didn't think anything about it was confusing from page 1, but that is very much not the regular opinion. Its hard to explain, I have the same experience with Gene Wolfe. The author is throwing all this terminology at you. The best example I can think of from the Quantum Thief off the top of my head is the gevulot. They just start talking about "opening the gevulot, hiding behind the gevulot, allowing permissions...ect ect. Exomemory, the name says it all. Gevulot, not so much. You have to figure out what it is within the context of the setting and then it makes sense. I find with the sci-fi fantasy I really enjoy, figuring out the setting plays a large role in making the setting believable. That all said, I may be missing something obvious with the word "gevulot" in that its maybe a real word that I'm not aware of. Gene Wolfe hid a lot of stuff behind latin words. Rajaniemi is better than Wolfe, as others have said, in that if you just trust him he explains what you need to know when you need to know. China Mieville's City and The City with "crosshatching" and "breach" (both a verb and a noun in the setting) would be another example of a setting that "clicks" after a certain point. EDIT: I will say, I don't NEED TO KNOW. I dislike huge info-dumps and like I said before figuring it out is why I like stuff like Book of the New Sun and The Quantum Thief. Snuffman fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 01:43
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I really like the gevulot example in particular since enough hints are given via context that you can figure it out on your own, but since it's important enough for the plot they eventually give you just enough information for you to understand what's important about it. I was able to figure out the gist of how it worked and then the explanation was able to fill in the holes. It was really rewarding! Heck, that's how most of the jargon is treated. You aren't told what combat-autism is but you're told what it does, and since it's not super important information it's good enough to just leave it at that. I really like that approach and wish more authors in both sci-fi and fantasy would go for it instead of sending the pacing to a screeching halt by stopping to explain things that don't need in-depth explanations. edit: k-uno posted:I think the setting is hard to follow in part because it's so alien to our current experience, and were the story to stop and explain exactly what the characters are talking about, whichever character was doing the explaining would sound like a complete idiot. Imagine that you're reading a crime thriller set in modern New York City, say, and two detectives are discussing where a suspect had been on the evening in question. If one detective were to stop in the middle and spend five pages of dialogue explaining that a cellphone is an electronic communication device which receives a signal from a network of towers spread throughout the city, thus allowing anyone who knows the unique identification number of the phone to "call" it at any time and transmit and receive audio signals, allowing that person to communicate with the person holding the phone, and further, the central computer of the company which administers these devices can track the relative signal strengths of the nearby towers when a "call" is made, so by contacting the company the detectives might be able to find out where the suspect had been on the night of... you see what I'm getting at, if you read that you would probably throw the book across the room in disgust. I have the perfect example to supplement this point: http://lpix.org/sslptest/index.php?id=224 Srice fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 17:41
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I think the setting is hard to follow in part because it's so alien to our current experience, and were the story to stop and explain exactly what the characters are talking about, whichever character was doing the explaining would sound like a complete idiot. Imagine that you're reading a crime thriller set in modern New York City, say, and two detectives are discussing where a suspect had been on the evening in question. If one detective were to stop in the middle and spend five pages of dialogue explaining that a cellphone is an electronic communication device which receives a signal from a network of towers spread throughout the city, thus allowing anyone who knows the unique identification number of the phone to "call" it at any time and transmit and receive audio signals, allowing that person to communicate with the person holding the phone, and further, the central computer of the company which administers these devices can track the relative signal strengths of the nearby towers when a "call" is made, so by contacting the company the detectives might be able to find out where the suspect had been on the night of... you see what I'm getting at, if you read that you would probably throw the book across the room in disgust. And in TQT and TFP, all of the insane technology which shapes the worlds the characters interact in--gevulot, mind copying/piracy, nanomachines, subatomic particle communication and weapons, the destruction of Jupiter--would be such basic facts of life to everyone involved, just as integrated into their lives as mobile phones, air travel and the internet are integrated into ours, that for them to regularly pause and and discuss the mundane details of it would come across as incredibly stilted and dumb. Rajaniemi is already doing the reader as much of a favor as he can by starting the protagonist in a relative state of amnesia, so a lot of the world is new to him, but going any further would have ruined a lot of the artfulness of the wonderful setting he's imagined. That said, I understand the physics involved pretty well, and I can imagine how someone without a science background would have a really hard time figuring out what's going on. I absolutely loved both books and found them to be the most imaginative sci fi I've read in many years, particularly the explanation toward the end of TFP for why the Zoku and Sobornost are at war. The Sobornost's "Great Common Task" is to upload the mind of everyone who has ever lived (and even try to reconstruct the minds of those who died before the invention of mind uploading) into classical computers, so that they can be copied repeatedly such that no matter how many computers are destroyed, the data will never be permanently lost so all of those copied minds will survive for eternity. The Zoku, on the other hand, believe that consciousness is quantum in nature, and since a quantum state cannot be duplicated, only altered or passed from one system to another (this is called the No-Cloning Theorem in modern physics), all attempts to copy one's mind into a classical state must fail to preserve consciousness and thus kill the person being copied, creating an artificial being which is no longer alive even if it appears to be to outside observers. The Sobornost believe they are eliminating death and making everyone immortal, and the Zoku believe that the Sobornost are trying to kill every conscious being in the solar system; such a difference can never be reconciled and the two sides will strive for the other's destruction until one or the other wins.
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Aug 22, 2013 17:45
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Srice posted:
Ahahaha, that's loving fantastic. That is indeed the perfect example of what I was trying to say. And if I remember correctly, it's bullshit like that (except about the fascinating wonder that is the late 90s internet) which made me put down The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo after a hundred pages or so and never look at it again. k-uno fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Aug 22, 2013 |
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Aug 22, 2013 18:33
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