It is about the ideas, about a new and fascinating vision of a far future. The science detailed and often hard to grasp. Again, this isn’t a light and fluffy SF novel. That’s not what THE QUANTUM THIEF is about in my opinion. The science in the book is insane and it took me a good 10-15 pages to start understanding some of the words (gogol, gevulot, etc…).īut personally, I don’t care. This isn’t Space Opera–it may be very difficult for the new SF reader to really get into this work. Perhaps the main issue that will stop a large number of people from liking the novel is just how incredibly dense the novel is.

The other two main characters, Isidore and Mieli, are mostly there to help get through Jean’s story–don’t expect much else from them by way of personal information or growth. His personality changes throughout the book as bits and pieces get uncovered–some will like this, some will have a hard time becoming attached to the character. Most of the story is following Jean around, and he’s trying to crack into his old memories and find who he was. To start with, the characters are fairly two dimensional. So let’s get right down to it, OK? This book has some flaws. If you like SF novels that are heavy on the science and action, with insanely cool ideas, then THE QUANTUM THIEF is the book for you.

See? There was no way I was going to get close to that kind of description. Now he has the chance to regain himself in all his power-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed. In his last exploit, he managed the supreme feat of hiding the truth about himself from the one person in the solar system hardest to hide from: himself. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his deeds are known throughout the Heterarchy, from breaking into the vast Zeusbrains of the Inner System to stealing rare Earth antiques from the aristocrats of Mars. Indeed, in his many lives, the entity called Jean le Flambeur has been a thief, a confidence artist, a posthuman mind-burglar, and more. Meanwhile, investigator Isadore Beautrelet, called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, finds himself on the trail of an archcriminal, a man named le Flambeur.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is a currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turned-singularity lights the night. Jean le Flambeur gets up in the morning and has to kill himself before his other self can kill him first. So I’m going to let the back of the book describe it for you. I just know I’ll miss something, or not do it justice.

To try and describe the book would leave me feeling inadequate and stupid. I don’t think I understood the whole thing. THE QUANTUM THIEF ( Amazon), by Hannu Rajaniemi, is a Hard SF book packed with ideas, twists and turns.

The quantum thief review