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The Quantum Thief

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The Quantum Thief

Written by: Hannu Rajaniemi
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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About this listen

The Quantum Thief is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Science Fiction & Fantasy title. One of Library Journal's Best SF/Fantasy Books of 2011

Jean le Flambeur is a post-human criminal, mind burglar, confidence artist, and trickster. His origins are shrouded in mystery, but his exploits 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. Now he's confined inside the Dilemma Prison, where every day he has to get up and kill himself before his other self can kill him.

Rescued by the mysterious Mieli and her flirtatious spacecraft, Jean is taken to the Oubliette, the Moving City of Mars, where time is currency, memories are treasures, and a moon-turned singularity lights the night. What Mieli offers is the chance to win back his freedom and the powers of his old self-in exchange for finishing the one heist he never quite managed.

As Jean undertakes a series of capers on behalf of Mieli and her mysterious masters, elsewhere in the Oubliette investigator Isidore Beautrelet is called in to investigate the murder of a chocolatier, and finds himself on the trail of an arch-criminal, a man named le Flambeur....

Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief is a crazy joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people communicating by sharing memories, and a race of hyper-advanced humans who originated as MMORPG guild members. But for all its wonders, it is also a story powered by very human motives of betrayal, revenge, and jealousy. It is a stunning debut.

 Adventure Crime Cyberpunk Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction Space Opera Solar System Thief Mars

What the critics say

<p>“The next big thing in hard SF. Hard to admit, but I think he's better at this stuff than I am.” —<i>Charles Stross</i><br><br>“Many an anglophone author would kill to turn out prose half as good as this…. Reminiscent of the work of Alfred Bester, who produced two of the finest American SF books of the 1950s, <i>The Demolished Man </i>and <i>The Stars My Destination</i>. ” —<i>The Financial Times</i><br><br>“A brilliant first novel. <i>The Quantum Thief</i>, like so much of the best space opera of this century, is a prodigy house, where propositions are instant heritage, and arguments are eyeclick.” —<i>John Clute</i></p>
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This book starts off interesting, a prisoner is incarcerated and forced to play the prisoner's dilemma repeatedly. He is broken out for a job.

I don't want to add spoilers, there is a thief, a detective the Cryptarcs and some other factions. The thief is taken to the Oubliette, which is a moving city on Mars. People have obtained a sort of immortality. They live their human life, then their consciousness is pressed into service running the cities machinery and they are called "the Quiet", and then at some point they are put back into bodies. This repeats as a cycle. People have personal devices that lets them share memories and see faces only to the extent that both parties agree.

The narrator is ok. Nothing ever feels urgent. It is unclear if that is by design or not. The technology isn't really explained until the end, which is ok, but once you know how it is supposed to work, it doesn't actually make any sense. Rather than world building it feels like the convoluted technology was just put in place to create obscure plot points. Silly things like nobody can see my face if I set my givalot device to private, but they could just take my picture and look at the picture, and then they would know what I look like. They have AI but yet for some reason have to press these consciousnesses into service. The technology imposes opportunities and obstacles to create the plot but then are easily circumvented later.

It was interesting enough for me to listen to the whole thing, but when it was over I felt there could have been a better use of my time. I may or may not get the next book. Now that world has been established, it might have a stronger story?

Confusing of you don't stick it out

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With a fantastic narration by Scott Brick. Having a narrator that navigates through Rajaniemi's inventive terminology as if it's 'commonly known' helps paint the world. The expression he emulates for each character makes it feel that much more real. Looking forward to book 2.

Wonderful, imaginative post-singularity sci-fi

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