[KIR]∎ Descargar Gratis Glasshouse Charles Stross 9780441014033 Books

Glasshouse Charles Stross 9780441014033 Books

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Glasshouse Charles Stross 9780441014033 Books

Charles Stross is one of the current writers of what I like to term "intelligent science fiction". Following in the footsteps of icons such as Philip Dick and Frank Herbert, Stross demands the attention and concentration of his readers. If you let your mind wander for just a moment, you lose comprehension of the story. However, unlike "Saturn's Children", I found this novel somewhat more approachable and reader friendly.

The setting is the far future. Individual consciousness has become largely transferrable and malleable, to the extent that beings can inhabit any number of bodily vessels and memories can be adjusted or even totally wiped in order to forge new beginnings. Our narrator in this tale has just undergone such a "memory wipe" and finds himself the target of assassins, for reasons unknown to him. Under these circumstances, he enrolls in a psychiatric experiment which he believes provides him safety from his pursuers. The experiment involves immersion into a controlled environment meant to simulate life in the first Dark Ages (1950-2040). You can imagine how some of our current (and recently past) customs and mores, especially in the realm of sexual politics, might appear to more highly advanced cultures.

In any event, there are surprises in store for our narrator as he enters and becomes familiar with Glasshouse (the experimental polity). As I mentioned before, reading Stross is not akin to reading Asimov or Scalzi. There are layers upon layers of meaning in much of his writing, along with social commentary not usually associated with other science fiction writing, or handled in a far more subtle manner. Nevertheless, this novel is certainly approachable (though it takes a turn toward the confusing at about page 225), and can be enjoyed by virtually any fan of good, hard science fiction.


Tags : Glasshouse [Charles Stross] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <div> 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 twenty-seventh century,Charles Stross,Glasshouse,Ace Hardcover,0441014038,Science Fiction - Hard Science Fiction,Science fiction.,Fiction,Fiction - Science Fiction,Fiction Science Fiction Hard Science Fiction,Fiction-Science Fiction,GENERAL,General Adult,SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY,Science Fiction,Science Fiction - General,United States

Glasshouse Charles Stross 9780441014033 Books Reviews

Edit 9/20/2011 I really should have read Accelerando before reading this book, as Accelerando is the prequal to this book. It is vastly, vastly better than Glasshouse and it is free for download. The same characters from this book are so much more alive and vibrant and endearing in Accelerando than they are in Glasshouse. I don't know what could have possibly gone wrong to make Glasshouse so much worse than Accelerando. If you like this book at all, I highly recommend reading Accelerando.

Glass House makes me think of something that would be written in haste for a 8th grade project. The concept is engaging but the characters are flat and not at all endearing. It's the sort of thing where you think, I wish I could give the outline for this story to a very good author and see what they could do with it.

Many of the author's scene setting points are contradictory and the lack of detail in many areas makes the story less believable and non-immersive.

When they are put into a dystopic setting, the believability of the characters' ability to adapt to 20th and 21st century life is unconvincing. We're to believe that beings who are essentially human, who live thousands of years in the future and have fundamentally different concepts of life, the universe and everything have somehow miraculously adapted to living entirely on their own in 1950's America after only three days.

While you might expect a novel to contain rich detail and character building, this book reads more like a story quickly told to you on the bus between stops.
The time is hundreds of years into the post-human future. Our present era is one of the "dark ages," cloaked in mystery because data preservations techniques were changing so much between 1950 and 2050 that nothing of value was stored in a durable media. Society is dependant on "A-Gates" that can assemble anything through nanotechnology and "T-Gates" that can take anything anywhere through wormholes. No one dies permanently anymore because personality and memories can be stored and recreated.

Robin is recovering from a self-prescribed memory wipe surgery. He takes up with the four-armed Kay. He is being threatened by something in his forgotten past. They decide to enter an experiment that will cut them off from the universe for one-hundred "megasecs," which is about three years.

Once in the experiment, Robin finds himself in a puny female body and he can't identify Kay. He also discovers that the experiment has reproduced a society that incorporates the gender rules of the 1950s and the experimenters have rigged a punishment and reward scoring system to enforce the rules.

I found the first half of the book tiring and irritating. Basically, it seemed to be an opportunity for satirizing gender roles based on a strawman caricature. Worse, the previously male Robin seemed to be stereotypically female, acting in ways that wouldn't seem to be typical of a male or even a person where gender roles had been eliminated by gender-swapping technology. Likewise, the other former denizens of post-human society seemed to become something like high school girls. It seemed weird and not very persuasive.

On the other hand, at some point, the book shifted into high gear as a high-tech spy thriller. We learned a lot about how the paradise of post-human high technology is actually very capable of dehumanized horror. These aspects of the story were what sold the book to me, raising my score from three stars to four stars.

Ultimately, after a choppy start, I enjoyed this book's energy and vision.
Charles Stross is one of the current writers of what I like to term "intelligent science fiction". Following in the footsteps of icons such as Philip Dick and Frank Herbert, Stross demands the attention and concentration of his readers. If you let your mind wander for just a moment, you lose comprehension of the story. However, unlike "Saturn's Children", I found this novel somewhat more approachable and reader friendly.

The setting is the far future. Individual consciousness has become largely transferrable and malleable, to the extent that beings can inhabit any number of bodily vessels and memories can be adjusted or even totally wiped in order to forge new beginnings. Our narrator in this tale has just undergone such a "memory wipe" and finds himself the target of assassins, for reasons unknown to him. Under these circumstances, he enrolls in a psychiatric experiment which he believes provides him safety from his pursuers. The experiment involves immersion into a controlled environment meant to simulate life in the first Dark Ages (1950-2040). You can imagine how some of our current (and recently past) customs and mores, especially in the realm of sexual politics, might appear to more highly advanced cultures.

In any event, there are surprises in store for our narrator as he enters and becomes familiar with Glasshouse (the experimental polity). As I mentioned before, reading Stross is not akin to reading Asimov or Scalzi. There are layers upon layers of meaning in much of his writing, along with social commentary not usually associated with other science fiction writing, or handled in a far more subtle manner. Nevertheless, this novel is certainly approachable (though it takes a turn toward the confusing at about page 225), and can be enjoyed by virtually any fan of good, hard science fiction.