Glasshouse by Charles Stross

First sentence:

"A dark-skinned human with four arms walks toward me across the floor of the club, clad only in a belt strung with human skulls."

Description:

"When Robin wakes up in a clinic with most of his memories missing, it doesn't take him long to discover that someone's trying to kill him. It's the twenty-seventh century, when interstellar travel is by teleport gate and conflicts are fought by network worms that censor refugees' personalities-including Robin's earlier self.

On the run from unknown enemies, he volunteers to participate in a unique experimental polity, the Glasshouse, constructed to simulate a preaccelerated 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 at the mercy of his own unbalanced psyche."

My thoughts:

While this book was sometimes difficult to read, it was a fascinating look at identity and society - what makes you "you" - if one's in a different body, is one a different person? Robin/Reeve and friends discover the truth about the "Glasshouse" in very interesting ways.

Date read: 11/6/2007
Book #: 96
Rating: 3* = good
Genre: SF

ISBN-10: 0441014038
ISBN-13: 9780441014033
Publisher: Ace Hardcover
Year: 2006
# of Pages: 335
Binding: Hardcover
LibraryThing Page