Glasshouse
When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone is trying to kill him. It's the 27th century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities and target historians. The civil war is over and Robin has been demobilized, but someone wants him out of the picture because of something his earlier self knew. On the run from a ruthless pursuer, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse, constructed to simulate a pre-accelerated culture. Participants are assigned anonymized identities: it looks like the ideal hiding place for a posthuman on the run. But in this escape-proof environment, Robin will undergo an even more radical change, placing him at the mercy of the experimenters--and the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche.--From publisher description
Stats for nerds
19recommend
52mentions
32people
2009–2026years
71% recommend29% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Love the Culture books, wish I could wipe my brain and discover them again.
It's not too much like Banks' stuff, but I must recommend Glasshouse by Charles Stross. Far-future humanity, really interesting ideas re: war, identity, memory and infohazards.
Also if you've not already read Vinge's "Zones of Thought" books, absolutely get on that.
- Echoing others, Reynolds (House of Suns, Pushing Ice, the Revelation Space series), Stross (Accelerando, Glasshouse, and Saturn's Children/Neptune's Brood are my favorites), and Rajaniemi (the Quantum Thief trilogy) scratch roughly the same itch for me.
- Glasshouse[1] by Charles Stross
Permutation City[2] by Greg Egan
We Are Legion (We Are Bob)[3] by Dennis E. Taylor
Halting State[4] by Charles Stross
Singularity Sky[5] by Charles Stross
Dungeon Crawler Carl[6] by Matt Dinniman
Zero World[7] by Jason M. Hough
The Shockwave Rider[8] by John Brunner
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasshouse_(novel)
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City
[3]: https://www.amazon.com/We-Are-Legion-Bob-Bobiverse/dp/166822...
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_State
[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Sky
[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Crawler_Carl
- Before looking at the list, two of the books that came to my mind as possible candidates were Permutation City by Greg Egan, and Glasshouse by Charles Stross. Permutation City made the list, and I definitely endorse it.
Glasshouse is not on the list, but I definitely think it's worth a read.
Neuromancer is on the list and it may be my personal favorite novel (if not #1 on my list, it's very close).
A couple of Murakami novels were on the list here. I've read several of his novels and would basically make a blanket statement "read anything by Murakami".
- Accelerando and Glasshouse fall in a "the ideas of one feed into the next" sequence that I find interesting to read in sequence... the first four of which are available on the web.
COMP.BASILISK FAQ https://www.nature.com/articles/44964
BLIT https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/blit.htm
Different Kinds of Darkness https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/different-kinds-o...
Accelerando https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/acceler...
("Luckily, infowar turns out to be more survivable than nuclear war – especially once it is discovered that a simple anti-aliasing filter stops nine out of ten neural-wetware-crashing Langford fractals from causing anything worse than a mild headache.")
Glasshouse by Charles Stross
(side trip to The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime by Vernor Vinge as additional material for an alternative singularity)
Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams (mentions averting a Vingeian singularity, though I see it more of a Strossian singularity that's at risk - and you've got suggestions of plot lines and backstory in Glasshouse that are not suggestions but rather main plot elements in Implied Spaces)
- I thought Permutation City was great. One of my favorite sci-fi reads from the last couple of decades. It's probably about time to read it again, as most of the details escape me now.
Anyway, I was going to say... I've always thought that folks who enjoyed Permutation City might also enjoy Glasshouse[1] by Charles Stross[2]. The two novels aren't necessarily overtly similar, but I feel like there's a sort of abstract conceptual kinship there.
