Halting State

By: Charles Stross

Narrated by: Robert Ian MacKenzie

In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls Hugo winner Charles Stross’ novel Halting State a “brilliantly conceived techno-crime thriller.”

The year is 2012, and China, India, and the United States are waging an infowar for economic domination. With innocent gamers mere pawns in the hands of electronic intelligence agencies, programmer Jack Reed is tasked with ferreting out the plot of those who would gladly trade global turmoil for personal gain.

©2007 Charles Stross (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

“The act of creation seems to come easily to Charles Stross... [He] is peerless at dreaming up devices that could conceivably exist in 6, 60, or 600 years.” ( New York Times)

"This brilliantly conceived techno-crime thriller spreads a black humor frosting over the grim prospect of the year 2012, when China, India and the European System are struggling for world economic domination in an infowar, and the U.S. faces bankruptcy over its failing infrastructure....The effortless transformation of today's technological frustrations into tomorrow's nightmare realities is all too real for comfort. ( Publishers Weekly)

Still good on a second read

I initially read Halting State not long after it released and it helped make Charles Stross one of my favorite authors. This review is based on my second experience with the novel, as I had a lot of memory gaps on the events in the story.

The most jarring issues with this novel and its presentation are the use of second-person for the various protagonists and Robert Ian MacKenzie's accent. The former is consistent throughout the story and, because it's a fairly rare writing choice, frequently causes the audience to recover when it is used. The reader is placed in the shoes of the main character of each chapter, while all other action and interactions are presented in third person.
MacKenzie's accent is only jarring for the first minute or so of the book, then most American listeners will have adapted and enjoy his presentation without difficulty. He is eloquent and overflowing with voices for the various characters.

From my initial reading of Halting State over a decade ago, my memory retained the main premise, the ending, and that's about it. The characters were lost, but I'm glad I found them again. Their interactions felt natural. Some character decisions give me a stronger "what a stupid choice!" than they did when I was younger. That's experience, I guess.

Halting state was much more enjoyable for my younger self on my initial reading than listening to the audio version today. I'll rate it "You're a perfect snapshot of the expectations of near-future technology, society, and the economy in the early 2010's, but you're also a little bothersome."

I need moré Stross

I cant get enough of this universe. Can't wait to see what else this elder God dreams of. Awesome book

This is difficult subject matter for fiction

If you aren't already quasi-tech savvy, you may want to skip this. I applaud the author for his vanguard approach to the influence of the virtial online world to our "meatspace" existence. I call this honest hard sci-fi.

My favorite book

Any additional comments?

Near future sci-fi, with new variants on crime, computing and living, that are not just plausible but seem prophetic. The characters are real and would be great friends. the follow up book is not as good but Charlie Stross writes great initial books.

POV its only flaw

This would have been absolutely amazing if Stross had only used 1st or 3rd person. Addressing the reader personally makes it harder for me to stay in the story.

sorry to see it end

tough going at first (starts with 3 separate narratives), but came together nicely. Loved the Scottish flavor.

Dense read

This book is really too dense to listen to. The performance complete w Scottish accents is excellent but does not make easier for a non native. Great story; Stross combines his knowledge of economics and IT to great effect, once again making us think differently about both.

second person narrative

The plot of the story is interesting, but narrating in second person and switching characters can be confusing. The narration doesn't help with this problem, either.
Also, it is thick with British slang, which is not bad, but is something of which you should be aware of you're not familiar.

An excellent listen with a dynamite plot

CS has unleashed a real winner with Halting State. Set in the near future, the author combines the worlds of online gaming and cyber-espionage with a unique multi-1st person narrative style. Both worlds are evolved in ways that are not only quite convincing, but also reveal a keen sense of where things are going. For example, the fact that online games develop a level of complexity that requires independent companies to manage ingame economic stability in order to maintain a level of "fun" by the participants rings true as outlined. What begins as an apparent farce, the robbery of an online game bank (in the gamespace) is slowly revealed to portend dramatic ramifications.

The characters are believable and engaging each in their own way. The twists and turns, along with the many surprises, both inside and outside the gaming world make for a riveting tale. Most near future sci-fi tends to minimally extrapolate current trends with sci-fi elements relegated to batman "utility belt" gimmicks; Halting State manages to leap ahead without leaving the reader behind and produces a world one can imagine existing in the next several years that is substantially different from our own, but still quite recognizable.

The narrator also deserves special kudos for pulling off a reading of a story set in Scotland where the accents are authentic, but easily understood and not overwhelming.

Fun, technical, with just enough thrills

Any additional comments?

This turned out to be clever, satirical, well-plotted SF/techno-thriller. I'm glad I kept reading despite my difficulty in getting into the book at first. Stross has used three POV characters and each line is told in the second person, a POV I haven't seen much since my "choose your own adventure" days. Moreover, with it told from the second person as if you were three different characters, it is all the more disorienting as you leap from Elaine (a forensic accountant with a medieval battle reenactment hobby), to Sue (a tough-minded Scottish police sergeant), to Jack (an insecure, unemployed game programmer). It helps that you get to like all three characters and that Stross has a good eye for the humor in our technological present and future, and a definite fondness for gamers and everyone's desire to escape their reality. The story is a little convoluted, but it still mostly makes sense and is complex in a believable way. Perhaps the highest praise I can give was I really wanted to know what happened to some of the characters after the story ended. If you like William Gibson-esque tech, but want a little Vonnegut humor and flair, you could do worse than Halting State.